Kiwi Cakes

Great new videos for baby shoes or trainers & a handbag

2012-01-30T14:23:00.000+13:00

Today I've loaded some fun new cutter sets to the Kiwicakes website from Frankly Sweet The oval cutter set makes these wonderful baby trainers (sneakers).

I've also added the new multi-use petal/leaf/bauble cutter set, which was used to make the Christmas baby bootie or trainer below.

Frances has also recently created this video below on how to make a miniature handbag using cutters from the miniature shoe cutter set

And lastly, I've added Frankly Sweet's latest book Sensational Sugar animals, just released last month. A great buy at only 29.99 a must have for those looking to model animals.

Life on board Pacific Pearl - PART 3

2012-01-27T21:51:00.000+13:00

The third instalment of life on board P&O's Pacific Pearl (see here for Part 1 here for Part 2)

If you can't already tell from my previous posts. I thought a lot about the way food was prepared & served on board Pacific Pearl. So I was thrilled when later in the week I learned there was to be a cooking Demonstration and Galley tour (which until this time, i believed the Galley to be off limits to us. It was timed for mid morning, so there wasn't too much action in the Galley to get in the way. The presentation started in the Marquee show lounge with Zoltina-J our cruise director introducing Patrice Mick (executive chef) and Rossen Mateev (Maitre D'Hotel). Between them they oversee hundred of staff. They cooked for us a Basil Marinated Grilled Prawn Risotto, which was on the menu at Waterfront resteraunt that night (coincidentally DH had it for dinner that night)

After the highly entertaining demo was over (Zoltina-J described the 2 chaps as an old married couple, they had worked together so long, but with their strong accents and highly comedic act, it was like a scene straight out of the Muppets!)

Lucky for me, when one of the P&O staff said to the hundreds of people gathered for the tour, he happened to stand right next to me and Grandma Kiwicakes, so we were in the front of the line heading down in to the Galley. This is just some of the wine being chilled.

You descend down in by escalator.

I was conscious I had hundreds of people behind me, so my photos was shot very much on the run. At this time of day mid morning, it was after Breakfast and before lunch, timed to be least busy in the kitchen for us to visit.

The space was actually quite large, but there was so many different cooking stations, prep stations etc crammed in there - it must be VERY hot working in there. I learned there are actually people employed solely to pick up anything that is dropped, so that the chefs do not compromise hygiene levels.

The "welcome to the Galley!" bread display was awesome

More of Armando's vege & fruit carvings

I'm not sure what they do in here!

We received a galley fact sheet that had an interesting list of the quantities of food loaded on board for a cruise.

This photo I took from the gangplank heading in is just a fraction of the stores loaded on board.

During each 9/10 day cruise commonly uses

3,000 doz eggs

1250kg tomatoes

1800kg pineapples

2000kg watermelon

7500 tea bags

450kg cucumbers

4000 lt milk

2812kg Chicken

650kg apples

500kg ham

662kg oranges

1400kg steak

And much much more!

From one of our Kiwicakes members

2012-01-27T21:09:00.006+13:00

This clown cake op display tutorial was sent in from one of our Kiwicakes members - Helia Whittaker. Thanks for taking the time to document this Helia!

Putting together Wilton Cake Pops stand. Also, have my paper ready to decorate.

Cut trimmings and attached with double sided tape

Using circle cakepops mould, using non-bake dough...yummy

Clown hats made from pre-coloured fondant

Sticks inserted into dough, ready for chilling

Starting to dip cakepops...harder than it looks, but finally got the hang of it after thinning my Wilton Candy Melts.

Homemade royal icing for trimmings, and coconut mixed with Wilton Orange Candy Melts for the hair...now I'm ready to decorate

Clowns chilling in the fridge...but can't get them to stand straight in the stand...they are unevenly weighted

Falling everywhere

Solution...to put bluetak around the base of sticks to help balance them and use curled ribbon to hide it.

Yet another new course added to our classes

2012-01-26T15:02:00.000+13:00

Click on the tab above for full details of the jungle animal cake class Wed March 7th 9.30am - 12.30pm. Everything supplied $100

Munchstache cookies

2012-01-26T14:26:00.000+13:00

A true friend indeed. Lisa from The Whole Cake & Caboodle offered to have my children for the day on Tuesday. She made moustache cookies with them. I also received one fresh from the oven DELICIOUS!

Working with fondant course Tuesday March 6th 1pm

2012-01-25T11:43:00.000+13:00

Come and join us!. It's going to be fun. Learn all of the techniques shown on this cake. Click on the classes tab under the Kiwicakes banner for the full info.

New classes loaded for 2012 calendar

2012-01-24T20:01:00.000+13:00

I've loaded details of new cake decorating classes today (with yet more to come). Click on the tab that reads "CLASSES" just under the blog banner. Classes include Wilton Course 1, Easter cookies & cupcakes. As well as a fondant course. Please do check this link often, as more classes will be loaded frequently.

Valentines Day Picks from Grandma Kiwicakes

2012-01-24T19:29:00.000+13:00

From Grandma Kiwicakes - here at Kiwicakes we have a vast array of products over 150 items click here for Valentines Day to see our selection

We have Fat Daddio's heart cake pans in various sizes and heart shape cutters in all shapes and sizes.

