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Saturday, July 28, 2012

Kayleigh Cupcake Tower






Well its been a while since my last cupcake tower and to be honest after finishing this birthday request I really missed how pretty they look.

The design of this cupcake tower cake from my earlier cakes Sienna Fairy Cake and Caitlyn Cupcake tower. This was a challenge for me as everything that could go wrong went wrong when making this.
I mixed the wrong pink color and had to redo a few times and mixing the buttercream was like an icing sugar bomb went off in my kitchen! 

The top cake is chocolate mud cake and the cupcakes are white chic mud cake iced with buttercream frosting.



Monday, July 23, 2012

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Cake



I am very excited about this cake. I'm very proud of the result considering I wasn't familiar with the inspiration for this cake...the popular The Very Hungry Caterpillar book!

I didn't grow up reading this book but I heard about it from my own kids as they read it at day care. In fact my 4 year old son was helping me design the cake as I wasn't sure what the caterpillar ate in the book.

After borrowing a copy of the book from a  workmate I started sketching the design.

Special request was to include the fruits and some of the sunday treats the caterpillar ate and also have the caterpillar in large 3D modeling on top of the cake.




These little Sunday treat details on the cake board were so much fun to make as I've always wanted to create a mini cupcake out of fondant for ages!



The watermelon was a challenge as red fondant is always very soft and having it stand upright was aways going to be tricky so a little tylose powder did the trick!


Here he is ....The Very Hungry Caterpillar himself! flower wiring kept him upright. The apple detail hid the candle (tip of candle is behind the apple stem). I particularly like the little leaf with the hole in it sitting on top of the apple.

Enjoy this cake!

Saturday, June 2, 2012

Marshmallows!!


So for mother's day I received two new books for my baking and decorating passion (...or more like obsession ;) !)


The books are Sweet Designs by Amy Atlas and Baby Cakes by Debbie Brown. 

Amy Atlas has a recipe in her book on how to make marshmallows and this has been on my 'to do' list

for a long time. So I decided to make some with the help of my 4.5 yr old son.

It was quite easy but the worst part was the sticky mess at the end! I didn't have my coloring and vanilla

 essence ready and the recipe required you to work real quick as the mixture will set quite quickly.

The recipe worked well and my marshmallows set in 2 hours. It tasted and it wasn't too sweet.


Bear Birthday Cake




Just when I thought I had a week off from cakes, I get a text from my sis-in-law about making a cake for my niece's 1st birthday party this weekend.

As a last minute creation, I decided to make a bear cake using my left over pastel fondant from my recent cakes.

I also used this opportunity to improve my stripe decoration skills and also practice using my pasta roller to roll out the fondant. 

I love the colors and its one of my all time favorite color combinations!




Close-up of purple baby bear.


Close-Up of Mama Bear. 


Close-Up of playful pink baby bear...very cute!




Monday, May 28, 2012

Jewelry and Make-up Box cake


My last cake of the month is for my beautiful niece Alicia who turned 4 over the weekend. Her cake request was a jewelry and make-up cake.  The present box cake was inspired by a 3 tiered cake created by Planet Cake.

Jewelry included edible purple sugar diamonds which I purchased from a cake decorating store.

I also bought Alicia Dora the Explorer concert tickets which I hid under the lid of the cake.

She loved it!

Friday, May 25, 2012

Beehive Birthday Cupcakes


What a fun cupcake! This was for a bee themed 2nd birthday party. The cupcake is chocolate cake with italian meringue frosting which I blow torched to get the beehive effect. 

The bees were hand made from fondant.

The idea was inspired by a blog post on Amy Atlas's creative dessert tables.

Sunday, May 20, 2012

Manika Cake... "Mia"


Introducing "Mia", my second cake in the Manika cake series. She was created for my niece's 3rd birthday. Her only request was that she wear a blue dress as blue is her favourite colour. Improvements can be made with the face as I was a little rushed with this project as my little one was ill and was super clingy. So I had very little 'cake' time.



 I love the ribbon detail on the dress. Again demonstrating with my recent obsession with fondant ribbons.



Close-up of ruffle detail on her dress.



Beautiful rose detail. I learnt this mini rose technique from Luigi at Planet Cake. Super easy!

Saturday, May 12, 2012

Pink Peony Rose Cakes

May madness for cakes has begun! I have quite a few birthday celebrations in the family this month and of course yours truly will be making special cakes for special people in my life.

To kick things off I have created a hot pink peony rose simple birthday cake for a combined family party for all the May celebrants. I love the simplicity and vibrancy of the peony rose with this cake.


