Pink Heart Gift Box Cake

This cake was what they call a gift box cake & was commissioned my a loving mother for her daughters 21st birthday.

Gift box cakes sometime have an extra piece of fondant added on the top to simulate a lid however this time the client had sent me a picture of exactly what she wanted & that one did not feature a "lid" so I stuck to that.

The cake's theme was hearts with the classic colour combination of white & a really lovely hot pink colour (unfortunately the light in photos is not great, sorry about that).  The large bow & all other decorations I made using fondant sugarpaste, the number 21's & letters of the birthday girls name I finished with an edible silver paint & I added a silver sugar pearl to either side of each letter of her name.

This cake was my 'Citrus Zing' butter sponge cake & lemon was chosen for the citrus type.  It was accompanied by a vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream for the filling between all 3 layers, then coated in a rich white chocolate ganache before being covered in the final layer of marshmallow fondant.  The size was 8" square (approx 32 dessert size serves).

I am pleased to say that they were very happy with their cake, I received some lovely feedback & am looking forward to creating something else for a future special occasion for them.

Number 60 Birthday Cake

This order was for a special double birthday celebration, there was a large cake required for the father who was turning sixty & also a dozen cupcakes for the mother who was also celebrating her birthday at the same time.

I thought that it was really touching that they made a special effort to in effect have two separate orders so that neither the mother or father would have to have a shared cake.

So first the cake.  As you can see the customer wanted to have the cake actually in the shape of a 60 (I like doing number cakes, not sure why).  When I was enquiring as to what colours design etc they wanted the only thing they said was that it would be good if they could have some red & green incorporated because their father was a mad South Sydney Rabbitohs fan (it is funny really, I am always more than happy to use any design, theme or colours that people would like but they often seem reluctant to give to much direction, why is that I wonder).

Anyway I am not much of a NRL footy fan myself so I did a little research into the teams colours, shirts & logo & I decided it would be kind of fun to go with a design similar to their shirts if he was so much of a fan.  So I ended up using a bright green base & thick bright red stripes, I also needed another colour to break it up somewhat so I used white to cover the cake board as the rabbit on the logo & the collar on the shirt is white.

This cake was my 'Killer Chocolate' a moist milk chocolate sponge cake, it was teamed up with vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream for the filling (there were 3 layers) & covered with dark chocolate ganache for the crumb coat.  Finally was the home made marshmallow fondant covering.

Next we have the cupcakes.  Again the client choose the flavours for the cake & buttercream but left the design & colours to me.  I wanted to achieve two things, firstly I wanted the cupcakes to be different to the cake & much more feminine to ensure they were more personal for the mother however I also wanted to tie them into the cake in some way.

I thought that hand made sugar roses would be just perfect, so nice & feminine so that is what I went with.  I made them in red to tie in with the main cake (much darker than the bright red on the cake though), I also used a few slightly different shades of red to make the roses appear more realistic.  To incorporate the green on the cake I decorated the cupcakes with tiny green sugar pearls & used green cupcake liners.

I also made some "happy birthday" message toppers, which I think I would add some small green leaves to next time.

The cake for the cupcakes was my 'Blondie' (vanilla butter sponge cake) & the frosting was a caramel Swiss meringue buttercream.

Here are some close ups of the roses I made....

Christmas Cookie Gift Bags

Seasons greetings everyone!

This selection of fun Christmas cookies were placed as an order to be cookie gift bags for the customer's two sons to hand out at school & day care at the end of term, what a lovely thoughtful idea.

I decided to stick to the classic Christmas colours of red, green & white & so the designs I created were poinsettias, holly, Christmas trees, Santa bellies, Christmas pudding, candy canes, presents, snowmen, snowflakes, crackers, stockings & wreaths.

They were vanilla sugar cookies with peppermint royal icing which I thought would suit a Christmas theme nicely (like peppermint candy canes).

I also incorporated some small marshmallow fondant touches on a few of the cookies such as the star on the top of the trees, snowman's buttons, hat & scarf, the holly on the Christmas puddings & the bows on the presents & wreaths.

The 3D effect of the white "fluff" on Santa's bellies & the top of the stockings I achieved by roughing up the semi dry royal icing & then finishing off with some sanding sugar on top.

The cookies were of course all placed into individual clear cellophane bags, tied with red & green ribbon & had a gift tag attached saying "Merry Christmas from ........." but unfortunately I didn't get a photo of them once bagged.

Here are a few close ups.....

Merry Christmas to all!

Ben 10 Again

Here we have another great Ben 10 cake, the customer saw my previous Ben 10 birthday cake & her & her son fell in love with it so she asked if she could have the exact same one.

It was pretty short notice so unfortunately I had to advise her the I would have to limit the number of figurines on the cake to one plus the omnitricks watch this time as they take quite a while to make but she said that that was fine as they just loved the whole cake design & they decided to go with Ben 10 himself as the character figurine.

