My first class...

I am a self taught cake decorator and I've never had any formal training. I basically google or read books on how to do things I've never done or attempted before. So sometime this month I decided to try a Planet Cake course. My aim is to master the sharp edges their cakes are famous for...absolute perfection! 

It was a great day. I have figured out the things I am not doing quite right and corrected my bad habits. It was certainly money well spent. Now looking into signing up for more classes.

The picture above is everyone's cake from the day. Mine is the butterfly one.

Maya's Christening Cupcake Tower

This pretty in pink cupcake tower was created for a childhood friend of mine. Her beautiful daughter was being christened and she asked me to make her a cupcake tower and some cake pops.

The cake flavour was vanilla and the frosting is my personal favourite marshmallow frosting. The decoration was taken from my earlier cupcake tower for Caitlyn.

Vibrant 60th Birthday Cupcake Tower

A very bright and happy cupcake tower created for a friend's mum who's turning 60! She wanted a vibrant colour scheme so I found a colour palette on a wedding website - fuschia, purple and orange with splashes of green.

The design was inspired by my earlier work "Anya's Cupcake Tower"

How to make Ben 10 Omnitrix watch

I have received may messages asking how to make Ben 10's Omnitrix watch so in response to all the emails I have created this 'How to' post.

1. Materials:

- Fondant (Black, Dark Grey, Light Grey and Green)

- Rolling pin

- 3 different round cutters (I used two cutters from my favourite cutter set and also the base of an icing tip)

2. Using the cutters, cut out:

- 1 Large Grey circle

- 1 Medium Black circle

- 1 Small Light Grey circle

- 1 Small Green cirlcle

3. Place Black circle on top of large Grey circle, glue together with some water. Then using the corner of a rectangular cutter cut out the sides of the green and light grey circles.

Use the off-cuts of the grey circle and place on the sides of the green circle to complete the circle shape again. Glue this on top of the black circle with water.

4. Using the green off-cuts, use the tip of a small round Icing nozzle and cut-out very small circles. Place this circle around the Omnitrix watch face. (Alternatively, you can just roll small fondant balls)

5. Roll thin lengths of black fondant and place along the face of the Omnitrix watch where the green and light grey fondant meet.

Place complete Omnitrix fondant watch on top of a cupcake.

Enjoy!

Ben 10 Omnitrix Cake 'n' Cupcakes

This tower was created for my son's friend at day care, Ethan. He was turning 4 and his chosen theme was Ben 10. So for the cake I re-created one of my most visited post and flickr picture...the omnitrix watch cupcakes.

The cake is vanilla and the frosting is buttercream.

The only thing missing on the top cake is a Ben 10 figurine which was supplied by Ethan's mum.

The omnitrix watch was created using shapes from my favourite cutter set.

Flower Dessert Table

In this dessert table the two-tiered cake and flower pop cupcakes too centre stage. It was surrounded by marshmallows, fruit chews, wafer sticks and kit kat wrapped in coordinated paper. Obviously the theme of this dessert table was pink, yellow and green.

Each child had a personalised chinese noodle box to fill as their treat bag.

I enjoyed creating this and loved it more watching it get demolished by the party guests!

Dinosaur Dessert Table

This is the complete spread for my son's 4th birthday party.

Dinosaur cupcake tower, assortment of chocolates, gummi lollies and cake pops.

Each child had their own personalised chinese noodle box to fill as their treat bag.

So much fun!

Flower Pop Cupcakes

So here is the final cake creation for my kids birthday. This cake and cupcake combination is for my daughter's 1st birthday.

I decided to make a two tiered round cake and this is complimented by 24 cupcakes with fondant flowers on a stick. I call this my Flower Pop Cupcakes!

The cake is white chocolate mud cake covered in fondant and the flower pop cupcakes are vanilla chiffon cake and iced with marshmallow icing. I love the way the colours turned out.

This is the centrepiece of a girly dessert table for the party.

Birthday Cupcakeathon Part 2

As promised here is my son's third birthday cake! This is my first attempt at a dinosaur cake. I aimed at creating a Triceratops first but then that quickly failed so I morphed it into a Brontesaurus.

I carved dinosaur out of foam and covered it in fondant. Don't look too closely as there are many imperfections.

