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!

'

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!

Kiwiana Cake

Here is my 24th Birthday cake that I made in collaboration with a friend! She made the cake and I made all the decorations you see all around the cake! I wasn't so well round the time this cake was made, so she made more of it than was first planned but just getting it finished was a success! I was so proud of the result!!!

Here it is:

THE FINAL CAKE!!!!!!

Bottom layer is coffee cake with a coffee walnut filling.

Middle layer is lemon syrup cake with a tangy lemon creme filling!

Top layer is fruit cake wrapped in a chocolate wrap and topped with a chocolate print.

Close up of the top of the items on wires! We have Kiwi (like the goodnight kiwi), Ferns, Sheep, Kiwifruit, Pohutukawa flowers, Hokey Pokey ice cream, Jandals, and on the back is a Pavlova too!!

Side view!

Here is a back view of the Pavlova I was talking about!

Close up of the Pohutukawa flower!

Jandal, fern leaf and sheep! Made by my friend!

These are the decorations I made (from scratch), rugby balls, kiwi (bird), kiwifruit, buzzy bees, apples...

Close up of the New Zealand map!

I really loved how my Hokey Pokey ice creams and Kiwifruit came out!

Gumboots!! 

The chocolate wrap was soo cool! I thought it came together soo well! I was so blessed my friend helped me put this together and do so much for it to help me get it on time for my party! I was stoked!

A close up of the Apples that I did! 

The top had a Buzzy Bee chocolate print on the top! This was a gift to me and it came out so neat! It just so worked in to the whole 'theme'! I didn't have anything to do with the making of this part! I want to learn how to do chocolate wraps and prints, but we take things one step at a time! I will get there! 

This was a close up of the bits stuck around the wires by the base of the where they all stemmed from!

If you would like to learn a bit more about why all these things have such symbolic meaning in New Zealand then please visit these two links which explain more:

Wikipedia. What is Kiwiana? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiwiana

Kiwiana in New Zealand: http://www.newzealand.com/travel/about-nz/culture/culture-kiwiana.cfm

Cupcakes for a 2nd Birthday!

So it seems I am loading all my cupcakes photos on first! hehe... Thats OK I will work my way through! I tell you, I do have a lot here to upload! All sorts of different baked goods too! But we will quietly work our way through over the next coming weeks and hopefully bring you guys up to speed with where I find myself today!

This next batch of cupcakes were made for a Childs 2nd Birthday party, and they were well received and raved over! These ones were a huge learning curve as the first batter I tried out was horrible so I started again, then I ran out of cupcakes papers, then Dad came home with the wrong cupcake papers cause he went to the wrong shop, so Mum went out and got them, but then there were smaller type of cupcakes! haha! Never the less, it all worked out in the end. It was a full days project and took me over 8 hours in the end! Remembering that I use walking frames, and don't have full use of my left arm, so it does make things more challenging! haha! Normally it wouldn't take me quite that long, it just seemed to be "one of those days"

Aside from that fact, I put 110% into every cupcake and up until the end didn't skimp on detail on even one until I had completed them and was happy! Each cupcake individually took between 10 and 20 minutes to decorate.

The requested theme for this set of cupcakes was, 'insects, animals and garden theme' for a little boy! We even found little animal cupcake papers at the local store! Total score!

Here was the result:

The cow cupcake - he loved cows!

Thought I would experiment with a chicken! I was stoked how it turned out!

The frog! I think this fella is just way too cute! What you think?

The pig! This one was requested after seeing the last pig cupcake! Its become popular!

The ladybug was also requested! I played it up a bit with the leaves and little flowers in the garden!

 

Spider on his web!

This was the 2nd ladybug! Ladybug on her vine in the garden!

You cant have a garden and animal theme without a snail now can you?

He loved fish so I thought I would include one of those too!

Cant have a set of two year old birthday cupcakes without a number "2"!

And one just for fun! 

Although its a bad quality photo, this was the final group photo I have!

Because I had extra cupcake batter I made a batch of mini cupcakes and threw these in as a bonus free of charge for the adults! Vanilla cupcakes with vanilla butter cream, fondant heart decorations finished with sprinkles! I thought they were pretty cute and the recipients were so grateful! :)

I am nearly embarrassed to include this photo, but this was the failed batch. Of course they tasted fine, but the cupcakes broke away too easily from the paper and the icing wasn't right! I know - I am fussy! LOL! After I decided that I was starting again I couldn't 'not leave them decorated', so while I was waiting for the new batch of cupcakes to finish I quickly topped these with fondant press outs! Some of the kids helped me. The butterfly's were meant to have little antenna but they melted on the icing. They were quickly decorated in about 20minutes tops, and these were just for the family! Tasted fantastic, but just weren't quite so eye catching!

Cupcakes for a 70th!

Hey Guys!

This was my for my parents cousin's party! Cupcakes for a 70th birthday! I was told to make them fun and happy, have fun and go wild "you know what to do", well after only two go's at making them I decided to give it my shot. This time I mixed up butter cream swirl and fondant tops!

This was the outcome!

Buttercream swirl with a fondant butterfly topper finished with sugar sprinkles!

The pig was specifically requested! hehe

This one is called "The Bow", it was my first attempt at a bow without having a clue how they are normally done, I had made the fondant bow a few weeks before hand  and then just 'placed it'. Its sits upon a fondant swirl colour top decorated with coloured glitter gels!

Butter cream top with a simple butterfly fondant topper and coloured sprinkles!

Blue top with cross hatch gels and silver balls to finish!

Lauren (sister), made this cute as snake cupcake!

Butter cream top with fondant butterfly decorated with glitter gels and finished with sugar sprinkle!

A number "70" cupcake was also requested. That is what I came up with! :)

This was the final result! They were an awesome surprise for the 'birthday boy', and well received by all! 

With that I say, "Mission Accomplished!"