B&W 16th Topsy Turvy Birthday Cake

So I am happy to report that I got my first gig from a market contact. I was hoping that by doing the local Friday market here in town it would get the word out that I AM FOR HIRE and I.make.cakes! I hope this is the first of many to come. This one was a sweet surprise from a mother to a daughter. I love being a part of these kinds of special celebratory events.

I was sent a picture to copy, and I did my best to stick to it. I will say that fondant letters are not my friends. I redid that 6 like four or five times because as I would try to jam that skewer in to give it stability (and a way to stand on the cake) the whole number would get so jacked that it was beyond repair. I will have to read up on these and get some more practice to get them more crisp and clean looking. Other than that this is by far a better effort on achieving that topsy turvy look than I have done in the past, so I was pretty happy overall, and so were the customers, so HAPPY DAYS! Onto the next…

Easter

Finn has been excited for Easter since Christmas. No joke, he wanted to know when the next holiday was and started counting down from then. He really really likes Easter. I mean, what’s not to like about Easter. But, he REALLY likes it, anticipates it, talks about it, counts down to it. I think it is all about the egg hunt. He loves to play Blue’s Clues, Hide and Seek, and Safari (which is just when I hide animals all over the house and he gets to go and find them). So he enjoys the pursuit of something. So here is how our Easter morning went.

He tried to act super casual about it as he went looking.

But then he spots one…

And the true feelings come out!

And he sweetly helped his sister as well.

Now Téa’s morning went a bit differently. We tried and tried to show her how this egg hunting thing worked. In the end we handed her a few eggs and she spent the rest of the time chowing down on sugar.

Here she is saying “cheeze” for the camera, mouthful of sugary goodness.

And here she is about an hour later. Still going…

As per the tradition that we learned about here in Australia, Finn also got an Easter gift. Of course, it was Angry Birds related. He got some new characters and a giant chocolate egg.

One very happy boy.

Then in the afternoon we invited over Finn’s bestie and his sister to dye Easter eggs, decorate Easter cookies, and have yet another egg hunt. Rather than give a play-by-play. Here is a pictorial story of Easter afternoon.

Ok, I do have to stop and comment on how cute Téa’s black spotted eggs are. 🙂

Finn and Johnny

Bridget

And the boys are off…

 

And then we went to church in the evening. We have reached a parental milestone. We saw our kid sing in church for the first time! Finn was excited to do it, and we were excited to watch. Here is some of the cuteness.

Here he is enjoying applause.

Ok Ok, I’m done. I am now one of those snap-happy font-row moms. 🙂

 

Frank’s Luau Cookies/Bikkies

My hubby is not a big cake guy. He does, however, curse my name when I make sugar cookies, because he can’t resist them. He is a guy who likes to stay fit and eat healthily whenever possible. The one exception he will make is on his birthday, when he can indulge guilt-free. Soooo…here are his birthday goodies.

His party was luau-themed. So coconuts and grass skirts were in order. And before anyone thinks I’m a cookie creative genius, I must tell on myself and give credit where credit is due. If you google luau sugar cookies you will see all manner of people I totally swiped ALL of my ideas from. Thank you especially to SweetSugarBelle & Dessert Menu, Please for basically all that you see here.

Struck Cookie Cutter Gold Today!

Ok, most people would probably scoff at this, but my day was made today at the Salvos (Salvation Army). While I let my kids run rampant in the toy section something caught my eye on one of the kiddy-designated shelves. Here she be…Did you happen to notice the price tag on that baby?!? Yeppers, $3 whole dollars for a cookie cutter goldmine. I feel like a big winner today. Can’t wait to get to work with these!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day

No, this is not a repeat post. Although it might look a lot the same as the last. Now that St. Patty’s Day has actually arrived (well, this weekend), I thought I might try my hand at a few more designs using the pot of gold idea. This time I piped thick lines of chocolate and used either sprinkles or colored mini chocolate chips to create the rainbow, and this time I also managed to find little disc-shaped sprinkles (which were multicolored, so I had to pick through with tweezers to find the yellow ones, which drove my husband absolutely crazy to watch) which I used to make the piled gold in the pot. I then piped a little white chocolate in the shape of a cloud and affixed it to the rainbow with chocolate as well. I was quite pleased with these variations, and I benefited from a bit of Googling where I saw the idea of drying the cake pops upside down to flatten out the top which created the lip on the pot. So simple, but so genius.

Another project this past week was our church’s one year anniversary cake. Like a doofus I forgot to snap some pics before delivery, so here is a pic of it on the floor of the front seat of my car. Oh well.

