Hairdresser Themed Cupcakes

Today I made up some hairdresser themed cupcakes for an 18th birthday. The chocolate flavoured cupcakes had multicoloured vanilla icing, and were all topped with a different hairdressing related item which was black and/or silver to coordinate with the black and silver filigree cupcake liners.

If it's not clear from the photo, the decorations are (from top left): mirror, comb, brush, hair dryer, scissors, bobby pins, curling iron, bow, straightener, curlers.

Caramel Banana Cupcakes

Caramel Banana Cupcakes. Need I say more?

Ever since I made the Banana Cream Pie Cupcakes, I have been craving the nostalgic taste of my mum's amazing banana muffins, and I when we decided to have a day out at the park yesterday I thought I would be the perfect opportunity to make some! I've also been wanting to make some caramel swiss meringue buttercream for some time and realised the subtle flavour would be the perfect match. Since I can never resist a tasty surprise filling, I had to add some extra caramel to the middle, and then drizzled some more over the icing to finish it all off.

Caramel Banana Cupcakes are gourmet and are priced at $40 for 12 or $65 for 24. As with all orders, please contact if you would like a specific amount of cupcakes and I can provide you with a quote.

This Week...

I've been a little slack with posting lately, but here are some photos of all things chocolate from this week. Above are some novelty dachshund chocolate cupcakes that I made to help cheer up a friend. Because who doesn't love sausage dogs?

It was also State of Origin this past Wednesday, so of course I made some blue and maroon cupcakes for the occasion.

Lastly, I made a vegan chocolate cake decorated with the Chelsea FC crest to commemorate their UEFA Champions League win.

Pink Pink Pink

Yesterday I made this strawberry milk flavoured cheesecake to accompany a little picnic my family was having. It ended up resembling Arnott's Hundreds and Thousands biscuits, and tasted just as yummy! The cheesecake was so light and creamy, and the sprinkles in the cookie crust and on top added a nice crunch.

I also made some Fairy Floss Cupcakes a little earlier in the week which were a big hit. They consisted of a vanilla bean cupcake with fairy floss flavoured icing and fairy floss on top - perfect for a carnival themed party!

Above are some vanilla bean cake pops, a great way to use the left overs from a levelled cake so that nothing goes to waste! If you would like to make some, all you have to do is crumble a cake into crumbs, and add vanilla icing until it makes a dough-like consistency that you can form into balls. Chill until firm, then add lollipop sticks and coat with melted chocolate or candy melts. They are sold for $1.50 each, or $1 when ordered with a fondant cake, with a minimum order of 20.

Banana Cream Pie Cupcakes

These cupcakes have been on my to-do list for way too long, and since I had some free time this week I decided to bake them while I had the chance. I'm so glad I did because it was even tastier than I'd anticipated! I started with a vanilla cupcake, then filled it with alternating layers of pastry cream and sliced banana, and topped it all off with dough flavoured icing and a banana chip.

There are so many different variations I can think of for this combination of flavours, like starting off with my mum's famous banana cake recipe, or having a whipped cream icing or a pie crust garnish, or even replacing the pastry cream with caramel and making a banoffee flavoured cupcake. I may just have to try that last one - yum.

Banana Cream Pie Cupcakes are priced at $40 for 12 or $65 for 24, as they are gourmet.

Jukebox Cake & 1950's Themed Treats

Over the weekend, my friend Louise celebrated the second of her 21st birthday parties (click here to see the cake from her first), the theme of which was the 1950's! I was very excited when she told me she wanted me to make her a white chocolate jukebox cake, because it was so different to anything I'd been asked to do before. 

I have been having so much fun making all of these different kinds of cakes and learning new techniques, and the feedback I have been receiving from everyone has been so encouraging so thank you all very much!

Pictured above and below are the other treats that I made for the party - chocolate cupcakes with candy melt records, and Alice In Wonderland (1951) inspired strawberry and vanilla sugar cookies.

My Birthday Cake!

As someone who is always on Pinterest and Flickr browsing cake ideas, I had so many options bouncing around in my head for my own birthday cake. Since I'd had such a busy week, I had been planning on making a quick and simple ombre coloured cake. I have no idea why, 2 hours before I was due to head out for my birthday dinner last night, I decided to opt for a chevron cake instead. Ahh, chevron! Is there anything it doesn't look amazing on?