They wanted everything exactly the same as the previous cake so it was again a 10" square (approx 50 dessert size serves) 'Midnight Delight' cake which is lovely rich, dark chocolate mud cake which was paired with a chocolate ganache filling & frosting, all covered in yummy homemade marshmallow fondant.

As before the child's name & age was incorporated based on Ben 10 logo with a gradient colour effect which was achieved using different colour petal dusts & then finished off with some lustre dust to create a nice shimmer on it.

Here is my handmade figurine of the man himself Ben 10 complete with miniature omnitricks.

& finally the large omnitricks.

They were very pleased with the cake indeed & I received some wonderful feedback.

Year 12 Graduation Cupcake Toppers

Recently it was that very special time of the year for all year 12 students here in Australia, graduation which means lots of school formals & parties.

A customer was having a party for her daughter & her daughters boy friend for their year 12 graduation & wanted something special to mark the event.

They were making their own cupcakes but wanted them to really stand out so requested me to design some graduation cupcake toppers for them so this is what I created.

They wanted 1 dozen so I made 5 graduation caps, 5 scrolls & 2 message toppers.

All were made using home made marshmallow fondant sugarpaste & the lovely teal colour was chosen to match the colour of the young ladies formal dress.

I embossed all the caps with '2009' to signify that they were the class of 2009.  The message toppers I embossed with congrats & their names & finished them with little streamers & 'confetti' (which were sugar pearls).

As a little free extra I also made the customer up some matching teal sugar crystal sprinkles for her cupcakes just to really complete the look for them.

Black & Gold Wedding Cupcake Samples

Here we have some gorgeous cupcakes that I made as samples for a bride to be that came to see me about her wedding in February.

Her theme will be black & gold & she requested to have a fondant finish with some hearts to be incorporated with maybe some bows. I also included one with a calla lily as the wedding will also be featuring these.

I created a variety of designs just to show some of the possibilities, including different finishes for the fondant such as embossing, pearl lustre & plain & explained that she could of course mix & match any of the finishes & design elements that she liked.

The cake flavours  she requested were 'Midnight Delight' (dark chocolate mud) & 'Snow White' (white chocolate mud) with corresponding chocolate ganaches & I used marshmallow fondant for the finish & decorations as well as some gold cachous.  It was undecided whether to go with black, gold or plain cupcake cases.

The bride to be was over the moon with the samples & commented that they both tasted & looked wonderful & was just what she had in mind.  Therefore she has booked for the wedding & will be having 100 cupcakes on a cupcake tower along with a cutting cake for the top which I look forward to making for her special day.

Basketball Birthday Cupcakes

These cupcakes were good fun to make, it was a special order that a proud mum placed for son's 18th birthday.

When I received her call I was asked if I would be able to create cupcake toppers with a basketball theme which I said would be no problem at all.  She also explained that her son plays wheelchair basketball & wondered if I had ever done any wheelchair toppers before, to which I had to reply that no I hadn't as yet but I was sure I would be able to design something.

So after a little thought this is what I came up with.

There were 3 1/2 dozen cupcakes orderd in a mixture of 3 cake flavours, 'Diablo Red Devil' (classic red velvet cake), 'Midnight Delight' (moist dark chocolate mud cake) & 'Blondie' (light vanilla butter cake).  Half were frosted with chocolate Swiss meringue buttercream & the other half with vanilla.

I also added orange sprinkles to them all which I thought would be a nice little play on the theme, like tiny little basketballs.

As you can see I designed six different toppers for the cupcakes.  Basketball jerseys in the green & gold colours of Australia (which were the colours requested), basketballs, backboards & hoops, basketball courts with mini basketballs on, wheelchairs & finally 18's.  All of which I made using marshmallow fondant/sugarpaste.

Happy Birthday Cupcake Gift Box

Let me just start off by saying no, you are not going crazy or seeing double.  You are completely correct in thinking this order looks very, very similar to the 60th Birthday Flower Cupcakes featured my last post.

This time the customer had the extremely kind though of  a lovely cupcake gift box to be delivered to the local private hospital for a special birthday surprize.

Again with this order I was not given too much direction except for the fact there should be lots of lovely pink frosting & as I thought the previous order looked so pretty I decided to do one very similar again as I thought it would look gorgeous as a gift box.

The flavours were different for this order with a mixture of my 'Snow White' (a rich white chocolate mud cake) & 'Midnight Delight' (a moist dark chocolate mud cake).  The frosting was however the same, a white chocolate Swiss meringue buttercream.

As before I added a good sprinkle of pink, yellow & white sugar pearls to all the cupcakes & I made white fondant/sugarpaste blossoms which I highlighted with lustre dust & finished with yellow centres using petal dust & sugar pearls.

The major difference this time around was in the "Happy Birthday" message toppers I created.  I used a large flower cutter to make the base as before but this time I incorporated the design of the smaller flowers by highlighting again with lustre dust & finishing the middles with petal dust.  I also used a different font for the letters as I believe they have more impact than the script ones & finally I used the same flowers as the ones on the cupcakes this time instead of small yellow ones.

