Happy 21st Steph!

My brother is a bit of a fitness freak so thought that something to do with weight lifting was the go for his cake.  I went with a square white chocolate and raspberry swirl cake covered with white chocolate ganache and white fondant.  I decorated the cake with blue and black stars and 30′s.  The cake topper was hand modelled (I’m still learning to model people so he is a little dodgy hehe) replica of my brother (including receding hairline lol) checking out his muscles and a couple of hand weights.

Happy 30th Daimo!

I covered the red velvet and cream cheese ones with white chocolate and the coffee ones with dark chocolate.  What combinations, both delish!

I wanted to try something a little different with these ones and piped pink chocolate on them.  I quite liked the result.  Even had enough to give a bunch to my sister and two very deserving friends! Sharing the love on Mother’s Day!

Coming up to Easter and having just done Tahnee’s cake, I had the tops of the cakes left over and some ganache so thought…..why not try some cake pops?  Man, I’m glad I did!  I originally thought they would be sickly sweet and honestly I wouldn’t want to eat more than one but they are definately worth it!

Using the tops of the cakes I already had, I made boysenberry & peppermint cake pops.  The process was easy.  Crumble up the cake, mix with some ganache (a little at a time so you don’t add too much).  Once the mixture holds together nicely, roll into desired shapes, place on a board and refrigerate.  I left mine in the fridge for a few hours so they were nice and firm.  I then melted white chocolate for the boysenberry ones and dark chocolate for the peppermint ones.  I placed a lolly pop stick into the ball of cake pop (using a little melted chocolate on the end to hold the stick in place), covered the ball in melted chocolate and covered with desired decorations.  I used every sprinkle I had in my house (which is a little exciting because I can now go and buy some more for next time around )

As I already mentioned, the end result, delicious!  There are plenty ( and I mean plenty!) of tutorials on the web for step by step instructions. These things are only limited to your imagination, so many designs and shapes that can be created.  They look great and taste even better! Give them a go!  Happy cake popping

A family members birthday is always an opportunity for me to try something new.  I’ve love tall cakes so decided that this one would be tall.  As it was for a family gathering, I used a 15cm tin as any bigger would have been excessive amounts of cake.

To get the height, I tiered two cakes together.  One was chocolate peppermint mud and the other, keeping in tradition of trying new things with family, was boysenberry mud.  I wasn’t overly impressed with this one.  I didn’t have a recipe, so based it on a white chocolate mud and adding boysenberry flavouring.  It tasted nice but I didn’t think you got that “wow” factor with it.  It definately needed more flavour or a different recipe all together.  I wanted it to have a wow factor!

Each cake was covered with ganache. Boysenberry with white chocolate ganache and peppermint with dark chocolate ganache.  I then tiered them together, making my tall cake

OK so decoration using the new “mat”.  Tahnee likes black and dark colours however I wasn’t keen on doing a completely black cake.  I’ve always wanted to do a leopard print cake so decided to go with a purple & black leopard print.

I actually had a bit of a shocker with covering this cake. A couple of the items being that I firstly put the fondant on upside down….yes, I put the print side down! What was I thinking???? THEN, I dropped and tore the fondant! Oh my, I did have a shocker! Thank goodness it happened on a family members cake!  I do think the end result was not bad considering the problems I encountered! Tahnee loved her cake and it tasted great so that’s the main thing

We decided on a 20cm bottom tier and 15cm top tier, both milk chocolate mud (perfect for the little ones), both of these were covered in milk chocolate ganache and covered in fondant.  The bottom tier was covered in pink fondant and given the quilted effect with silver cashous for decoration.  The top tier was covered in purple fondant with “Jayda” in pink fondant aswell as pink fondant butterflies as decoration.  This top tier was topped with a little silver tiara.  The cake board was covered in pink fondant also.  The finish the cake off, I piped pink royal icing around the base of each cake.

I hope Jayda enjoys her 1st birthday!

As I was told my clients mother likes flowers, I decided to go with a flower I’d never made before to improve my abilities of flower making.  The orchid was my choice.  Thank goodness once again for YouTube!  You can find some really great tutorials on there!  I enjoyed every minute of my orchid making and ended up with three flowers which I was very impressed with, even if I do say so myself

I decided to go with something a little different with this cake and make it into a ladies hat.  So I covered it in a brown fondant,  wrapped a piece of black ribbon around the base of the cake and topped it with the three orchids and a few brown fondant covered wires made to look like twigs.

We decided on a 20cm milk chocolate mudcake which I covered with milk chocolate ganache.  I covered the cake and cake board (which I made with my new table saw ) with white fondant.  I hand modelled my very first baby and covered her with a blanket.  I used a great tutorial on You Tube to show me how to do this.  I put a silver cross on the side of the cake for the religious feel and followed through with the pink & silver theme with some pink & silver fondant balls around the bottom of the cake.  I finished the cake off with the name and date piped on top. Hope you had a lovely Christening Day Annabel

“A red velvet cake is a popular cake with a dark red, bright red or red-brown colour. It is usually prepared as a layer cake topped with a creamy vanilla icing or most popularly, cream cheese icing. The reddish-brown color of the cake was originally from a reaction of the cocoa powder with an acidic ingredient such as buttermilk; however, red food coloring is often added.” Reference from Wikipedia.

OK, so I ask a few people I know had they tried it.  The response being that everyone had heard of it but never tasted it.  Right, I at this point decided that we would wonder no more and test this baby out.  Cream cheese frosting, well an absolute favourite with my sweet tooth!

Let’s get to it, red cases just had to be used for red velvet cake right! This was my feeling anyway, a perfect match.  I prepared the cake mixture and placed 12 cupcakes in the oven.  I was a little intreged with what red velvet would taste like, using both vanilla extract and a little cocoa. Whilst I waited anxiously for these little beauties to cook, I watched with amazement at the stunning red colour of these cakes.  They looked fabulous!

Whilst the cakes cooled, I prepared, what in my eyes, is the yummiest frosting out, Cream Cheese!!! I piped the frosting on and decorated with some little red hearts. (I’m starting to sound American now, saying frosting all the time ) After cleaning up and taking a few shots of these little babies, I just had to taste test…….YUMMO!! What a gorgeous cake, so light and fluffy then topped with that yummy icing.  It was just devine!  I took a couple around to a few of my taste testers and took one into work for my assistant to try.  Unfortunately one of my usual taste testers missed out as they were just too good.  I’ll have to make you some more Donna!!

My personal review of Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting = Delicious, will definately be adding this to my list of available flavours!