These Frosted heart pails are $2.20 each for the small ones and $3.20 for the larger,also in this pattern are packets of 20 cello bags for $8.25

We have heart cupcake candy and sprinkles and for something different jars of kissing lips sprinkles.

Cupcake papers in all shades of pink and red, especially appropriate would be these Robert Gordon papers covered in hearts

Chocolate transfers

Cupcake rings

Cupcake topper all in one silicone moulds.

Every colour of red and pink glitter and lustre to highlight your efforts.

The list goes on but this set of Cake Pop Moulds would have to be my top pick with the dear little heart shape mould. It would make stunning cake pops or truffles and of course we have all the extras to make these too. If you intend to make a home baked gift for Valentines we have everything you could possibly need.

Hamilton Demo Day Saturday 31st March 2012

2012-01-24T13:11:00.000+13:00

I'd love to see you here!. Kiwicakes will be there with our sales table.

HAMILTON CAKE DECORATING CLUB Invite you to their…
Easter Demonstration Day. Saturday, March 31st 2012. Discovery Christian Centre, Insoll Ave, Hamilton.
$25 Full Day, $15 Half Day (Morning/Afternoon session)
Demonstrations:
Carol Hogg - ‘An Easter Surprise’

Ann Shields – Easter Bunny

Corrine Green – Decorated Easter Eggs

Home Style Chocolates – Handmade Chocolates

Phillipa Crocker – Fresh Flowers

Michele Barnett - TBA

Join us at 9am for Tea and Coffee,

First Demonstrations start at 9.25am sharp.

Afternoon Demonstrations begin at 12.50pm

Please bring your own lunch, tea/coffee will be provided

Enquiries: contact Sandra Stark on 07 855 2318 or email sjnkstark@xtra.co.nz

Drawing of P&O cookbook - Winner

2012-01-19T13:15:00.001+13:00

Our winner is Megan with comment no#22. Megan I have left a message on your blog to email me, as your email address is not on your blog.

This was my first time using Random.org - True Random Number Service. I've not yet worked out how to show the Random.org banner on the top of the page like other blogs seem, to but I guess I can settle for it having picked a random number for me (any pointers on how to show the random org generation properly would be gratefully accepted)

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

Timestamp: 2012-01-19 00:07:36 UTC

The wedding of Mr & Mrs Stanners

2012-01-18T16:03:00.001+13:00

This weekend past, I made my first ever wedding cake. In the recent years that I've been involved in Kiwicakes, none of my friends have got married, they're either married, not getting married, or haven't found someone yet. So when my good friend Jodie announced she was engaged, I offered to make her wedding cake, as a wedding gift. At the time I offered, I did not know this cake would be travelling to an island - would I have still offered if I knew? - YEAH PROBABLY!

Kiwicakes chews up the majority of my life and these days, I have little time for cake making, apart from for the kids - I had made a total of about 5 roses in my 12 year cake making hobby, so this was a big step for me.

The cake design was a collaboration of some design ideas the bride to be had seen in magazines, but the final design was not copied from any one cake. I covered the cake in white Satin Ice on Thursday afternoon, in the worst humidity ever (in the middle of a storm) - the fondant was like bubble gum, I was tearing my hair out, I could not use a smoother - as it was simply sticking to it - but with no time to spare, I forged on. And what looked bad on Thursday night, did not look as bad on Friday morning. By Friday night when it was covered with roses, it looked 100% better - and many of the pits/ripples that were a result of the terrible humidity were covered with roses. So I can say I was almost satisfied with the cake, I doubt anyone else noticed the less than perfect finish on the white fondant - except for me. The most important thing was the bride & groom loved it. And I can now officially say I have made a wedding cake.

The groom picked us up at a tiny coastal town Rawhiti - 1 hour North East of my home - it took me a little over an hour to drive the road - as there are many hair pin bends, stretches of gravel road and pot holes. The boat was small - but fast

The groom assured me the back corner of the boat was the most stable spot. Thank goodness the top was covered in cellophane - it got covered in salt spray.

Leaving the bay was rather calm waters, I was reasonably confident the cake would get there in one piece - it had survived the car trip intact.

Then as we left the bay and entered open seas to head towards Urupukapuka Island, I became terrified for my cake, we hit some pretty big waves (the groom was being terribly careful), I could see the whole cake vibrating. I can only think my internal supports of one dowel down through all 3 cake boards, as well as individual dowels in each cake saved the day.

I am still utterly gobsmacked this cake arrived without a single broken petal - I had an extensive repair kit with me, and a few hours to spare.

I also did a blue/white/black candy buffet for the wedding. Unfortunately I only had about 10 minutes to set it up. This was due to the Island clsoing to the public when the last ferry left and the timing of the beginning of the wedding ceremony, once the guests had the island to themselves. The back drop of part of the cafe didn't allow me to get the best photos in my 60 second photo shoot. I look forward to the official wedding photographers photos.

Blue candy is not the easiest colour candy to find, I was thrilled to get Macey's milk bottles with blue tops (instead of just the usual plain white) I added personalised stickers to black lollipops and displayed them in a stainless steel lollipop stand from Kiwicakes

The sugared almonds I picked up in Noumea during my Christmas holiday.

Thank you Mr & Mrs Stanners for letting me be part of your wedding day

Life on board Pacific Pearl cruise ship. PART 2

2012-01-12T13:37:00.005+13:00

Welcome to part 2 of Life on board the Pacific Pearl. And the first of our P&O competitions. Leave me a comment at the bottom of this post to enter.