This is going to be the centrepiece of a dessert table.

Did I mention I am also creating my daughter's 1st birthday cake at the same time. I have combined their birthday party this year as they are only 3 weeks apart. Crazy me! Exhausted!!!!

Birthday Cupcakeathon!

So I promised my son 3 different cakes for his birthday. Why did I do that? Not so sure. But anyway I created cupcakes for his actual birthday, for his day care celebration and for his birthday party. So far I've done 2 out of the 3 creations.

The first Heatblast cupcakes. Jaxon likes to look at my cupcake creation on the computer and he saw my previous Heatblast cupcakes and asked if I can make it for his birthday...so I said 'of course!'

The second request is Lego cupcakes. I created a Lego block cake for his cousin last month and he liked it so he also wanted the same Lego theme for his birthday...so I said 'of course!' These cupcakes will be for his day care friends.

The last cake will be for his party this coming weekend so stay tuned.

Kristina's Baby Shower

Congratulations to my friend Kristina on her pregnancy. She asked me to create her baby shower cupcakes and decoration design was inspired by her invitation.

The cupcakes are chocolate mud and the icing is vanilla buttercream.

Macarons

These are the macarons from my daughters christening dessert table. They were vanilla with buttercream filling. I prefer the buttercream filling over the ganache filling for macarons as it makes its a lighter dessert...so you can have more :)

My 1st Dessert Table

Wow! This was the first big project I had since coming out of baking hibernation during the past two years. So much fun...

For my daughters christening I decided to create a dessert table. I made a cupcake tower, baked vanilla macarons, cakepops, salted caramel brownies and cookies. On top of all that I filled 4 lolly jars with goodies and custom wrapped juices to match the pink theme.

It was a huge hit at the reception! It was cleared in minutes! My only disappointment was the table supplied was too small and I felt all the elements were too squashed.

I cant wait for my next dessert table project...my children's combined birthday party next month.

Baby Shower Cupcakes

My cousin recently gave birth to a beautiful baby boy and during her baby shower I surprised her with 12 cupcakes. The decoration was inspired by the card I bought her.

Cupcake 1st Birthay Cake

My adorable daughter turned 1 over the weekend and I made this sweet cupcake cake for her. It is a chocolate cake iced with vanilla cream cheese frosting. The base of the cake is covered in dark chocolate. Decorations are piped chocolate butterflies.

My all time favourite Cutter set

As a beginner cake decorator years ago I wasn't sure what cutters I needed for my projects. I didn't want to buy every cutter available at the shop so I decided to buy the cutter set which included all different shapes in different sizes (pictured above).

This has been my greatest purchase! This cutter set has served me well over the years and it's safe to say that I have used this cutter set almost with every creation I've done to date.

From creating clouds, trains, eyes, legoman hands, dorothy the dinosaur, santa claus to creating characters from Ben 10...this cutter set is a cake decorators best friend!

If you are starting out in cake decorating, I really recommend this cutter set as you can use it to create just about anything.

You can find this cutter set in most cake decorating shops between $10-$15

Cupcake Stand

I get a lot of questions about my cupcake stands. I made these myself as I was not able to afford the perspex stands when I started out baking.

These are made out of cake boards in different sizes, pre cut PVC pipe (10cm height) I bought from the hardware store and all are glued together by really strong super glue.

I also use double sided tape to decorate each tier with ribbon to match the colour theme of the cupcakes.

It costs less than $20 to make them, depending on the number of tiers. The most expensive element is the PVC piping. I chose the PVC pipe as I needed something wide to support each tier.

The stands are fun to make and it does the job!

Dream come true!

Hello Again,

Time to dust off the cobwebs...The Little Cupcakery is out of maternity leave. Yes, I have been AWOL for a while...a couple of years in fact but I have been busy in more ways than one.

The good news is I am starting to get back into baking lots of goodies again which means more posts to come. I've also updated the blog design so I hope you all like it.

One of my last posts I mentioned there was some good news that I was waiting for...anyway it did come to fruition and I am proud to say that my cupcakes have been chosen to feature in the latest Sandra Salamony and Gina Brown book "1000 ideas for decorating cupcakes, cookies and cakes"

16 of my cupcake creations are in the book...most of my early work. It's an amazing feeling to be part of this book. A dream come true!