Climbing with Cupcakes

These cupcakes were for a little girl for whom I have made cupcakes and pops before. You can always tell they are growing up when their taste in cakes changes from something like Frozen (the movie, not the weather condition) to a rock climbing party! When the birthday girl's Mum told me the theme of the party, I thought this sounded wonderful and showed how brave this birthday girl was. 

The rock climbing company has very distinctive colours so I did my best to match those, otherwise I thought these rock chocolates were perfect for these cupcakes. They look just like the grips on the walls.

Little Miss Minecraft

I never stop learning through cake making, and I'm not just referring to techniques. I learn all sorts about what's trending with people, especially children. I have experienced Minecraft before, but last time I made cupcakes of a Minecraft inspiration they were for the brother of this birthday girl who was receiving this cake. How things have changed because last time I made this little Chickie a birthday treat it was Frozen themed. Her Mother informed me that she was done with Princesses and was well into Minecraft, so let's try something new!

The birthday girl's request for the cake was "square" (check), "with lots of Minecraft characters on it"(check), and finally "Happy Birthday Tashi (of course)"(check). I hope I fulfilled all the requirements, and that the party was a success!

A combination of vanilla cake with green buttercream to stick it all together, and square gummies and cubed coconut for edible tiles made the decorations possible.

This is a pig....                                                                This is TNT (clearly)...

This is a Villager...                                                          And this is a chicken.

The requisite "Happy Birthday Tashi"

 



 

It squared off the be a really neat cake (:P)

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Feedback from the Birthday Girl's Mum:

"14 very happy customers fell on this Minecraft cake like a pack of wild animals before I could take a photo! Success."
 

Palaloolali Patrick!!

(I never thought I would be spending time searching for that on the internet, but did you know that Palaloolali! is Happy Birthday in Minionese? Now you do...)

My Husband (and I) recently celebrated our 30th birthdays! Now we have to start feeling more grown up and all the rest of it, but for now I'll just post about the fun cake I made to celebrate the occasion. With all the gifts I give him there's always a theme: Minions. These yellow tic tacs have certainly made an impact on him so I try to have everything minion themed. For Christmas, I got him the string of minion lights and we made the Minion gingerbread house, we went to go see The Minions Movie in 3D, and even Patrick's favourite pick-up line he uses on me is from the Minions: "tu et bella, comme la papaya!" So to indulge him for his birthday, I sneakily made him Minion cake pops and a mint chocolate ice cream cake with a Minion flare.

I think he like them.... :)

(It's a bit blurry, cause I was excited to see his reaction.)

 

 

 

 

I put these Minion sprinkles in Patrick's stocking at Christmas. I knew I'd find the perfect time to use them!

 

KING BOB!!!!

 

Not too bad for a first attempt. I know what I would do differently next time, so I guess he'll have to suffer through more Minion cake pops at some point :P

 

Kevin

 

Stewart

 

Bob!

 

It's hard to get a tall man, me, and a cake into a picture so this was as close as we got!

 

Happy Birthday my Darling!!



 

Defintely One for the Books

This particular cake was a combination of a birthday cake for a close friend, and a way of remembering my Dad as he would have been 75 at his last birthday. When I was asked to decorate this cake, I was told that the cake would be baked in a "book" cake pan so that was my base, and the birthday boy wanted a quote on top of the cake which I was provided, but apart from that the details were up to me. The suggestion which stuck with me was "decorate it how you would decorate a cake for your Dad". When you have an instant idea it's hard not to think of something else, so the word that kept floating around in my head was "manuscript". I knew this would work for the birthday boy as well, as he and my Father were close friends and colleagues. In many ways they were similar: stoic, scholarly, learned men, who enjoyed solving life's problems from an arm chair. Growing up our two families often had dinner together. Post-meal I would go play with their daughter, leaving our Mothers to drink tea and tackle a puzzle with several hundred pieces, and our Fathers to retire to the book room and quietly discuss the world around them in great depth. These books which enveloped them during their discussions were my inspiration for this cake.