From my post Part 1 you may have an idea of just how much FOOD there was everywhere! in addition to all of the eating establishments that we could eat in at no charge, if you needed to eat outside of the meal times, there were additional options.

Such as Charlie's Cafe in the Atrium where Macarons were only $1 each and high hat cupcakes were $3. Grandma Kiwicakes and I did get a trio of Macarons to half between us, but we couldn't face all the frosting on the high hat cupcake - we were simply too well fed all cruise long.

The Chocolate Cafe, I previously mentioned was a favourite haunt for DH to get a good coffee and use the internet.

The cookies here were enormous, I didn't try one. The Chocolate volcano peaked my interest. And after getting a copy of Holidays - the P&O cookbook and seeing the Chocolate volcano in there - Grandma Kiwicakes & I just had to try one.

We ventured in to the Chocolate Cafe one afternoon and ordered one each, Grandma Kiwicakes got a coffee and I got a hot chocolate (which was awesome), it was a little dark in there, so my photos aren't the best.

When you cut in to it, the centre oozes out warm & molten, the raspberry sauce provides the lava

When the charming waiter came to collect our plates he asked if we enjoyed them, I tilted my plate and said "can't you tell" he looked at me and said "but of course! - I just wanted to hear it from your lips"

The recipe is in the P&O Holidays cookbook and P&O provides the recipe on their blog which is as follows

Warm Chocolate Volcano, Chocolate Sauce, 6 Portions

250 grams dark chocolate, chopped
100 grams unsalted butter, cubed
2 pieces eggs, at room temperature
2 pieces egg yolks, at room temperature
55 grams caster sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour, sifted
Unsweetened chocolate powder, to dust

Pre-heat the oven to 180 C. Brush 6 x 185 ml (6oz.) ramekins with melted butter. Place on a baking tray.
Combine 2/3 of the chocolate and butter in a small sauce pan over low heat. Stir frequently until the chocolate and butter have melted and the mixture is smooth, remove from heat.
Beat the whole eggs, egg yolks and sugar until thick and pale. Add the chocolate mixture and flour and use a large metal spoon or spatula to fold in until evenly combined.
Divide the mixture evenly amongst the ramekins. Stick a small quantity of chocolate into the center. Bake for 12 minutes until puddings have risen almost to the top of the ramekins. There are slightly underdone.
To serve, turn the puddings out onto serving plates. Dust with cocoa powder and serve with vanilla ice cream and dark chocolate sauce.

There are so many lovely recipes in this book, as I flicked through I saw recipes for main meals that myself Grandma Kiwicakes had for dinner. There is also a cocktail recipe for one of DH favourite cocktails from the cruise "Lychee Mojito", there's also the "Chilli Margarita" which I tried on the first night - gosh it sure packed a punch!

January 7th Was Grandma Kiwicakes birthday, we went to the Salt Grill for dinner. This restaurant carries an AU$40 per person surcharge, it was SO! worth it. I could not fault a single thing for my meal, which for me is rare, I can usually find something just not quite right - this food was exceptional!. Salt Grill has an amazing menu we had prawn toast tapa and a variety of sides to share, truffle mashed potato (exquisite), truffle parmesan french fries (not because I need fries with every meal, but for the simple reason I could not imagine what these could possibly be like) and a pear, rocket & blue cheese salad.

Both Grandma Kiwicakes & I opted for the lobster tortellini in coconut broth - which I snapped a photo of just moments after the waiter poured the coconut broth from a small jug.

DH& I opted for the eye fillet & Grandma Kiwicakes had the Scotch fillet for a main - the choices of sauces and mustards to accompany is exceptional. We all opted for steak, as our meal was towards the end of our cruise and we'd all been mainly eating seafood, chicken & special creations for the week, we all agreed we'd like to try the Steak at Salt, because it is so highly regarded. It was certainly the best medium rare steak I can recall in my recent eating history.

DH piked on us for dessert. Grandma Kiwicakes & I never one to let the team down when it comes to dessert took our time choosing. Grandma Kiwicakes opted for the petit fours and generously allowed me to eat one line. From left to right (raspberry tart, pistachio marshmallow, chocolate nougat & turkish delight)

I opted for the Licorice parfait - it was exceptional!

Our lovely cabin steward Melroy put up balloons for Grandma Kiwicakes. The kids were thrilled about this, as they had seen balloons all over doors around the ship, in the week leading up to Grandma's birthday and were hoping some were coming our way.

Before I left NZ, I had arranged for a cheesecake & bubbles to be delivered to Grandma Kiwicake's cabin. Perhaps if I had truly fathomed how much food is available on board I might not have done this - however it was inexpensive to organise at only $30NZ for both cake & bubbles. It was delivered at 12 noon as requested, but afterwards Grandma Kiwicake's was too full to eat any lunch. The cake although cheesecake, was not cheesecake as we know it - it had a very thin top and bottom layer of light as air sponge and then the cheesecake filling was light as air. All of this meant we could eat a really big piece (and seconds) The roses on top were marzipan, my favourite!.

It wasn't all food food food, I promise!. I did a premium wine tasting event which was well attended by other passengers. Poor DH agreed to join me, right after he'd just attended a 1 hour whiskey tasting.

