Orange Cake!

This is an orange cake I made from The NZ Healthy Food Guide... Its more healthy than a standard orange cake and has been adapted to be so. Its certainly not a "sweet cake", its a very deep orange flavour! Its the kind of cake you would have with ice cream, cream or so forth. I guess its the type you would find in an upper class style cafe in my imagination! The texture is simply gorgeous!

You start off first by boiling the oranges for one hour.. Interesting indeed - I hadn't seen it done before! 

The you blend them - rind, pith, seeds and all... Blend them whole, not one part wasted!

You beat up the egg whites to peak, and add the egg yolks, almonds, vanilla and flours! Its an interesting batter if remember... It tasted pretty good though, I can never pass up raw cake, cookie or batter! haha!

Then you bake it in the oven for 35-40 minutes! Mine doesn't really look like theirs, but it still tasted great!

And here we have a cake all finished, dusted with icing sugar and served on a pretty platter!

Inside of the cake, so soft and moist!

And of course, here is your piece... Would you like it??

If you would like to try this cake and are after the recipe visit: http://www.healthyfood.co.nz/recipes/2010/june/hfg-orange-and-almond-cake

Gluten Free Mud Cake!

This is a cake I made for a friend who is gluten free. Actually the only ingredients in it are get this, dark chocolate, cream and eggs!! Incredible huh? Its a number of steps but its SO worth the final outcome. Serve it at room temperature and you have a chocolate cake that melts in your mouth upon contact - decadent!

Here are a couple of photos!

I don't have any of it being made in the process, but this was the final result - gorgeous! I decorated it with what look like mini manderines but they are in fact only an inch in diameter and aren't that great tasting - so purely decoration only... That and mint with a dusting of icing sugar! 

This is one rich cake, so serves about 20 people, at least! haha!

Blueberry Crumble Cake!

Here is a "Blueberry Crumble Cake" I made one night for supper!  

Its such a moist cake, I would recommend it and make it again!

First you make the batter, its a sweet but quite plain batter... then the good stuff! 

You add all the yummy blueberries and then the yummy crumble topping! The combination together is great!

The final baked cakes! Woop woop! Its pretty good! 

Good stuff!! I reckon a side view always helps give good perspective! 

YUM!! The blueberries sink through the cake as it bakes and you get a moist sweet cake with a crunchy top, some of the topping also sinks and some of the batter rises giving an all over nice cake! 

Coffe and Walnut Sponge with fresh Whipped Cream and sliced Strawberries!

Hey there!

Wanted to post some photos! My AMAZING friend Judy made me a coffee and walnut sponge for my Spirit Sparkplugs Pancakes breakfast this morning! We had it at lunch with coffee and I can tell you, it was so good! The combination worked soo well! I wanted to post some photos for some friends of the finished cake we had!

I thought it looked quite cool! It sure tasted good!! :) Judy has the kindest and sweetest heart!!

The finished cake! Soo beautiful isn't it?

Side view! Sorry my photos are blurry - I currently only have a phone camera - and its crap! LOL!

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I think the inside of a cake always shows how good a cake is.. Gives it another view and you can see all the goodies hidden inside the gorgeous cake!! It was really good! I am a sponge cake convert! hehe...

Vanilla Bean Cake with White Chocolate & Strawberry Ganache! YUM!

I decided last week to make a cake for a friend, sometimes a cake is just called for! So I had found this neat recipe I had wanted to try for some time so decided to give that a go and then went to work to find an awesome filling/topping! I found a score winner with both the Vanilla Bean Cake recipe and the White Chocolate and Strawberry Ganache recipes - Compliments of www.cakecentral.com ! STOKED!

Here I am with the cake in progress... I didnt get any of just the cakes on their own, but if you could smell the aromas, ohh boy! They were good! It was my first time using vanilla beans and I am now a huge fan! They smell amazing and you yeild quite a lot from them as well - I was surprised!

This is the first layer of the cake! I made the ganache and put it on top of the first cake (on that note, the vanilla bean cake recipe makes awesome level cakes and one recipe makes the two cakes!) I decided to dice up fresh strawberries for the middle layer as a surprise! It looked and tasted awesome!