The second cake is for my neice's 18th birthday party. The request was a pink cake and the rest was up to me. The design was inspired by a cake I saw in Christopher Chavez website Cake Occassions. He loves to create patters using cutters and fondant. So effective! So I looked at all the flower cutters I had and chose the cutter with multiple sizes to create the lace-like effect.


Stay tuned as I have 2 more cakes left to do this month...


Friday, April 20, 2012

Lightning McQueen Cake


This creation was for one of my oldest and dearest friends. Her son was turning 3 and she wanted him to have the best birthday cake ever....Lightning McQueen. My first reaction after her reques was "OMG! Are you serious????!!!!" as I have never attempted such a cake and I avoided making it even for my own sons birthday in fear that it will not turn out right.
Anyway, I said I will try my best and this was the result.

The cake was originally an 8" square cake and shaped into a car. I divided the cake into 3 layers and ganached  it to achieve a smooth surface before covering with fondant. 

The details of the car and eyes were hand painted.

I loved this cake and it certainly was a pleasure to make.

Visit my facebook page 'The Little Cupcakery" for more pictures.


Saturday, February 18, 2012

Eeyore Baby Shower cupcakes


Created for a baby shower. The mother to be sent me an image of cupcakes decorated with baby eeyore to re create (Credit to original design www.lindie.net)

Toppers sit on chocolate cupcake with cream cheese frosting.

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Present Birthday Cake


Here is my fondant version of Richard Festen's Gift Wrap Striped cake.
Working with modelling chocolate requires a really cool room and with Sydney's humid climate in a non-airconditioned house, I will just end up with messy melted chocolate.
Instead I used a patterned mat to created the striped look and folded the fondant like a gift wrap and used bright red fondant to create the ribbon and bow.

I love this and it is so simpe yet elegant. 

This cake was actually for my nephew. I showed him the cake I made from Richard Festen's course and he loved it but he requested red and white to represent the colours of his favourite rugby league team.

Andre's Christening


I created this beautiful cupcake tower for my nephew's christening on the weekend. 
It was very much inspired by Richard Festen's Gift Wrap striped cake. I attended his course while he was here in Australia last month and since then I have been creating stripes and bows galore!!! I Love them!~

Cake is chocolate mud cake with chocolate ganache and covered in fondant stripes.

Cupcakes are vanilla chiffon cupcakes with marshmallow icing.

I also created chocolate cupcakes covered in fondant as I have some left over ganache that I didnt want to waste. So this was for Andre's mother who was celebrating her birthday that same day.


You guessed it!...more bows!!

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Dinosaur Birthday!


Created for my son's friend at day care. Design taken from the invite. I enlarged the invite 4 times on a photocopier then cut them out and used the cut-out to shape the fondant into dinosaurs.

Cake is white chocolate mud cake.

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Manika Cakes by The Little Cupcakery


I am very proud to introduce the project that I have been working on the past few weeks. I was inspired by the talented creators of cute custom dolls online creating adorable dolls for adorable little people. I also love to sew but don't actually own a sewing machine but I can bake and decorate cakes. So after a lot of drafting ideas I came up with Manika Cakes by The Little Cupcakery  ('manika' means 'doll' in my native language)

These adorable cakes are perfect for a little girl's birthday, christenings and baby showers.

Manika cakes are made from moist chocolate mud cake iced in decadent chocolate ganache and covered in fondant.



Cupcakes are a perfect accompaniment to Manika Cakes especially when displayed on a tiered cake stand.

Manika Cakes can be custom made to match your little girls features from hair colour to freckles on the face.

This creation was for my niece's christening over the weekend. It was very heartbreaking when time came to cut the cake as it was too cute to demolish.




(For those wanting to use my Manika Cakes as inspiration for their own cakes please credit The Little Cupcakery as the original designer and creator....Thank you)







Monday, January 16, 2012

Superheroes Birthday!


My godson turned 6 this week and he wanted a superhero themed birthday cupcakes. I created Batman, Spiderman and Captain America cupcake decoration on a lolly stick. I used the lolly stick for my daughters birthday party for her 'flowerpop' decoration and I love the effect so much I used it for these cupcakes too.

Dora the Explorer Cake


This cake creation was created for a friend's daughter. I had great difficulty with the humid Sydney weather that week and the icing just did not set well and so the fondant looked quite droopy on the cake. I really need air-conditioning in summer. Oh well on the brighter side Dora looked great!

I originally planned to created a two dimensional Dora face on the top of the cake but after my struggle with the icing I decided to create a 3D Dora instead hoping it will take the attention away from the cake sides.


Dora's backpack was also fun to make. To accompany the cake I also created chocolate cupcakes.