Citizenship Cake

We had a couple of friends gaining citizenship to our beautiful country this week. One is Hungarian-American, the other is South African.

We had a great time celebrating, with a great bunch of people, last night at a bbq for my friend's husband (the Sth African, now Kiwi). My friend is a food goddess, so when she asked if I'd help out with decorating the cake, I was honored, and a little scared!! Thankfully she baked the yummy chocolate cake and ganached it for me, so I just had to make the decorations in advance and do the flag the night before.

I thought I'd post it here, as there are very few cakes available online that encaptured the themes we wanted to embrace. We wanted Kiwiana, but with our flag, and of course a passport, representing the citizenship. We had a google and found a very cool kiwiana wedding cake, made by Cake Flour Studio in Nelson. They'd made some neat kiwiana elements, so I used those as inspiration for this cake and added a couple of my own designs in too.

I made the kiwiana elements over a few nights. I cut the shapes out a week in advance so they were dry enough to paint with food dye over the week leading up to the party. To get shapes, I just googled images of what I wanted, made them the right size on the computer, then traced them on to greaseproof paper, to use as templates for the fondant. I used a knife to cut around them. Once dry (you can't do this until they're solid, or they shrink after painting), I used food gels/ pastes mixed a with a few drops of vodka (you can use any clear alcohol), to paint. To make a wash, you add more vodka until the colour's really diluted. A steady hand is required for fine painting, but a food colour pen would've been better (one day I might invest in one). I used pearl dust for over the paua, once paint was dry.

I used 2 tones of dyes for the paua, green and blue in a 'wash'. I did while both colours were wet, so they blended.

I used this fern cutter HERE, it was fiddly, but not frustratingly so, I made them the morning of the bbq, so they didn't break when attaching to the sides of the cake.

The passport was easy to make, the painting is the tricky bit! I was so pleased with how it turned out though, as I was really nervous doing it! I was really hoping to buy a food colouring pen, but no silver or white was available anywhere, so I used my silver pearl dust, mixed with a few drops of vodka (to make a paint), and a teeny paint brush. I'm pleased I'm not a brain surgeon as my hand was SO shaky!! I did the ferns freehand. But the wording and coat of arms, had to be done with pin pricking first. I printed a passport picture out, the right size, then cut out the words and used a small, clean pin to lightly prick over the letters, to use as a guide for painting over. Same goes for the coat of arms, although I painted the people freehand.

For the flag, I googled round NZ flags and found some pics for an idea. Then I printed out a normal flag and used it as a template for cutting the white parts out first (it's one whole piece). Then I cut out the red parts and used as a template for the red fondant. I only had one star cutter, so gently rolled the white a little more after cutting, then once the red ones were placed on top, I cut the white to a neater appearance. The blue fondant was the trickiest bit, trying to get it the right size! I had some overhang on one side, to used kitchen scissors to trim. Thankfully we had a big bowl, almost the right size of the cake. I didn't have the empty cake tin as a guide, as I didn't bake the cake. The template I'd taken in advance, of the tin, didn't seem to fit! It worked out in the end.

And here is the very happy "Kiwi" recipient, who got the BEST surprise!

If I ever open a cake shop, my friend Kristin will just HAVE to be the baker! Good team work, I thought! :D

A Monster of a Cake

My daughter recently turned 7 and we happened to be away with family at the time. We had a lovely time at the local pools and my daughter asked for a monster cake. I got the idea from HERE. I arrived at my in laws home with only one nozzle attachment for my icing tube which was WAY too small, but thankfully my mother in law had kept some old icing stuff and we found one at least big enough to squeeze the icing through. Had I brought the right sized nozzle, the fur could've been much thicker.

Everyone loved it anyway, especially the birthday girl, so that's what counts. :-) I used my usual Ultimate Chocolate Cake recipe by Annabel Langbein (available online) and her choc ganache recipe for filling. Just used a water/sugar/butter icing for the fur and fondant for the rest. It was easy but time consuming to do the fur. I baked 2 normal cakes then one in a bowl for the top of the head. I wish I'd thought ahead about the bowl cake as I didn't fill the bowl enough with mixture and it didn't quite match the normal cakes in size once risen and baked. But it looked fine anyway. I used Tappits for the lettering.