A side view for you! (I cleaned the board before I gave it - Im still getting used to using the different things, its only the second time I have done a cake like this - and the first time to use ganache!)

Nearly finished! I staked the second cake on top of the first and covered them both in the ganache! I then surrounded the entire cake in white chocolate filled wafer completed with pink bow! 

I topped the cake with three fanned out strawberries! CAKE COMPLETE! 

Just another view....

Top view of the cake! I love this photo because you can "see down" the wafers in the cake! hehe

Last photo, close up of the strawberries! I call this cake a success!!

This morning we got a knock at the door... My sweet friend brought back a piece so I could try it too! I can confirm it tasted good, I was also informed there is only a very small piece left this morning! So there has it, I call this cake a winner! Vanilla bean will defiantly be made again! I will get better at the ganache as well! 

Practise makes perfect - onwards and upwards! :)

Spa Pool - Rainbow cake! Lauren's 15th Birthday!

So I thought I would update photos of Lauren's birthday cake! It was a TOTAL surprise and made in a day! She had no idea, and I think that was the best part - she was stoked to see it on the table when she got home after school! It made all the effort worth it! I had been planning this for months what I wanted to do... Here is the final result.... Will start at the beginning and work my way through the photos in order!

This is what I started with. 7 different colours in 7 bowls! I had to measure all the batter to start with, then divide the amount of batter by the amount of bowls, measure out the batter into the bowls and colour each bowl of batter accordingly! It was a bit fiddly, bit messy and took some time but it was worth it!

Next thing I divided the amount of batter in each bowl by half and then using a cup measure, I started filling the cake tins. You start with your first colour, using a cup measure you remove half the batter from the bowl one at a time and put your colours in one at a time following the colours of the rainbow. You put each colour into the middle of the pan, and then as you put another colour, the colour before spreads out, creating the layers effect. Between each colour you need to wash and clean the cup measure so as not to mix the colours. It sounds a lot, but once you get into a rhythm its pretty easy... Once you have filled the first tin, you then use the remaining batter in the second tin, except this time the batter is added in reverse! The second tin is a bit easier as you don't have to measure it all out, you just add the remaining batter from the coloured bowls! There are a lot of dishes, and I did use ALL our bowlst, haha, but if you have a dishwasher its easy sorted! 

About a week before I made the cake I made these little fondant people (with a little added tylose for you cake decorating people). I coloured the fondant and just went with it. I have NEVER made hands, legs or heads before, so considering that I thought they turned out well! These little fells aren't finished! I added black gel as their eyes where you can see the dots I made. I loved how the hands and legs turned out! I gave the little characters hair, ears and the girl a bracelet! 

And here is the finished cake!! I was so pleased with how it came out! I layered both cakes with a butter cream filling, then I crumb coated the cake with a thin layer of butter cream. I put a bit more butter cream around the side of the cake and then I tinted the vanilla butter cream with blue for the top of the cake to make the water. I had brought and hidden a big bag of fruit sticks (a candy in NZ) and then I placed them right round the outside of the cake to form the enclosure of the spa. I used nearly the entire bag, it took a lot more fruit sticks than I thought it would! I then placed the fondant people in the pool! I was going to place something on the boys hand as its outstretched to get something but I ended up leaving it. I was happy with the final result! Lauren came home and loved it. The inside was a surprise! The best part! haha!

My gorgeous sister with her cake! She was soo keen to try it! haha!

This was the girl close up! Relaxing back with her feet up in the air, bracelet still on her left wrist, just chilling!

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Close up of her feet relaxing up out of the spa!!

The back of her head! I did a big bow up in a pony tail! 

The back of the boys head! I gave him just a bit of hair on top of his head!

And the front of him! I like his mouth, worked on that one and am quite proud of the final result! I have one of his hands reaching out to recieve something, the other hand was moe holding onto the side of the spa pool!

And here we have the inside of the cake! YUM!!! How cool does that look - Lauren got such a big surprise! Its rainbow in layers of colour... Just like a rainbow!! :D

Here is a piece for you!! Butter cream filling.. Fruit sticks on the outside. Its vanilla cake flavour! Sooo moist too! What more could you want?? Didnt need any extras - it was PERFECT on its own! YUM!

