Eggshell Green

Happy 3rd Birthday Abby

I can’t believe it’s been 3 years since I had my first baby. They grow so fast.

Cake and presents makes a happy three year old

This year I decided to make Abby a pig cake – for two reasons: she wanted animals and it was easy.

I finished the cake in about half an hour, and half an hour before the party started too. I used to be really organised, but having children changed all that!

Next time I make a pig cake,  it’s going to be made of red velvet sandwiched with white icing. Then it’ll look like bacon when I slice it.

Needs bacon, everything tastes better with bacon

Wedding cake dramas

Oh the dramas with this wedding cake!

I was asked to make a simple elegant cake, with a bunch of flowers on top. Sounded like fun – I was looking for an excuse to practice making sugar flowers so was quite excited.

Sugar hydrangea in the making

The cake was three tiers: the bottom was a 12 inch chocolate cake, and the 10 inch and 8 inch tiers were a very delicious fruit cake speckled with dark chocolate bits.

Assembled hydrangea and rose

First drama: Burnt fruit cakes

The last time I made fruit cake was for my own wedding. From that I learnt that the ‘classic bake’ function on our previous oven is a very handy thing. It means that only the bottom element is turned on and when baking for 3 hours it helps prevent the tops from burning. Our new oven doesn’t have this function so alas the tops needed a bit of ‘levelling’. Tasted fine in the end though.

Sugar bouquet version 1

Second drama: Broken bouquet

After hours of labourious intricacies, the hubby accidentally knocked over my completed sugar bouquet, smashing half of the flowers. Luckily I had enough time, and experience by then, to whip up the replacements without too much bother. Luckily for him he was helping me roll fondant and it was indeed an accident. (My husband tells me that I have to mention that “In hindsight I should’ve put them in a better place and not teetering on the edge of the bench”. Who’s writing this post huh!? :D )

Third drama: Squished cake

Well bad things seem to come in threes. During transportation to the venue, a friend’s hands moulded into the sides of the top tier while he held it in the car. We got there and the round cake looked more like an hour glass. NooOoooOO – why now!?! Not now!!! I kept my cool, which is surprising for a pregnant lady, and luckily (yes, luck was the saving grace for this cake) the icing was thick and soft enough to mould back into shape. It wasn’t perfect but it at least it was round (mostly) again!

The finished cake, repaired and displaying the second version bouquet

Plenty of lessons learnt from my first commissioned cake and it was worth it all in the end to see how happy the bride was.

You can view the gallery of my cakes on the Cakes page.

Tags: baking, cake, decorating

Chocolate Sponge Roll

Want cake and want it fast and easy? Try this chocolate sponge roll recipe that is off the Swiss roll tin I’ve got. It takes hardly any time to prepare, only 8 minutes to cook, a few to cool down, and then spread it with jam if you’re really lazy, or spend a couple minutes whipping some cream. I filled this one with Morello cherries, and cherry liquer whipped cream, then dusted it with icing sugar.

A sweet and simple cake

Rolling it can be a little tricky – sometimes I get a great roll, sometimes it cracks and flattens, but it still tastes great!

Oh, and a word of warning – don’t leave it on the coffee table where your dog can reach it. I came back to one once that had the cream from one end licked clean out of the roll as far as Fez could reach!

Chocolate Sponge Roll

Makes 1

Tags: baking, chocolate

Domo-kun keeki

I asked the husband what cake he wanted for his birthday, and we went through the usual “Ummm, I dunno… uhhh”. (It’s kind of like trying to get him to choose baby names, or make any decisions that require creative thought actually. He says that’s my forté.) He’s a geek, so we thought about doing a robot, ipad, motherboard, and other various typical geek things. He had bought me some Ninjabread men cutters because he wanted them at the party, and I said if he wasn’t going to choose something then I’d make a harpooned whale with ninjas doing scientific research on it.

He must’ve had an epiphany or something, and said “Ooh! I know what we could have – you know that furry monster thing on the motivational poster about God killing kittens whenever someone masturbates?” – ok, maybe not an epiphany but he decided that’s what he wanted (because of the Internet meme association, not because of the fate of kittens). We’re talking about Domo-kun (we weren’t geeky enough and had to Google for that).

The Domo cake

He also wanted a red velvet cake and ended up baking the cake himself (yay) and I decorated. Things worked out really well because the cross section of the cake looked as if we had given Domo an autopsy.

Mmmm meaty

And the cake was delicious. I hadn’t tried red velvet before, only heard about it, usually in the form of cupcakes. We tried the Waldorf Astoria Red Velvet recipe – it’s a perfect density for decorating and the bonus is that it tastes good and isn’t dry (and pretty easy to make).

Will definitely make red velvet cake again – just got to remember to get lots of red food colouring each time!