Ngaia's Pigs in Mud Cake

Pigs in Mud Cake 2013

This was such a fun and cute cake to make for a friend in Dec. Fondant pigs, ganache "mud" and a rich and dark chocolate cake with kit kats.

Christmas 2013

This year we decided that most people didn't even like traditional Christmas cake so I did a rich dark chocolate cake with ganache. The sweets on top are chocolate coated almonds with a crispy shell. Yummy! These Christmas coloured sweets are available from Crazy Candies on Trade Me or their website. I managed to get the Kit-Kat's on special (thankfully)!. But then I realised they were made by Nestle (who we boycott), oops. I bought nearly a whole box as I had to do a birthday cake on Boxing Day that was similar.It was really enjoyed!

My 6 year old daughter loves sugar craft and was so delighted when I told her she had free rein over the traditional Christmas cake. She did this all herself with only needing technical advice on how to make things stick on and I also rolled out the fondant for her. She did a great job!

 I made a bunch of cards this year and was so caught up in the rush of visitors arriving that I forgot to photograph all of them. Here are two I did for hubby and daughter.

I did a paper-cut for inside my daughter's card.

I made her a birthday dress for Christmas. She has a lot of parties this time of the year, including her own. This is from the Simplicity 2377 pattern. I got the fabric from Spotlight but it was a long time ago.

Amanda's 40th Birthday Cake

Dec 2013

I made this cake yesterday for a friend who I go walking with weekly. She was very grateful, so despite the dramas I had with it, it was all worthwhile when I saw the look on her face. She likes citrus cakes, so I did the lower tier a lemon cake. HERE is the recipe for the zesty lemon yoghurt cake. I used a lemon cream cheese icing, but to be honest, as yummo as it was, it was not suitable as a crumb coating or filling as it didn't set enough and made the fondant bulge a bit around the filling layer.

The top tier was an Orange Cake which was perfectly fine but not as good as the lemon one. I did the nice orange butter icing, again, it didn't set enough as a filling for fondant.

My oven is not up to making good cakes, so I'm pleased I don't sell many of my creations. It seems to burn the outsides and leaves the inside uncooked. I must get a thermometer to test this. I made 6 cakes for this and used 4!

I wanted to share the tutorial I used for the flowers. It was super easy to do and THIS blogger gives good, clear instructions with pictures. Additionally, I used a sugar water painted over the white edible pearls, to hold them in extra well.  I used THIS blog to learn how to do the quilting on the cake. It was relatively easy with a quilting tool (you can even just use a kids playdough tool) but you do need to measure you're cake, once iced, to work out how far you will place your toothpicks around the top of the cake to mark out where to quilt down from. You have to adjust your triangle card marker too, to fit the size of your cake. For the top tier, I spaced the gaps at 1 inch, but for the lower cakes, they needed to be slightly bigger. No one noticed I didn't quite get the ratio right as I started it at the back which hid it a lot.

When placing the blue cashous, you need to make sure they looked lined up right. Otherwise it shoots your quilting out a bit. Most important for the top row of them, so they're all even. I used royal icing which sets hard in 10 minutes to keep the cashous on and the flowers too.For the top flower, I insert a toothpick in to the back, a little, to stick it in to the cake (as well as royal icing).

Dinosaur and Trees Cake

I made this for my niece at the end of Sept. It was such a hit and was completely devoured! I used the Edmonds Moist Chocolate Cake recipe with ganache filling. it's such a good cake for decorating without compromising flavour and texture. It has entire tub of sour cream - yummo! I got the idea for this cake on Pinterest and I think the original was by Sweet Love.

Sept 2013

Green Pea Earrings

It's been ages since I made some jewellery. I needed something green to match a coat and I came up with these. They remind me of peas in a pod.

Made with miracle beads - Sept 2013