We sampled 6 different wines, 1 pinot noir red bubbly 2 whites & 3 reds. Each wine was presented by a different member of P&O's staff.

We received a snazzy little book, that gave wine notes & other interesting facts & figures. The regular wine tasting (which I missed earlier in the cruise) was $16 and premium wine tasting was $22.

In Part 1 I introduced you to Armando, he is a highly skilled carver. I was thrilled to find he was holding an ice carving demo on the upper deck. I was surprised to find that a beautiful swan only takes him 15 minutes to carve.

These are his tools

The water is set with ammonia & gelatine, to make it clear and to prevent it from breaking easily, during the carving process.

As part of the ship's entertainment, there is a Pacific Cirque on board, these acrobats perform high rise acts out on the open decks. As well as indoors int he atrium and theatre. One evening I took the kids along to an aprx 30 minute laser light show, featuring Pacific Cirque in the Atrium area (reception).

If you look closely, you'll see an acrobat up the silken drop

It was not an easy feat to get the laser lights to show up in a photo. I took many photos, these meagre offerings were the best of them

Another of Armando's ice carvings featured on a lighted stand during the laser light show.

Tune in a little later for Part 3 (life in the galley kitchen)

COMPETITION: (Drawn Thursday January 19th 2012)

To win your very own copy of "holidays" - the award winning travel book from P&O. Simply leave me a comment below. Tell me have you been on a cruise?, where did you go?. Or if you haven't - where would you like to go? Make sure I have a way to contact you if you are the winner.

P&O Says this about this stunning book:

Featuring more than 60 delicious recipes from the Australian cruise line’s culinary team, the cookbook is a celebration of the transformation of P&O Cruises’ food and wine offering.

Following a massive overhaul three years ago, the cruise line’s fleet now features a contemporary menu specifically designed for the Australian palate and built around Australian and New Zealand produce and local wines.

The emphasis on freshness and flavour is evident throughout holidays, with recipes ranging from macadamia nut pancakes with mango and maple syrup to wagyu burgers and spatchcock with eggplant salad.

holidays also offers delicious desserts – from amaretti baked peaches to apple tarte tatin - alongside cocktail and canapé options such as lychee mojitos and mustard and sesame seared tuna loin with wasabi.
P&O Cruises Corporate Executive Chef Uwe Stiefel said the holidays collection featured the cruise line’s signature dishes and passenger favourites.

“Australians and New Zealanders love their food – they love to try different tastes and they love to eat well on their holidays so our cuisine is a very important part of the cruise experience,” Uwe said.

“Each of our four ships has more than 90 chefs, patissiers and bakers onboard who take delivery of close to 100 tonnes of produce every cruise and work around the clock to deliver delicious meals to everyone on board. The results are in this cookbook.”

With multiple restaurants offering an array of food from breakfast until late each day, Uwe’s team oversees more than 16,000 recipes.

“It was hard to choose 60 for our book, but we have selected an array of our passengers’ top dishes so that people can now enjoy our food at home as well as onboard our ships.”

Passenger favourites included in holidays include pork belly with scallops and red pepper pesto, coral trout with lentil salad and butter sauce, and cookies and cream cheesecake.

“The recipes are delicious but they are also easy to prepare– after all if you’re on holidays you don’t want to spend all your time in the kitchen!” Uwe said.

Life on board Pacific Pearl Cruise ship. PART 1

2012-01-09T12:01:00.004+13:00

Here is the first installment of my time on holiday with P&O's Pacific Pearl Cruise ship. I was travelling with Grandma Kiwicakes, DH & the kids - we boarded Sunday 29th December at lunchtime. Everything is certainly made easy for you. Our bags were taken from us on the dock and magically appeared outside our rooms an hour or so later.

Going up the gangplank we got an insight in to just how much food in consumed on board (more on that later) as there were entire pallets of just pineapples. Of course those are needed for our cocktails amongst other things.

We had a wonderful cabin steward named Melroy, who catered to every enquiry &; request we had. He delivered our Pacific Daily (the on board newsletter) each night, and turned down our beds, much to my delight with Hillier's chocolate on the pillow.

When leaving towels for the children, he made them in the shape of animals and popped their sunglasses on.

Our Captain greeted us early on and let us know there were over 1700 passengers on board with 707 staff. I never got the sense of seeing all those passengers at once. However the staff were so attentive at all times, that I was sure there was more than 707 of them.

During this cruise, I ate A LOT, drank quite a bit, gambled a little and WON!. There is simply so much to tell, I hardly know where to start, so I've opted to start with life on board the ship. I will fill you in on our port stops in subsequent posts.

One of the fitness instructors on board said most people gain 2-5 kilos while on a cruise. I haven't weighed myself, so can neither confirm nor deny this rumour. However with the abundance of food available 24/7 I would not be surprised.

The two main restaurants were Waterfront (a la carte) and Plantation (buffet). I ate in both of these establishments, we didn't always eat as a group of 5, in fact one night I went to the Waterfront by myself, as DH & the kids had already eaten and Grandma Kiwicakes begged off dinner. I sat with a great bunch of ladies and discovered one was a Kiwicakes customer (Hi Tracey from Manukau!)