 

 

 

 

 

The snails were apropos of something called marginalia. A phenomenon seen in ancient manuscripts where the Monks who were responsible for recording life and verse in these manuscripts, apparently got bored and started doodling. Most of what you can find on the internet is quite rude when it comes to marginalia, but the safer snail is present in several examples. Often the snail is depicted as fighting off a knight of some form, perhaps because of the damp monasteries that would have been full of snails so might have been seen as a threat...

 

 

Super Spy Chase and his Chocolate Cake

I've discovered I learn a lot through my cake baking sessions. I learn about new techniques, about new holidays, different sports, and certainly about new TV characters. It would make sense if I had kids or friends with kids of the appropriate age to know who some of these characters are, but most of the time I just have to sit down with Google and a cup of tea and get to grips with a whole new world. Such was the case with this last cake order.

The initial email discussion the order set the bar pretty high because the whole name of the character was used (showing that details were very important), and they mentioned the character's accessories (no pressure now!). Above all this, kids don't hold back. If they don't like a cake, they'll tell you straight out. If they wished for something different but didn't mind this cake, they'll say "it was okay, but I really like [insert their favourite flavour]!" So needless to say I wanted to get the details right, and I wanted the birthday boy to really feel like this was a Super Spy Chase and his Drone from Paw Patrol cake.

I knew that trying to create Super Spy Chase and his Drone out of anything edible would be an impossible and very expensive task, and knowing my artistic limitations it would not go well, so I asked if they would have a toy to put as a cake topper and I would decorate with appropriate details. I've heard that the 4-year-old in question was very pleased with his cake so I can wipe the sweat from my brow and breathe a sigh of relief!

I had worked with this edible paper one or twice before, but only in a minor capacity. I used red sugar sheets to make the fire engine cake, and as a backdrop for the logo for the White Side Taylor cake. It's a great alternative to fondant taste-wise, and buttercream (because if you manage to actually get buttercream red-colour and not pink, it wont taste good...).

 

 This time, I used the paper with edible markers and drew the logo and dog tags

for the famous Super Spy Chase.

It was a learning curve, but if anyone wants me to make a Rainbow Bright, My Little Pony, Strawberry Shortcake, Cabbage Patch, or Polly Pocket cake, I'll be in my element

(and showing my age!)

 

We All Scream for Ice Cream...Cake

There is always a first time for everything, and most of the time you never know what you are capable of until you try it. Albeit, I'd rather try something new with someone I trust and not someone I'd never met before, so when my friend asked if I made ice cream cakes, and I said I never had before, I felt confident to try it out (and she trusted me enough to do it). I searched You Tube and armed myself with a plan.

My friend's son was having a birthday and an ice cream cake was his wish. The other wish was simply put: "chocolate". And chocolate it was! Chocolate ice cream, with chocolate cake, covered in chocolate buttercream... think there's enough chocolate?

The trickiest thing I found with an ice cream cake was the timing. Firstly, you had to be sure that you made it far enough in advance because it had to solidify in the freezer for a minimum of three hours depending on the size of your cake. Secondly, once you started working on the cake you had to be quick and get it back into the freezer before you ended up with a nicely decorated bowl of chocolate soup, as I was telling my friend. Luckily for me, timing was on my side and I didn't hand my friend a sprinkle-filled bowl of chocolate soup.

The cling film made the cake easy to take out of the cake pan. Otherwise I would have had to melt it slightly to slide it out (potentially resulting in the aforementioned chocolate soup).

 

My friend told me that Camron is into gaming, so I tried to incorporate that into the decorations. Much Googling, and double checking of details was required because although I don't know the first thing about different controllers (one's white?!), there was a young man who would have been looking at this cake and checking the details so I had to try my best to get the details as accurate as you can with chocolate and a tooth-pick.

 

Green was the colour of choice for the birthday boy, good choice Camron :)

 

Simply green sprinkles up the sides, which stuck to the freshly spread buttercream.

