Photos from our Easter decorating classes over the weekend

Over the weekend we held cupcake decorating classes and cookie decorating classes. The ladies that attended had so much fun. I for sure got some great ideas for Easter.

Kiwicakes 6th birthday competition

It's that time again! - Kiwicakes is turning 6. And we're running our annual birthday cake competition.

Click here to see details of the 3rd birthday cake winner and here for the 4th birthday winner and here for the 5th birthday winner. I strongly encourage all past entrants to enter again, as when I think back on all the entries, it is with fond memories. I would have been proud to have any of the entries, as the winning cake. Your entry need not be a tiered cake, as you can see from our 5th birthday winner - it was stunning and a single level cake.

I'm asking anyone interested to design a birthday cake for Kiwicakes 6th birthday party. Your cake should echo what you feel epitomises Kiwicakes. Your design ideas can be sent to me in any form, for example, a sketch or even a photo of a previous cake you've made, feel free to add written notes describing how you might alter the cake from your photo, or what elements in your sketch represent. The winner will be required to bake & decorate the winning design.

Be sure to include what flavour(s) the cake will be and the approximate size of finished cake. I'm a great fan of discovering new flavours of cake. Our previous winners have wowed me with some of their flavours.

Where to send it
You can email your ideas to me at sandra@kiwicakes.co.nz or post to me snail mail at Kiwicakes, Po Box 4441, Kamo, Whangarei. Entries close April 14th 2012. Please include your telephone number with your entry.
The details
There are no design limitations for your cake, you can make it as big or as small as you like. However there is a limit of $75 for cake ingredients. I felt by limiting the cost of ingredients, this would allow design talent to shine through, rather than lots of expensive ingredients. The winner will be reimbursed for ingredients, to the value of $75
The winner will be required to make bake & decorate the winning design,  between April 15th and May 15th 2012 , at a time to suit them. I will then arrange for the cake to be collected from their home town for delivery to Kiwicakes.
I'll be loading the entries to the Kiwicakes blog (without the entrants names - so you can all remain anonymous) so that anyone interested can check them out.
Terms & Conditions - Kiwicakes 6th birthday competition
Prize is $500 worth of cake decorating supplies, chosen by Kiwicakes - delivered to the winner, at a destination within NZ. Prize is not exchangeable for cash.
Winner is required to bake and decorate the winning design between April 15th 2012 and May 15th 2012 to receive their prize.
Cost of ingredients up to the value of $75 will be reimbursed by Kiwicakes.
Competition is open to all residents of New Zealand (pick up address for cake must be within New Zealand).
The winner agrees to their name & photo of cake being used for publicity purposes.
Entrants designs will be loaded to the KiwicakesNZ blog.
Winner will be posted to Kiwicakes blog and will feature in a future edition of the Kiwicakes newsletter.
Entries close April 14th 2012

Purple Cake Day March 1st

Purple Cake Day was Thursday March 1st. This is a cause close to my heart. When I was asked to be an ambassador for the Kenbe La Foundation (the foundation behind PCD) I jumped at the chance. Kiwicakes supplies the icings, cupcake papers etc for all the cupcakes baked in Nelson (the home town of the founder Emily Sanson-Rejouis) as wella s raffle prizes. This year for Purple Cake Day Kiwicakes donated cupcakes, icings and decorations for the HIkurangi primary school, so all of the children could decorate 2x cupcakes each. I spent the day at the school, along with 2 of my lovely helpers Lisa & Lesley. We decorated 2 cupcakes per child, 1 class at a time

Hikurangi School had a purple mufti day, to raise funds for the Kenbe La Foundation.

The new entrant class visits principal Mr Bruce Crawford, to show him their efforts.

There were certainly some unusual creations on the day. 

Finished cupcakes had a stick with each child's name, so they could find it again after decorating their second cupcake.

Poppy's attire for the day was most fitting

Even some of the teachers tried their hand at decorating.

Waka Ama paddle cake

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A  few weeks ago I made this cake for my friend Leisa's husband Scott, he was 33 years young. I agreed to make a cake before I knew what I had to make. The request was for a Waka Ama paddle. Thankfully Leisa emailed me a few photos to work from. I wanted to do a logo in the middle of the paddle that included the birthday boy's name and age. Waka Ama NZ generously emailed me some logos, which I had printed as edible images - I used one on the handle as well.  The cake flavour requested was carrot cake, I didn't want to carve carrot cake (or in reality knowing me any cake), so I splashed out on a new tear drop shaped tin - which I adore (Fat Daddio's tins rock!)

As I sat contemplating my photos of paddles, thinking about wood colours, I was pleased to have my Satin Ice colour mixing chart on hand, as without it, I would not have achieved such great tones. I did the centre brown panel first. It was 4 parts yellow to one part chocolate, it's a little hard to see in the photo, but it is marbled. When I had the centre dark brown strip on the cake, I kneaded all of that remaining brown together and added a small amount of it in to some ivory Satin Ice, using Julie's marbling technique shown in her video below. I then took the remaining fondant scraps and rolled them in to a handle. (The cake board is covered in blue Satin Ice)

I was pretty pleased with how it turned out. I received a message that the birthday boy loved it too. A paddle is certainly not easy to try to portray in cake, as in reality they are super thin, but I think his cake represents one well.

GoBake courses held in Whangarei last week

The first week-and-a-bit of March has been super crazy busy!, March first was purple cake day (photos still to come). Then March 6th and 7th, we were privileged to have Trish from GoBake come to Whangarei and teach 2 fondant courses. She also visited and demonstarted at the Whangarei cake decorators guild. Below are some photos from our students 2 classes.

I adored the marbled colour combination above. I want it on my next birthday cake!

I can't wait for Trish to come back and teach her next courses with us. They will be something different next time. I heard a lovely large flower will be involved.

Our latest Kiwicakes ad

My skills are limited to cake making (and jewellery making in a  former life) I cannot create print material to save myself - seriously I cannot even show you my attempts. Thankfully as a young woman I had the foresight to fall in love with and marry an art student.  That art student grew in to a highly talented man, who just made me this. It's for an upcoming magazine issue. Simple but effective!.