Two more cakes

I still have not had a chance to get the girls' stocking made but I have made another mermaid cake for one of Olivia's Sunday School friends!

One thing I've learnt is that cakes certainly are a labour of love.  Josh has encouraged me many times to go into the cake making business but like many crafts I do not think that anyone would pay for the many hours they take to make.

Here is another cake I made last month for a friends 21st.  This one was a bit of a challenge because the birthday girl did not want chocolate mud cake.  This cake is a carrot with cream cheese frosting.  I had to decorate this cake last minute because the cream cheese frosting needed refrigeration but you can not refrigerate fondant.  Another problem was getting the frosting to look fairly white because the longer you leave the frosting the more the yellow buttery colour comes through.  I really need to find a source for white butter.

Here's a picture from the party.  It makes me smile :)  It was a freezing cold late spring night and my girls all managed to find a knee to snuggle on.  Jessica was not keen sitting on the birthday girls'  knee! Nothing unusual for Jessie though!

Anyway, two weeks to Christmas now!!!  I hope you're enjoying the Christmas season!

Bird Cage Cake

I love spring!  And what better way to welcome it in than with a Spring afternoon tea hosted by the ladies at our church.

I made this birdcage cake for the occasion.  It was quite simple.  Time consuming though!  My good friend from Frances Choikee Photography took the photos and styled the party.

Mermaid Ruffle Cake

I just wanted to share the whole mermaid ruffle cake here which I created for a friend's little girl. I have had it ready to share for a while but just haven't been able to get a chance to blog!

This cake has been one of my favourites and like every cake I make it  presented me with new challenges.  This was the first time I have done fondant ruffles on a cake and I was impressed with how easy they were once I managed to get a hang of them.  The ombre effect was also very easy and a lot of fun!

(I have entered the cake into a competition at Latorta hence the card there...)

This is the cake at the party!  The entire party had an underwater theme with so many clever ideas.    My friend is into the party planning, bonboneire and photography buisness so If you're in Canberra and are interested in using her service just leave a comment and we can get in touch.

I hope you have a wonderful week! 

Mermaid Cake Topper

I have been wanting to try and make a fondant figurine for a while but have been worried that it would end up looking scary!  I am so pleased with how this fondant mermaid turned out!  

I ended up making this one up as I went as the tutorials I had were not quite what I wanted.  

I can see plenty of flaws and have learned so much along the way but I am thrilled with how it turned out.  

This little cutie here in the bottom picture was with me the whole time!  At one point she was wiggling around saying "I'm so excited!", I asked her why, considering it wasn't for her. "I'm excited to be watching you!"  SO sweet.  She tells me all the time she wants to be a cake decorator.  You never know....

I'm thinking I would like to try another one but I will need a spare 4 hours!!  Hmm....

Mermaid cake - inspiration

I just thought I'd share some inspiration for a cake I am making this week for a very good friend.  I have no idea how it will turn out but I guess time will tell! 

I love the simplicity of this first cake.  At this stage I am planning on making the mermaid figurine from fondant and sitting her on top.

Source - This whole mermaid party and turquoise colour scheme is beautiful!  

I love the ombre effect of the ruffles in this cake!  The cake I am making is not this big so I'm imagining this one without the bottom layer.

Source - Another beautiful turquoise mermaid party!

Here is one of the cute fondant mermaid figurines I found on the Internet.  I like her hair and cute face.    

Source

Here is another fondant mermaid figurine.  I like the idea of her sitting on the rock with the sea things around.

Source

I also found a few useful tutorials on the Internet:

How to make fondant ruffle from here.

How to make a fondant face from here.  I think the scariest part of this cake is going to be trying to get a face that does not look freaky!  

I made this cake a few years ago for Hannah so I will use similar techniques for the hair and body. It is from Debbie Browns book Enchanting Magical Cakes

So this is my exciting project for the week!  I'd love to hear what exciting project you're doing :)

Olivia's Ballerina Party

A few months before Olivia's birthday she told me she wanted a ballerina party.  I jumped at it because it was her first reasonable party suggestion!  I started a pinboard on pinterest and started looking for inspiration.  There was plenty!  So may ideas going around in my head.  The hard part was getting it all together without going crazy!  In the end I just chose a few simple ideas to go with.  The photos are all care of France Choikee Photography! Thanks Frances!

For the cakes I used Whisk Kids's Rainbow Cake and Swiss Meringue Buttercream recipe.

One of my problems at the moment is keeping the icing from yellowing.  It was a pretty pink the night before but went apricot over night.  So dissapointing, but I had to keep reminding myself that Olivia did not care!

I had planned to do a few games but most of the little girls loved the dancing and twirling ribbons.  The twirling ribbons were easy to make using dowel, ribbon, a bell and hot glue.

Here's the birthday girl dancing! Olivia is pretty self conscious and this was all she'd put on the morning of the party!  Lucky it is a 'twirly skirt' though!

Jessica in her tutu!

She's a daddy's girl! They all are!

One of my friends dressed up as a ballerina and taught the little ones some ballet!  They loved it!

Ballerina Brooke with my 4 girls :)

And a big thanks to Frances for the beautiful photos!!

Jessica's Birthday Party

It's taking me a while to get through last months events but I still want to record a few details from the girls parties this year.

Jessica turned one this year and we threw together a very last minute supper for her.

I'm not sure why life was so busy that week but it turned out that I was cooking everything for the party from scratch from about 2pm onwards!

When I got home from the shops Jessica was so clingy!  It's funny how sometimes you can be torn between celebrating a little girl's birthday and just stopping and giving her a big cuddle and showing her love that she can understand!

Anyway, everything was done on time and there was plenty of food for everyone!  My sister in law made the most delicious 'Salted Caramel Cheesecake' the recipe is here.  It was a huge hit!

One of my cooking obstacles is stopping the icing from yellowing over night.  It was pink when I first made it but as time went on it was more apricot.

One of the sweet tables which was pretty much untouched that the end of the party!

The traditional family photo with the birthday girl!

I hope you have had a wonderful weekend!

Green Ruffle Cake

We both won.

Olivia got a green cake and I got to try the ruffle cake I've been dying to try for so long!

The icing was not as green as the photo shows here, this was taken with my iphone.

The icing took FOREVER to make.  

I made a huge batch using this Swiss Meringue Buttercream and it used 16 egg whites, 800g caster sugar and over a kilo of butter!  Just as well I don't like icing.  

I have some left over icing to try the rose cupcakes I posted here.

The ruffles took only about 20 min.  I used a tear shaped tip and piping bag and went back and forth from the bottom to the top of the cake.  I was ecstatic with the results!  

The sun was at the front of the house coming into Jessica's bedroom so it was the best spot for a photo, up on the Jessica's shelf.

I love the alphabet print on the right.  It was a free printable from here.  There are lots of other colours and printables available there also.

So there it is.  My green ruffle cake!  Can't wait to try another one.  Fortunately I only need to wait 4 days until the next birthday in this family!

Mermaid Cake

I don't have a lot of time to post right now, but I just wanted to show you some pictures of the 'mermaid cake' I made for my daughter's 5th birthday.

The pattern is one of Debbie Browns from her 'Enchanting Magical Cakes' book. I was really pleased with the way it turned out too considering if didn't take as long as I would have imagined.