Now that we have dished out a few pieces, here is a better view inside the cake! The bottom of the cake board was covered in buttercream to help the cake stcik to the board! Probably put a bit more than was needed, but everyone loved getting their fingers in it so worked out well! Sooo good!

What better way to finish this post than a picture of this special gorgeous girl BIRTHDAY GIRL! I cant believe she is 15 now!! Shes amazing... I love her stacks! This cake was worth every bit of effort!

Christmas Cakes with Judy!

Today I made Christmas Cakes with Judy! It was sooo much fun! We made 10 of them all up! I loved it, it was my first time using royal icing, first time piping letters, first time using a crimper, and covering little cakes! I REALLY had so much fun! It was a long day (for me and my abilities), but it was so worth it! I would do it again in a heart beat, in fact tomorrow I will do a bit of something else with another friend, but that's different!

These were Christmas cakes. Fruit cake underneath, covered in almond icing and the in fondant! It was my first time using the embosser and cutter for the boarders as well! Very cool! Some of the boarders I dusted up with lustre dust, but others we just left! Anyhow, stoked with the final outcome! 

Here are the photos:

OK, so we will start from the beginning! I have to say, I am not proud of the writing here, BUT in all fairness it was my FIRST EVER go with using royal icing, using a piping bag, writing on a cake and doing it free hand to boot! So with all that said, I don't think I did too bad of a job eh?

This was my next attempt! With a bit more practise and some guided words, I did a MUCH better job, you think? I was given some stencils in a box from someone (I actually have no idea, it was a brand new box set sitting on our front door step!!) and so put them to use here... It was fun! I didn't get the "P" lined up quite right, but that's no matter... the final result, well you just wait til you see them all finished! 

OK... So this cake we marbled... Actually, Judy did the first one, and I followed cause I liked it so much!! Isn't it neat?? I thought so! She also taught me how to stencil the "Merry Christmas" sign with royal icing!! Its quite effective, I like it! I soo soo enjoyed my day today! More so than anything recently, you know, its SUCH an escape from sickness, from battling pain and illness. I was in pain, but I was able to kind of 'block it out' with being so focused and working on the cake decorating! That's why I enjoy it so much! 

These are all our "cakes in progress", Judy and I were doing them together, so they are joint efforts! Judy actually made all the fruit cakes first out, and I just helped to cover and decorate them all! Shes soo lovely! I really enjoy hanging out doing our bits and chatting!! As you can see, we have quite a number of cakes 'on the go', OK.. Now to show you some of the FINISHED cake photos!! 

This was our first one I bring you! All finished! Judy had pre made all the flowers and leaves a few days before I came so that they were well dried and ready to go! I positioned them on the cake! We did each one different!

Here is a close up of the Christmas flowers for you! Soo cool!

What you couldnt see from the top of the cake, is the cool border we put right round the bottom! It looks awesome with the swirl huh? It took the both of us to place the border as it was quite delicate. The paste was pretty soft, and its quite fine detail, so it did take some work, but success ensued!

This is the finished "Peace and Joy" cake! I thought it came out quite cute, what do you think?

This was the side of it!!! *big smiles* Neato huh? I love the embosser and cutter! Its so cool!

This was the "Peace" cake all finished up! I enjoyed putting the flowers/leaves on in different patterns! They all have the similar toppers, but are all so very different!

This was the side of the "Peace cake! I dusted the side boarder with pearl lustre dust! 

This is an AWESOME cake that Judy made! Isn't the Christmas tree that she designed neat? 

This was the side boarder on the Christmas tree cake! I dusted it up too!

This is another one of Judys cakes! She made it before I came over! I loved her mixed design, and that's why we did more like that! I love the snow flakes, I just think its a real cute as cake for Christmas!

And this was the side of Judys snowflake cake! I just think its so different and funky!! LOVE IT!

Here is another! There certainly were many of them huh? It was a lot of fun to do!

And this was the side of it! Stoked! I learnt soo much today! It was fun, but I have told you all that already havent I? haha! Ahh well, you can hear it again! hehe.

And lucky last one to show you all! Another of the patterned ones! Simple but effective!

And finally! Here is the side boarder to this cake! I think we both did an awesome job on our cakes today!

I am totally keen to do some more too, can you tell I have caught the "cake creating bug"? hehe