Cupcakes! First of many!

When I discovered the world of icing, OMG. I was amazed at what it could do!! At the time I felt that I couldn't just make cupcakes and have them all decorated really nicely... just because...

I wanted to try out my cutters and my flower-foam-setting thing (I know very technical). A simple design that looked impressive - at the time anyway.  I made these to take to work for the biggest morning tea.

Lessons learnt:

• Need to even out the tops of cupcakes for consistency

The Portuguese Tart

This time it's Portuguese tarts. I couldn't find one anywhere so, as anyone would do, (well me really) I decided to find a recipe and make them myself. This way I could eat them whenever I wanted!

To my surprise, they were much easier to make then I thought! And the taste? OMG!!

Topped with a sprinkle of nutmeg. It really hit the spot

Lessons learnt? They're really easy to make!

O is for... Opera Cake!

Sometimes I feel like something ( to eat that is) and I get a sudden motivation to find a recipe and make it! This was one of those moments. At the time we (ok I) was obsessed with MasterChef. I decided that the Opera cake was to be my next project.

I must admit, it looks much more impressive and complicated than it really is. Regardless, this is one of my favourites - love the flavours of coffee and chocolate come together so well. One piece is never enough!

Lessons learnt:

• Sharp, clean hot knife when cutting the edges off
• Layer need to be as even as possible

Camera cake

With all the photos taken of all my creations in the past 3-4 years at my disposal, I have decided to start with my Hubby's birthday cake. This was an easy choice. I would say this was the beginning of a new world for me. Prior to this I would say baking was a "once in a blue moon" thing. Hubby's into photography - which as you will see, is wonderful. I'd say he's taken photos with his macro lens of my cakes more than anything else!!

What could be a more suitable "theme" for Hubby's cake than a camera itself?

It took a few weeks of planning. Ploughing through pictures and cake ideas, I decided that I wanted to make a camera figurine on top of a cake. I initially used his current camera ( at the time) to try and get the dimensions as close to the real thing a possible. From the body, lens, details of the dials. I was making good progress until a week before the party (yes a week!!) he got himself a NEW camera. Sigh. Some features were set and couldn't be changed, but the outer details, dials, screen etc I managed to "adopt" to the upgraded version.

Because I wanted the camera to be the focus, I kept the cake fairly simple. Just wished I took more photos of it before we went to dinner! The place added a purple "tinge" to all the photos!!

Very proud of my first "proper" cake. First of many to come!

Lessons learnt:

• Colour icing black - not "paint" it on with edible powder and alcohol.
• Don't let Hubby upgrade his camera a week out before a party!!

No more procrastinating!!

I've been putting off adding to my blog as I wanted to put everything up in chronological  order. As good intention as I had, it has not resulted in ANY entries. As you can see. So. Out with that idea and see how things go tonite!!