As well as this, there was the Chocolate Cafe, Salt Grill by Luke Mangan (more on my visit there to come), Charlies Cafe and many additional bars. (more on these to follow)

My favourite bar was the MIX cocktail bar (photo courtesy of P&O website). Because it was quiet & secluded. I don't really go for the raging party scene (which was there if you wanted it)

Each day we could consult the Pacific Daily events schedule and plan what we would do for the day (especially if it was an at sea day and there was no port call). I attended many events from cooking demo's, galley tour, to ice carving, a cake decorating challenge, bingo (I had never done that!), towel folding (don't laugh it was awesome!) and so much more.

The weather was not kind to us on our journey, we had many grey days, but it didn't seem to matter, with all of the activities available. And I think we still fared better than the upper North Island of NZ over the same time period. Of course there's still plenty to do even if it rains - the P&O TV channels even had Cake Boss & Chocolate Wars.

There were great shops on board, to while away some spare time. There was the Chocobloc chocolate store, with an awesome M&M display in the window. Everything was of course duty free, so these stores were closed whilst we were in port.

Early in our cruise we attended the Cruise Fair this was an introduction to many of the talents of the ships crew on board. P&O used this to showcase some of the different services on board the ship. It was here I watched a cake decorating competition between 3 passengers. It was judged by one of the patisserie chefs on board.

These were the ingredients they had to work with. The sponge was incredibly light (I sampled it elsewhere on board) and very thin multiple layers. All of the small cakes available in the buffet were slices of multiple layers of this type of sponge, with a wide variety of fillings and topping. If only I could get my own sponge this light!

The girls hard at work

The eventual winner was Christine, her finished gateaux, was much in the style of the pastry chefs themselves. Here are a few of the cakes on show at the Crusie Fair. The flowers are made from marzipan.

We were greeted by the staff from the Chocolate Cafe with Chocolate Ravioli, with a little scoop of ice cream YUM!

The coffee I have on good authority from Grandma & DH was excellent, they often headed to the Chocolate Cafe for a decent coffee.

The bags of Belgian chocolate they use are enormous

I just adore eating good marzipan, so I was thrilled to learn all of the flowers & models on the sweets on board Pacific Pearl are made from marzipan.

There were some wonderful demos of towel & napkin folding

At the Cruise Fair, I met Armando, I learnt he studied carving for 5 years at college. He carved a watermelon in the space of about 5 minutes. (in a later post I will show you his ice carvings). His work was showcased in many of the restaurants and bars. I'd often see a piece of his work and wish I had brought my camera with me, as when I next passed the item was gone (such as on New Year's eve, the 2012 ice carving & Happy New Year pineapple display)

Well I'll be back again real soon with more photo's and updates and some of the promised competitions, with the goodies I brought back from P&O.

Back at Kiwicakes & rearing to go!

2012-01-08T19:30:00.003+13:00

Well it's been a great holiday break for me, tomorrow I am officially back on deck at Kiwicakes with fully recharged batteries - ready to dispatch the orders I received whilst I have been away. I cannot wait to share with you all the adventures I've had cruising on the P&O Pacific Pearl ship for the last 11 days with my family. I have some great photos and stories to share with you over the coming days/weeks about life on the ship as well as our ports of call. I've even got some great goodies to give away. So please do check back next week for the chance to win some great prizes and see how often all things CAKE featured in my holiday.

Were any of you on board Pacific Pearl last week?

Oh So cute reindeer pop - using heart mould

2011-12-19T14:43:00.001+13:00

This cake pop tutorial for reindeer cake pops comes from the manufacturer of the awesome cake pop moulds we sell. Look what an upside down heart can make!

Supplies you will need.

In addition you might need a black candy colour (for the mouth) and red colour dust (for the cheeks) and a couple of chocolate melts (for the eyes).

Dip the heart into the candy melts and right before dry add pretzels then let dry.

The Bow is two jumbo hearts facing each other. A drop of candy melts in the center and stick on the green sprinkle.

New cake pop moulds

2011-12-19T14:15:00.001+13:00

I was thrilled to open the boxes that arrived today, which contained the new release set of cake pop moulds because they are just so darn cute! This is definitely my Christmas present to myself.

Santa Ninjas

2011-12-12T14:52:00.000+13:00

Special thanks goes to The Whole Cake & Caboodle for this photo using our Ninjabread men cutters to make Santa ninjas.

Fruit powders in cheesecake

2011-12-12T11:10:00.003+13:00

After chatting with one of my lovely customers (that's you Kim!) and she was telling me about how she had used the passionfruit fruit powder in cheescake and was going to make them in the way I had for the Christmas bauble cheesecakes from 2009 (click here for that post - photo below). I couldn't resist trying it for myself and the taste, how can I describe it?, "to die for" comes to mind. What was also interesting for me, was my daughter was prepared to try it because it was just yellow (no black seeds) and she loved it, but would never previously try passionfruit, because of the "black bits"

But I had to take it one step further and try the raspberry powder as well, it rated right up there too, but passionfruit was definitely my favourite. However my dear hubby & daughter preferred the berry. It was so easy to split a cheescake mix 50/50 and do some passionfruit and some raspberry, it would be easy to keep everyone happy. I think they would work well in the cupcake size cheescake, like those I did with strawberry hearts from 2010 (click here for that post) And of course in the fruit powders - there's a wide range to choose from, with other berries, mango & plum too

I also think with a bowl of freshly cut strawberries, a squirt of cheescecake from a piping bag, using a decorative nozzle, makes a nice addition, following a heavy meal, when a large piece of cheesecake might be too much for lighter eaters. (I won't include myself in that one, I always have room for cheesecake!)