 

First time using these plastic cake domes....love it!! I like how you could see the cake through the plastic which isn't the case with the cardboard boxes. I may have to use these more and not just for ice cream cakes. 

Sweet Smelling Roses

So happy I got to make my roses again! I love the mix of the chocolate and the fondant decoration I get to play with, it adds a whole new dimension to their appeal, I feel. Unlike roses I've made in the past however, these weren't for St. Valentine's Day, or even Mother's Day but for a Mother's birthday in fact. Imagine on your birthday you receive a lovely bouquet of roses from your family and to your surprise you can eat them too! Not a bad present. When these pops were ordered they asked if I could make yellow roses, which I've never made before, and I have to say I love how they turned out. They have a very soft look to them, and I hope they sweetened the birthday girl's celebration.

 

Three Girls and a Sweet Red Truck

Having repeat orders is the goal of any business person, it's a sign your business is steadily growing. You watch as the requests change over the years to suit the child who is growing up and who needs a different type of birthday cake to show how big they're getting. In this case, however, not only am I watching as the requests change, I'm also watching as more kiddos are added to the mix, and as the decorating techniques and skills of their Mum improves with every birthday because I get to watch the cakes being decorated.

These cakes are the cakes I make with my friend. It started out when she wanted to make her daughter's first birthday a special party, so really set her standards high. She designed a menu, and planned activities to go with their Mini Mouse theme. I came in to help Nathalie make the cake because although she had the vision, the knowhow wasn't within her reach. And why should it be, she's never had to decorate a cake like this before. So many people find they're willing to make the cake but want it to look good and professionally made so that's where I come in, to help make the vision into a sweet reality.

Nathalie and I come up with a plan for the evening; I usually design a simple cake that I know Nathalie can do well, and we divide the tasks between the two of us, then Tara joins us for the very important quality control. I bring my tool kit, the icing, plus any miscellany we need, and Nathalie provides the cake and the wine. Every year the theme is different, and to a certain extent a little more challenging. Even if the design of the cake changes we have a blast making it, we have a great time hanging out together, and we always produce a great looking cake by the end of the evening.

By popular demand I have a made a compilation of the cake sessions we've had thus far:

Lexie's First Birthday: Minnie Mouse

Left to right (clockwise): Tara and Nathalie, testing the fondant; me with Nathalie kneading out the pink fondant to cover the cake; and Nathalie holding her beautiful finished product!

 

Lexie's Second Birthday: Old MacDonald

Left to right (clockwise): Tara, testing the wine as well as the icing; Nathalie planting icing grass in the field; Wendy came along to help decorate the room while we decorated; our final product, I was so proud of Nathalie with this one!

 

Lexie's Third Birthday: Rainbow (the celestial bodies, not the 80's cartoon)

Despite my best efforts, I can't be everywhere I want to be all time so for this cake we weren't together. I made this cake for Nathalie on my own and brought it to her. Nathalie had just had her second baby, a little boy so I promised to make myself available for next year!!

 

Logan's First Birthday: Fire Trucks

Nathalie decided that she was going to make cupcakes for Lexie's Fourth birthday, which she felt she could manage, but asked if I could help with her son's first birthday cake. No Minnie Mouse or rainbows for Logan, he's a boy; he wanted a fire truck birthday party. Nathalie added an extra challenge for the cake. It not being to everyone's taste (and I understand that completely), Nathalie asked if we could not use fondant and just do buttercream instead. While I'm fine not using fondant, I was worried that if we went with buttercream we would end up with a pink truck (not the desired effect), so I looked into a product I'd been meaning to try: edible paper, which comes in red.

 

Nathalie really outdid herself, she's more confident with her icing and piping techniques and was even able to build the cake to make the truck. So proud of her! She was even teaching Lexie a thing or two... (next generation baker??) Tara, as ever did a stellar job of quality assurance. Only the best goes into my cakes!