I think they turned out well & I was much happier with these message toppers this time.

Another small difference that you may or may not notice is that I used a bit bigger piping tip this time just to produce slightly fuller buttercream swirls.

60th Birthday Flower Cupcakes

Well this order turned out to be very exciting indeed!

To cut a long story short.  I believed that the order had been canceled due to illness until the customer rang that lunchtime to confirm a pick up time.  At which point she explained to me that they were still needed as it was her mother that had been taken ill & gone into hospital but the cupcakes were actually for her mother-in-law's birthday not her mothers.

Naturally I did not want to disappoint, so needless to say I was flat out & up to my elbows in flour, sugar & butter for the rest of the day & I think used every bowl available.

Luckily I had already made the sugar flowers as they need time to dry otherwise I would of been in real trouble, anyway I made it with about 2 mins to spare before the pick & I think they turned out really pretty!

There were 3 dozen cupcakes for a females 60th birthday & they requested 'Blondie' (a simple vanilla butter cake) & white chocolate Swiss meringue buttercream combination however the rest of the appearance was left to me to decide so I went for a nice feminine trio of colours for the buttercream in baby pink, lemon yellow & pale green.

Next I added a good sprinkle of pink, yellow & white sugar pearls to all the cupcakes.

I used white blossoms, all of which I highlighted with a white lustre dust then I finished half of them with yellow centres & the other half with pink centres using petal dusts & sugar pearls.  I also gave each flower a single green leaf.

I used the flowers with yellow centres on the pink buttercream, the ones with pink centres on the yellow buttercream & a mixture of both on the green buttercream along with the 3 "Happy Birthday 60" toppers I also made.

They also hired a 5 tier cupcake stand for this order to make a real features of the cupcakes.

Wedding Cake Cookie Favors

These lovely sweet sugar cookies in the style of wedding cakes are really perfect to use as bombonieres or favours for your guests at a wedding & can be easily decorated to match the actual wedding cake.

They look very special when individually wrapped in clear bags with a lovely matching ribbon & a personal message tag from the bride & groom.

The cookie cakes can of course also be adapted to to use at other events such as engagements & birthdays simply by changing the decorating design to match the special occasions cake.

The Full Minty! Mint Choc Chip Cupcakes

These decadent cupcakes are some more from my 'Deluxe Gourmet' range, a much more grown up style of cupcake & just the ticket for a more males birthday.

Well what a lucky man this was, his lovely wife ordered him 2 dozen of these delicious cupcakes for his 30th birthday to be delivered to the restaurant where they were having their celebratory dinner.

The cake was my 'Midnight Delight' (a moist dark chocolate mud cake) which I paired with a pale green peppermint Swiss meringue buttercream that was generously studded with chunks of top quality Lindt dark mint chocolate.

For the crowning glory each cupcake was then topped with a perfect whole square of Lindt dark mint chocolate & the final indulgent touch was a lavish drizzle of rich home made chocolate sauce.

Here we have one of the boxes of 1 dozen all ready to go to the restaurant.

The customer also hired my cupcake stand for this order so that they could have the cakes displayed in a stunning cupcake tower & I set that all up for them at the restaurant before they arrived so that they would get the full impact when the cupcakes were brought out.

I have to say that it looked really fantastic but I stupidly forgot to take a photo & unfortunately for me they did not take any either which is a real shame.  I certainly won't be forgeting to take one next time.

Aeroplane & Car Birthday Cupcakes

More super cute birthday cupcakes!

This time they were for a little boy's second birthday.  His mum gave me the guidelines of aeroplanes & cars & I think they turned out really great, just perfect for a 2 year old little boy.

The cake for these cupcakes was my 'Killer Chocolate' (a moist milk chocolate butter sponge) & the frosting was a smooth vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream.  I coloured the frosting green to simulate grass for the cars to sit on & blue to simulate the sky for the planes to top.  Next came a good sprinkling of sugar crystals in the corresponding colours (you always need sprinkles, kids just love them).  Finally each cupcake was finished off with a custom designed hand modeled fondant topper.

For the gorgeous little planes & cars I decided to go with vibrant primary colours except that I used a navy blue instead of a more royal blue so it would still stand out amongst the blue buttercream of the "sky".

I also thought it would be nice to include a big number 2 with the birthday boy's name embossed on it.

My favourite little touch of all with these cuppies was the clouds I made for the "sky", I think they made a big difference to the overall look of the set.  Again they were fondant & I also dusted them with white lustre dust for a lovely shimmer (not that you can tell from the photo).

As a bit of an after thought I also decided that there would be enough room to add little number 2's to the top of all the planes & cars which I am glad I did.

Hope you like them!

The feedback I received from this order was great & I look forward to creating future orders for this customer.