Staff Picks Chocolate Moulds

2011-12-09T15:56:00.001+13:00

Grandma Kiwicakes is guest blogging again.........................

Here at Kiwicakes we are surrounded by lots of lovely Christmas chocolate moulds. So many it was hard to choose .

SANDRA'S PICK

This 3d Xmas tree is so easy to make. Made in white Chocolate It will tone well with her Christmas colours of White and Silver. You could also use green candy melts or add some of our Americolor Candy colour to white chocolate for the colour of your choice. All of these moulds come with Instruction card and would make a nice inexepensive christmas gift.

KARINA'S PICK

Karina liked this mould and thought the small detail would be great to use as Decorations for other items.

GRANDMA KIWICAKE'S PICK

I like this Christmas Pudding Mould for something a bit different. I did like the Giant 3D Snowman Mould but thought that was outside my skill level.

Click Here to see our full range of moulds and dont forget we also have a great range of Christmas Chocolate Transfers, Candy colours and everything you need to make your Christmas treats

New My Little Cupcake Pop mould

2011-12-08T16:23:00.001+13:00

Kiwicake's is proud to be New Zealand's first stockist for the My Little Cupcake Pop mould

Just in time for Christmas priced at $12.95 This mould is attractively packaged, it would make a super cute gift of it's own.

It's for birthdays too!

Photo's from our cake classes this weekend

2011-12-05T14:12:00.000+13:00

Here are some photos from the classes we had here at the weekend. (Christmas cake pops, wild animal & Christmas critter modelling, as well as Christmas cupcakes)

The cake pops above were made by Aleisha (7 years) who came along with her Mum Tanya, they both had a lovely time

Our Christmas cupcake class was a huge success, held on both days, there were a wide variety of styles, but a firm favourite with everyone was the snowflake tree, made using snowflake plunger cutters, it looks great iced, or uniced.

The mini Christmas puddings were made with miniature mallowpuffs.

The snowflake plunger cutter sets, also make great little plaques, to sit figures on.

Fun Christmas trees with the kids

2011-12-05T13:35:00.000+13:00

This weekend past has been choc-a-block full of cake decorating on Saturday afternoon I made Gingerbread Christmas trees with the children and all weekend long, there has been classes here at Kiwicakes (more about those later)

As my youngest is only 5, I opted for the convenience of the pre-baked gingerbread tree kits however if you have older children, you can in stead purchase a cookie tree kit, which is a set of cutters that allows you to bake your own cookies.

The pre-baked gingerbread kit comes with all of the coloured icing, lollies and presents you need to make the tree (our children added the Santa, snowmen and plastic Merry Christmas plaque, these do not come with the kit).

This morning, they carried their finished trees in to school, which I had wrapped in cellophane for them - they drew many admiring comments from the other children and their teachers were in raptures, poor Miss Corby I thought she was going to cry.

The first photo is Mr 5's and the second photo is Miss 8's. My youngest needed a small amount of help, my 8 year under supervision, did it by herself)

Staff Picks at Kiwicakes - CUPCAKES (by Grandma Kiwicakes)

2011-11-30T16:08:00.001+13:00

With Christmas fast approaching we're all discussing our Christmas goodies . As Sandra is very busy getting all your parcels ready I thought I (Grandma Kiwicakes) would do a few posts on our picks for different items to use in our Christmas Baking . This week its cupcakes . The choices were endless.

We all had a really hard time deciding our favourites . To pick your favourites - Just check out the Category

Cupcake papers -Baking cups

Grandma Kiwicake's picks are

Standard Cupcakes - Red Gingham Cupcake papers with Small gingerbread men Icing

Mini Cupcakes - Wilton mini snowflake ornament Homemade cases and mini snowflakes made with mini snowflake chocolate mould painted with our new Metallic Food paint - Light gold.

Sandra's Picks

Standard Cupcakes - Standard silver cupcake cases with silver reindeer picks and silver tree cupcake picks . These have just arrived and are really lovely

Mini Cupcakes - Wilton Snowflakes Winter splendour cupcake cases and Metallic Silver Sparkling Sugar Crystals

Karina's Picks

Standard Cupcakes - Christmas Santa cupcake cases with Holly and Berries Sprinkles

Mini Cupcakes - Shiver me snowman mini cupcake cases with Hologram white glitter.

We all had a really hard time deciding our favourites. Which selection do you like best?

Photos from our last cake decorating class

2011-11-30T15:51:00.001+13:00

Last Sunday was our figure modelling class with Lisa - it was booked out with 12 students. Our students made horses & teddies, these photos were taken towards the end of the class, some of the horses were finished further after the photos were taken. I think they all look great!. We've just 2 weekends of classes left until 2012. Click on the CLASSES tab above this post under the Kiwicakes banner to find out what you can do Dec 3/4 or Dec 11

It takes a bit to get me super-excited!

2011-11-30T12:43:00.001+13:00

I shall try to refrain from using too many superfluous exclamations while raving about this new product. But I am so terribly super excited it may be a little difficult. The lovely Annabelle from Simmer Catering introduced me to this new product last week, I told her right away, it was something I wanted to share with you all. Well I won't beat around the bush............ I will get on and tell you about it.