Just to tell on myself the letters were royal icing transfers. In other words, I printed the logo out on paper, then laid parchment paper over it, and piped on that, tracing the letters. Once they had dried, I gingerly, and I mean gin-ger-ly, peeled them off and stuck them onto the cake. I am NOT that brave or able to pipe this kind of lettering directly onto a cake. The extra bonus was that I managed to only break one letter, and I had done 3 sets, so I used the extras around the base of the cake which added a lot in the end (and would not have been possible to pipe freehand). And then the candy All Sorts finished it off around the bottom and a top, which I thought fitting as our church is made up of all sorts of people, personalities, ages, etc. It was a fun one.

St. Patrick’s Day Inspired Treats

I had what I thought was an original idea of making pot o’ gold cake pops as St. Patty’s Day is in a few weeks time. I googled and found out, yet again, that there is nothing new under the sun. I did try to do my own spin on the idea. The pot is chocolate mud with candy stars as the legs all dipped in dark chocolate. The pot of gold are hundreds and thousands “glued” on with royal icing and painted with edible gold glitter. The gummy rainbow candy was from the convenient store down the road from us. I liked that the rainbow was sort of suspended, coming down from the sky.

But I tried a couple of other styles as well…

Then I thought I might do some similarly-looking bikkies. I used a circle cutter and a shooting star cutter and mashed them together to get the right shape. I will admit that these cookies, for me, end up being a bit too soft and crumbly to be strong enough to handle the weight of the royal icing on the end, so I had a lot of casualties, which is so demoralizing after you spend so much time decorating them for them to break in half right at the seam when moving or bagging them. 😦

I then consulted Sugarbelle for some more Irish-inspired designs and found a slew of super cute leprechauns. She showed how you can use almost any shaped cutters to make these guys. I paired a snowman head and a flower cutter for his beard. They turned out great. Thanks again Sugarbelle, queen of cookies!

The market was a wash this past week – literally. There was so much rain and wind it washed away the people, and it also washed away some of my creations along with my big market umbrella…several times. Yikes! I was able to drop off a lot of these guys to a few local cafes, which was heaps good. We’ll see how they go. I pray I have the luck of the Irish. 😉 In the meantime, Happy early St. Patty’s Day!

Some More Sugar Cookies

I participated in the Friday Wollongong Market this past week. It really was such a great experience. I will post a pick soon of my booth. Meanwhile, here are some of the sugar biscuits/cookies I sold.

Chinese New Year Lanterns (wholly and directly inspired by Sugarbelle) which most people mistook for hot air balloons. I didn’t mind.

Princess Tiaras

Surfboards

And ice cream cones

My next market will be next week, Friday, just in time for some St. Patrick’s Day inspired cookies. And I’m thinking about maybe trying out a tutorial post for this next batch. Stay tuned. 😉

Cake Pops

These are just a yummier, cuter, bite-sized version of a birthday cake. It is simply cake crumbs mixed with frosting rolled into a ball and dipped in chocolate or candy coating on a lollypop stick. Gotta love them! They are finicky to make, take some time to bake+roll+freeze for 15 min.+dip the stick+dip the whole+decorate, and not the cheapest option as they require sticks, a styrofoam board to dry them in, and some kind of cello bag to keep ’em fresh and dust-free. On the upside, they keep for 2 weeks (because they are encased in chocolate or candy), they are scrumptious, and they are just plain fun to look at and eat. Here are some pops I’ve made – the first ones were for the Friday Wollongong market this past week and were well-received and enjoyed by many.

If you have a reason to pop a pop in the near future, don’t hesitate to let me know. And thank you Bakerella for putting your ingenious idea out into this world. I have been truly inspired. 

My Messy Lovey

Most of my day is spent picking up after someone. I think that is every mother’s plight. I have heard an excellent metaphor for the time spent raising young children – “It’s like shoveling in the midst of a snowstorm.” So cleaning up is not my favorite part of parenting, BUT there are some messes that I think are funny and make me smile. My daughter, Téa, is always into something, literally IN it, which means she is usually covered in something “messy”. But here are some of those messes that make me smile…

Food.

Ink.

Sugar.

Sand.

Aren’t you smiling too? 🙂

Let’s Go Fly a Kite

My friend Michelle suggested, on a rather blustery day, that we try out some kite flying with the kiddos. It turned out pretty great!

Here is her amazingly gorg’ daughter having a go.

Téa and I tried our hand as well.

This is our beautiful “wind blown” look…

But I don’t think anyone had more fun than Sam did. Check out these winning smiles…

At one point he took off running toward the trees (or maybe the wind was pulling him there as it was crazy gusty), and this did lead to a rather stuck kite.

But it was “Mommy to the rescue”, and after quite some time of tugging and pulling (I was impressed by her sheer determination and unwillingness to let that kite go) it finally wriggled free, and we were off again – sending them soaring. (Yes, I have been singing this song in my head ALL DAY LONG!)

And we only had to untangle the line once or twice…or three times. 😉

Thanks Michelle, and Mary Poppins, for inspiring a great morning.