I'm pretty happy with the decision, despite it being quite fiddly, because it just looks so cute on a small cake such as this paired with the edible sparkly cake numbers. As for the cake flavour, it was of course my favourite - hummingbird! 

Overall I had a fantastic birthday and would like to thank everyone who contributed to making it wonderful, whether through birthday messages, or from joining me in celebrating. I feel like every year just gets better and better and I can't wait to see what my 22nd has in store!

Happy Mother's Day! (Hydrangea Cupcakes)

Happy Mother's Day! Today my family and I went out for morning tea and to the local park and animal sanctuary, and then later had a relaxed picnic in our backyard with these delicious hydrangea cupcakes. These cupcakes were made with Nutella-filled chocolate cake and buttercream icing, which was coloured in to shades of purple and piped on with a large star tip to resemble flowers.

Bundaberg Rum Cake

Over the weekend my friend helped me create this Bundaberg Rum cake for her boyfriend's birthday. It's a great cake to have for a small party because it's not very big, but it still has the detail to make it look great! Unfortunately this is just an example and I am not able to sell a cake exactly like this, due to my copyright policy. If you are interested in ordering something similar, please send me an email and we can come up with an original design that will still be just as effective.

Step-By-Step Lace-Piped Cake

I keep intending to take more photos throughout making my cakes, and not just of the finished product. I finally remembered to do it when I made this purple, pink and gold chocolate cake. I probably could have taken some more photos, especially towards the end, but here is an idea of how my cakes get made:

1. Once I have baked, levelled, and iced the cake layers, I set up my workspace with a lightly greased fondant mat, a silicone rolling pin, a fondant smoother, and any other tools I will need. Then I colour my fondant. For this cake I used Americolor fuchsia colouring, and kneaded a small amount of Satin Ice black fondant into half of it to make the purple.

2. I then covered the cake in the purple fondant, used the fondant smoother to create a nice even surface, and trimmed off the excess.

3. Next I lightly brushed the top of the cake with a small amount of water to make it sticky, then I rolled out the fuchsia fondant and placed it on top. Then at the top edge of the cake, I used a small round cookie cutter to create a scalloped border. I mixed up some royal icing and coloured it to match the pink fondant, and then piped around the edges to help stick them down.

4. I continued piping in layers, working my way down to get a lace effect. The trick is to try and keep a steady hand and not to rush, keeping parallel to the bottom of the cake.

5. Once I had finished piping, I used the left over royal icing to stick some edible gold balls around the bottom of the cake.

6. To finish it off, I used uncoloured royal icing to pipe the message on top of the cake, and added a white fondant heart. To make it gold, I mixed gold lustre dust with a small amount of vodka (to make it dry quickly), and used a small brush to paint it on the dried royal icing.

And that's all there is to it! If you order a cake and would like some step by step photos to see how it was made, just let me know.

More Butterfly Cupcakes!

There has been such an amazing reaction to these Butterfly Cupcakes that I initially made for a little girl's naming day. This order was for an event hosted by a local organisation, and the butterflies were made in pink (the event's theme) and blue (to match the logo, a blue Q).

You can buy 12 Butterfly Cupcakes for $40 or 24 for $65.

Lemon Cupcakes

As much as I love fondant cakes, it has been far too long since I have done a cupcake post! There are so many more flavour choices, and I love cream cheese icing (which can't be used with fondant). So I made some delicious Summery lemon cupcakes!

The cupcakes turned out light and fluffy, with just the right amount of tanginess, and I topped them with some candied lemon slices to make them look extra appealing.

These are part of the regular cupcake flavour range and so are priced at $30 for 12, or $50 for 24.

Birthday Present Cake

Pictured is a vanilla bean flavoured cake designed to look like a birthday present! It was made using the client's favourite colours of black, bright green and pink, but can be personalised with any colour scheme. I have a feeling I'll be making one of these to put under my Christmas tree this year!

A present cake such as this one starts at $50.

Winged Unicorn Cake

This vanilla flavoured cake was made this weekend for a four-year-old girl who had a definite idea of what she wanted. A purple unicorn - with wings! I was also asked to incorporate pink flowers, stripes, a border of balls, a big number 4 and her name (photos were taken before adding it). She sure had a great vision because the finished product was the ultimate girly cake!