(Almost) Australia Day

This blog post is entitled Almost Australia Day because I'm posting it several days late and with different cupcakes than I had originally intended. Due to the weather over the weekend we weren't able to have a traditional outdoor Australia Day get together, so my Australian themed cupcake decorations and my plan to make lamington cupcakes weren't able to be put to any use. These chocolate and coconut cupcakes that I made earlier in the month however are the next best thing, and what originally inspired me to make some. Next year I look forward to making a proper lamington cupcake, consisting jam and cream filled vanilla cupcake with a thin layer of chocolate ganache and then rolled in coconut.

Now for a flavour that I would make absolutely no changes to - Tim Tam cupcakes! I am a huge Tim Tam fan, and make Tim Tam truffles almost every chance I get, so it was about time I made some of these cupcakes. These cupcakes were made with a devil's chocolate base and had Tim Tam icing with half a Tim Tam and extra crushed pieces on top, and were made even better by the chocolate cream filling inside. It tasted similar to a real Tim Tam, only in cupcake form, so I'm pretty smitten with this flavour.

Mexican Fiesta Cake

An influx of February orders has allowed me to see just how far behind I've gotten with new uploads recently, and I'm ashamed to say this cake was made almost a month ago! I absolutely love this Mexican themed cake, and it's so different to any that I had made before. With themed cakes especially there can be so many different ideas to incorporate, and I have to make a special effort to make it still look cohesive and not over-the-top. 

I feel like this cake is a great example of having a very distinct Mexican style, without needing to include everything from cacti to margaritas. Instead I focused on fringing the cake in bright colours to look like a piñata since it was a birthday cake, and then having some fun with the number 21 on top by decorating it like a mariachi player, complete with a mini sombrero and maracas.

Wonderful Christmastime

I hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas with their loved ones, and of course filled up on lots of tasty treats! For my second Christmas post, here are some photos of treats that we enjoyed in the lead up to the big day, starting with my new favourite cookie (and that is saying a lot!). These pecan pie thumbprint cookies could not have gone wrong, with a combination of cream cheese based cookie dough, pecans and caramel, they definitely lived up to my expectations and are going to become a holiday staple in our home.

My fella and I also enjoyed baking gingerbread cookies with our son Elliott, and involving him in every step, from making the dough, to cutting the cookies out, decorating them with royal icing once they were baked, and of course eating them! Pictured is one of the ninjabread cookies that E cut out, and I decorated (though I must admit, this kid is pretty good with a piping bag).

Once Elliott got a taste of the cookies he had no more interest in doing anything except eating them, so I made these snowflake cookies from the remaining dough.

The last batch of cookies were red velvet cookies decorated with green chocolate chips. Although an excellent concept, due to the ratios of ingredients they tasted more like a regular double chocolate cookie (still yum, but deceptive with the red colour) so I may tweak the recipe a little bit if I make them again.

I also made two batches of truffles, the first being an updated version of last year's mint slice truffle, by adding a cake pop stick (this would also look amazing with a red and white striped straw) and a sprinkling of crushed candy canes. Pictured in the foreground of the photo are some Tim Tam truffles which were topped with some extra white chocolate, as well as a red mini M&M and some cut up green lollies to make it look like a mini Christmas pudding.

And lastly, since my fella has been requesting some chocolate cupcakes for far too long, I made some Corinthian Wafer Cupcakes (I'm actually not sure of the proper name for these wafer sticks, or if Corinthians are just the brand that I refer to them as, but you get the idea). These were chocolate cupcakes with dark chocolate ganache filling, a swirl of chocolate and vanilla icing, and a wafer stick garnish.

Last Christmas

As much as I love the Wham! song of the same name (and Jimmy Eat World cover), this is just a collection of photos of last year's holiday treats, and well as ones made throughout the year which would be great at Christmas time, such as this present cake. Unfortunately I haven't been able to take any orders over Christmas, but hopefully this will give you some ideas if you're looking to make a festive dessert.