Tags: baking, birthday, cake, decorating, geek

My first cupcake order

Two of my friends had a joint birthday celebration of Cocktails, Cupcakes and Canapes – three fabulous things that I would normally indulge in but being pregnant I could really only enjoy two of those things. I was asked to make some cupcakes for the occasion, which I was more than happy to do because I love making cupcakes – and I also got to eat these ones.

The three cupcake flavours

I made three flavours which I was told were all delicious. I was too full by the time I had any, and could only handle a taste of the chocolate ones (I blame the bump taking up all of my valuable food space).

The first was Chocolate Cherry with chocolate fudge cream spiked with cherry liquer, and sprinkled with real chocolate hail. I would normally make them as Black Forest cupcakes with fresh cream but it was a bit too hot to do that in advance.

Chocolate cherry cupcakes

Then there was a Lemon Vanilla with a lemon buttercream and fruit jube on top. The little lemon wedges were candy I bought from the UK – so yummy and perfect as decoration.

Vanilla lemon cupcakes

Last was Lime and Coconut – though I completely forgot to put lime juice in it (just used zest), whoops! These were topped with Malibu buttercream, toasted coconut and a giant marshmallow

Lime and coconut cupcakes

The girls froze the leftovers and I’ve been told they defrotsed fine. I made myself some chocolate cupcakes yesterday and having them cold from the fridge today was not bad at all. Good to know I can keep iced cupcakes for when I have a random cupcake craving!

Tags: baking, Cakes, Cupcakes

Abby’s First Birthday Party

And what a grumpy little Miss she was! She would not let other people hold her, and would cry if mum or dad wasn’t there. That made it very difficult to get party things sorted. The grandparents were supposed to be there to take her off our hands while we prepared, but they got a little sidetracked with sight-seeing and went on a cruise around the harbour, not returning until after 1 (the party began at 12 and they also thought it wasn’t until later in the afternoon).

Abby with mum

For some reason Abby’s been extremely clingy these last few days, and will cry at things that normally don’t bother her (like leaving her to play). I’m guessing her chest infection, combined with teething and the large number of people around have something to do with it.

Cupcake cake, of course

Anyway, at least mum got the party she wanted for her baby and caught up with people she hadn’t seen for ages (I didn’t spend as much time as I wanted with everyone, so apologies).

Abby enjoyed her presents, and loved the cheerios and chippies. The cake was yummy, even Abby got to have some.

Mmm cake

Thankfully the weather was summery enough for people to be outside – even too hot for most of the day, but the main point is that it didn’t rain. Abby wore a cute gingham dress that grandpa picked out while in Sydney.

Lots of work, but lots of fun. Maybe next year she’ll be a bit more social! And I’ll be able to drink!!

Oooh presents

Tags: baby, baking, cake, first birthday, party

A Slice of Wonderland

I was asked to make a cake that could be raffled off for the Greenacres School gala. I wanted something whimsical and not too boyish or too girly and it had to appeal to school kids, or at least kids at heart. I chose Alice in Wonderland – oh the options!

In the end I decided I wanted a cake shaped like the Mad Hatter’s hat, with a tea party happening on top. This is the result:

My Mad Hatter cake in all its glory

This beast is made of three 8 inch chocolate cakes split into six layers to make the hat, then a smaller madeira cake to make the table and pedestal, also layered. I used lemon buttercream as the filling because it’s easy and delicious.

It’s hard to tell from the pictures but it’s quite a large cake, and damn heavy! Should feed around 60 I say, depending on how big you like your slices.

Some details close up

Our good camera is being fixed which annoys me because I couldn’t take proper photos showing the details. The flash on our backup seems to bring out some of the shine and smaller details, but ruins the colour.

Stitching and some shine

The hat has stitching details around it, some fan patterns pressed into it, and painted with golden lustre for a shine. The ribbon’s also got some pink lustre on it but it’s quite subtle.

Topsy table caused the tea to spill

I created some pastillage mushrooms, teacups and miniature roses to decorate the table tier. I still hate working with pastillage in that it dries so quickly and cracks. The mushrooms were easy but the others were hard. My teacups ended up looking rustic, but hey, anything goes in Wonderland!

Tea and cake anyone?

I tried quite a few things on this cake, including piping patterns with royal icing. That was fun, but I really need more practice with piping on vertical surfaces – the numbers on the hat ticket were a bit squiggly as I didn’t know how to keep my hands stable at that angle.

Anyway, it was great practice for Abby’s first birthday cake – something that I haven’t decided on yet and the party’s next week!!

By the way, the gala’s on tomorrow Saturday 20 November 2011, 11am to 2pm at the Greenacres School at 60 Raroa Terrace, Tawa. If you’re in Wellington, drop on by. You can buy raffle tickets to win this cake there :D

Tags: baking, cake, decorating