This amazing range of fruit powder and freeze dried fruit, is a taste explosion in your mouth. It tastes divine, it looks wonderful and the moment I saw it, what seemed like a thousand ideas started rolling around my head.

These whole/sliced fruits and fruit powders are made from high quality, ripe and sweet fruit and then freeze-dried to produce intensely flavoured fruits and powders. Add the powders to icings, to your favourite brulee mix or smoothies. Chocolate dip the whole/sliced fruits, crumble them over ice cream, add to your cereal or just eat them as they are. There are 10 flavours in the retail range and they are all packed in re-sealable foil bags. The colour is intense and the strawberries when used in things such as rocky road, keep their wonderful sliced appearance (no mushing like fresh fruit)

These wonderful fruits have recently appeared in Gourmet Traveller magazine's Hot 100, Cuisine magazine, and they even featured on NBC's today show in the USA as a hot new product - which is no small feat for this wonderful product from li'l ole NZ.

Whilst I had a heap of ideas racing around my head - the very first thing I wanted to try was raspberry buttercream. I frequently make raspberry buttercream, I usually use frozen fruit (with or without seeds). It takes a little while to mash the frozen berries through a sieve for the seedless variety and the juice makes it a bit messy. This in comparison was a breeze. I found the buttercream intensifies slightly in flavour overnight, which in my opinion was great. I loved it in the evening and adored it in the morning. (photos to follow of my icing on cupcakes)

I am keen to also give the raspberry meringues a go, the recipe comes from Meredith's Restaurant and is available on a recipe card for anyone wanting to try this.

Which fruit do you fancy?. What would you make?

4 new designs in the clikstix range

2011-11-26T21:22:00.000+13:00

For those of you that love our clikstix cutters, you'll be pleased to know today I've added the 4 new releases to the Kiwicakes range. These are multi circles, multi squares, sports & multi bows.

If you've never used a clikstix cutter before, you don't know what you're missing - the strip cutters have a built in ejector, so that if any icing does not immediately release, you can press the ejector and it drops clear of the cutter. Click here for the new clikstix designs.

Are you looking for a paid cake decorating job in Auckland?

2011-11-23T15:20:00.001+13:00

Sweet Bites Cakes is looking for someone to join their team (click on the poster to enlarge).

Is anyone making shortbread for Christmas?

2011-11-22T21:41:00.000+13:00

This year Christmas day celebrations will be held at our house, as the family comes to us. Which means I will be making shortbread. For anyone that remembers this post it will be that recipe I follow, and I will be sure to use Grandad's shortbread mould for at least one batch, but this year I'm pretty thrilled with my selection of Shortbread moulds, all new at Kiwicakes for 2012 - I might have to give another shape a try. Deciding which will be the hard part. Maybe I'd better let the kids choose.

Our range of moulds are used to shape the dough, you wouldn't normally bake in them, but if you prefer to, they are oven safe.

Our cake decorating classes

2011-11-21T22:04:00.000+13:00

This weekend, we had a cake pops class and a figure modelling class here at Kiwicakes. I sat in as a student on the cake pops class, as I had never made them, I enjoyed making them very much. Below are photos from the class, there is a mixture of student and tutor work, I'm not attributing each item to it's owner (as some didn't want me to), (but the elmo & oscar were mine, along with the snowman with carrot nose & strawberry)

A cake shaped like an art gallery

2011-11-21T15:52:00.003+13:00

Many many moons ago - well around 10 years ago, I made a cake shaped like the then Geoff Wilson Gallery at what was the Nortland Polytechnic. Last week the new Geoff Wilson Gallery opened at what is now Northtec. On both occasions my hubby asked me to make the cake (as on both occasions he was in charge of the gallery). So I set out on what would be a 16 hour cake making journey. Now many of my customers may well have been able to create this quicker, but as I now only get to make around 6 cakes per year, I'm not super fast. It wasn't perfect, but towards the end of the project FATIGUED would have described the state I was in. The cake consists of 4x 11x7 sheet cakes, stacked 2 high. The roof is one 13x9 sheet cake, cut in half horizontally. Iced with black Satin Ice. The side walls of the gallery are licorice (as the real version has black corrugated metal sides). I found large rolled sheets of licorice from New Generation Licorice to use for this.

The cake was Pistachio flavoured (5 hours of baking) with pistachio buttercream. And I was surprised to find it was almost all eaten on opening night (we served large platters of cake adroned with small pieces of licorice) The front and back end of the galleries are different, my cake photo is actually the back entrance to the gallery, with the large picture window at ground level, for viewing through - from the covered walkway.

The photos of the gallery were the working photos I had (the scaffolding was removed on the day of the opening).

New Metallic edible food paints are here - 14 colours

2011-11-17T00:10:00.000+13:00

These metallic food paints have actually been years in the making - I've been waiting with baited breath all this time and they are finally here! The best bit is YOU WASH YOUR BRUSH IN WATER - no pricey isopropyl alcohol required for brush cleaning.

Radiant Metallic Paint
Ready To Use
Easy-to-clean your equipment after use
Once dry the lustre pigment is sealed within the surface - no dust or smudges!
Apply with a brush for fine detail work
Apply with an EasyCover sponge for large area coverage (may require 2 coats)
Use with an airbrush for a smooth finish (No need to thin)

Coverage Guide: Using the EasyCover Sponge, we used half a bottle (approx 12ml) of paint to cover an 8 inch round cake (3 inch deep) which was sat on a 10 inch drum, also covered in sugarpaste. We applied 2 coats to get an even metallic finish.