Santa hat cupcakes - so cute and homey and a fun cupcake that I'd love to make again with Elliott when he gets a little older. If memory serves, these were white chocolate cupcakes with a small amount of chocolate icing, topped with a strawberry with white chocolate ganache trim.

Mint chocolate cupcakes - I made a batch of these cupcakes last year with mint flavoured white buttercream that was streaked with red food colouring to look like candy canes, and I'm kicking myself for not taking a photo of them! (Pictured are a similar version, only with green icing and a chocolate mint leaf)

Snowflake sugar cookies - bite sized vanilla sugar cookies decorated with silver cachous.

Mint Slice truffles - I made these for the first time last Christmas and they were a big hit (I've also done a Christmas-y update on them which will be in the post to follow)

Caramel fudge cupcakes - something about fudge just says 'Christmas' to me, so these are the first of three cupcake flavours made this past year that would be fantastic during the holidays. 

Ferrero Rocher cupcakes - Ferrero Rochers are once again a popular holiday treat, and are even more decadent in cupcake form.

Vanilla butterscotch cupcakes - these cupcakes made a butterscotch fan out of me and with the toffee shards on top would be especially great for a New Years Eve celebration.

Hello Kitty Cake (+ Cake Pops!)

In the lead up to my friend's birthday get together recently, we had so many ideas for different cakes to make, all of which were really fun and playful (such as her and her fiance's engagement cake). Since she was in the process of moving house and it was only going to be an intimate party we decided to go with something relatively small but still reflective of her personality, hence the idea for a 3D Hello Kitty cake! The cake was carved from a two tiered (6 and 7 inch) chocolate mud, with additional cupcakes made for the ears, feet, and fondant-covered cupcake, and it was such a joy to make that I couldn't resist also making some Hello Kitty cake pops!

This was the first time I've made cake pops that weren't round and they were surprisingly simple to make! They were technically Oreo pops since I had them on hand, and were coated in white cooking chocolate (which I find is paler than regular eating chocolate for some reason), with yellow confetti sprinkles added for the noses, pink hearts and a dab of royal icing for the bows, and the eyes and whiskers drawn on with a food colouring pen.

So Many Cakes!

Here is a quick round up of cakes that I've made recently, starting with a boy's baby shower cake with a newborn boy on top, resting in the clouds.

The next cake I made was for a 21st birthday party and was a black and ivory lace-piped cake with a few purple butterflies.

What I especially love about this 60th birthday quilt cake is that it doesn't just say 'grandma', but also includes the words mum, daughter, wide, friend, aunty, sister and ma-ma.

My son was so excited when I made this soccer ball cake and it was so sweet to see the birthday boy's reaction when he came to pick it up. I wouldn't be surprised if Elliott wants one just like it next year.

Last but not least is an extra large present cake in pink and white for a baby girl's christening, which featured edible sparkly pink ribbon.

Twix & Caramel Cookie Cupcakes

With lots of posts to catch up on, I figured I'd jump right in with two equally delectable creations that I've made in the past few weeks. If you've been on the JSTC Facebook page then you would have already seen these Twix cupcakes, which consist of chocolate cupcakes filled with caramel and crushed biscuits, iced with chocolate ganache and a layer of caramel buttercream and then garnished with a fun-sized Twix and a biscuit piece. I should admit that these cupcakes were actually made with leftover batter from a chocolate mud flavoured fondant cake that I was making, although if I were to make them again the flavours would go much better with a devil's chocolate base.

Going back to one of the first flavours I made, Cookie Dough Cupcakes, and then proceeding to the modern classic Oreo Cupcakes, and more recently Chocolate Cookie Dough Cupcakes, I think it's safe to say that I do love a cookie cupcake. Since I'm also a big fan of caramel, caramel cookie cupcakes were the next logical flavour to try making! In order to keep the caramel and cookie dough elements balanced, I started with vanilla cupcakes as opposed to a caramel base, and opted for caramel filling. They were of course iced in one of my very favourite flavours, cookie dough icing, and then topped with a chewy caramel cookie and a caramel drizzle.