Preparation: Rinse the sponge under tap water and squeeze dry. It will become soft and ready to use.

How To Use: Pour the Rainbow Dust Food Paint on to a paint pallet and gently press the sponge in to it. Now simply apply to your surface with a gentle dabbing motion. Leave to dry (approx 30mins) and build up with more coats to achieve the required finish. (2 coats is usually enough)

Cleaning: Simply wash the sponge under warm water. The dye from the paint may stain the actual sponge but this will not effect future usage.

Our students work from yesterday

2011-11-14T14:15:00.000+13:00

This weekend we had our ladies themed cookie class. Our tutor Lisa showed our students how a handbag cutter could make a halter neck bikini, a frankenstein and more!. We had one teenager amongst our students and I was stunned at her level of achievement. This Saturday we have Modelling a boy and girl figurine in the morning and in the afternoon we have cake pops. Both classes are $40 each. Email me if you wish to attend we have places for both.

It was so lovely seeing the ladies leaving the class, they were on such a high, with all they had accomplished & learnt

Chocolate pudding cakes for under $15 with Tamara Jane

2011-11-12T19:46:00.001+13:00

I was honoured to have been mentioned by Tamara Jane on the Good morning TV show on Thursday (we did not know this was happening). I've watched the segment and her tips for lining a hemisphere cake pan are awesome. Her Christmas pud cakes, look so decadent, I will be downloading the recipe and giving this a go for sure!

You can watch the video at TVNZ here

Watch the video it is well worth it. Several of my colleagues that have watched the video since Thursday - one said their mind is spinning with ideas for flavours for this cake

How to make Camouflage icing

2011-11-04T11:52:00.001+13:00

I have wanted to try camouflage icing for a while now, so when the latest release for Body Combat came out a month or so back I wanted to make camouflage cookie for the instructors, who despite being paid to instruct the classes, in my opinion go above and beyond the call of duty in their devotion to us regulars.

At work things were conspiring against me to keep me busy, so I owe special thanks to Lisa from The Whole Cake & Caboodle who put together the photo tutorial for "how to" for us.

The camouflage icing was made using Satin Ice fonadnt. The base is 15 parts white to 1 part chocolate. Roll out base thinly but thicker than required for final cookie (as it will become thinner later when rolling)

The other colours were created with (1) Green 3 parts + red 1 part (2) Brown 1 part + green 2 parts + white 8 parts (3) Brown 1 part + white 4 parts

Splodge shapes on in layers using sugar syrup or cmc for glue – I do it from dark to light and make snake shapes and rough Y shapes. You don’t have to be to exact with glue but if it too much pops out the sides it will have to be dabbed dry.

Once pattern has been created bearing in mind the size required for what the camouflage is to be used for (large splodges for a cake or smaller splodges for cookies) flip it over and roll it in both directions. Rolling it will increase the size of the shapes but will meld them together.

Flip it over and cut/use as required.

My cookies had edible image printed of the body combat logo, these were attached with edible glue. Bear in mind you can only have logos/licensed characters printed if you are the license holder for the image, or the item is being made for the company who is the license holder of the image.

Cake decorating classes here in Whangarei

2011-10-30T20:46:00.000+13:00

In response to special requests from our customers we've rejigged the class schedule. We now have new classes on the agenda - modelling a boy/girl figurine and wild jungle/safari animals. Check out the full details by clicking on the tab which reads "CLASSES" just under the banner at the top of this blog.

Our new premises 1 month in and the bestest cake ever!

2011-10-27T15:35:00.000+13:00

A little over a month ago we decided to make the move to new premises. I knew the move would be mammoth, I just did not expect it to be of epic proportions. Last night we celebrated our move to new premises with friends, family & Kiwicakers.

Today I'm feeling very loved. I received many well wishes, cookies, cards & flowers and to top it all off, the wonderful Kevin & Tracie from Chocolate Earth arrived with one of the best surprise gifts I have ever received - This cake featuring me bursting from a cupcake was 4 tiers high and is some of the best cake I have ever tasted. It was Kevin's Upbeet cake (it features beetroot juice in a rich dense moist chocolate cake, which after 27 years in the cake making business Kevin has perfected).

Do you think it looks like me?

You can see just how big it was, as Kevin cuts it up. Grandma Kiwicakes who usually scoffs anytime anyone is heard to say "I can't cut the cake, it's too beautiful" was allegedly heard to have said "oh you can't cut that!".

It was wonderful to be able to showcase what we've achieved here in the last month. I am pleased that we have gone from this - one day in to our move........................

Where it seemed there was no end in sight, during those long hard days of shifting, moving & reshifting to get things right - to this ............................

Which looks even better filled with all our friends and family ..........................

For some time I have been itching to create my own candy buffet. Last night seemed like a great opportunity.

One of the highlights of my candy buffet table were these awesome cookie pops sent to me by Tanya from Decorada She did an absolutely amazing job turning Trixie our logo in to a cookie. I was thrilled to have our brand new stainless steel stands, which we have exclusively commissioned (appearing on the Kiwicakes website soon) for our cookie pops and lollipops.

The signs I purchased as a download from etsy and my hubby helped me put the text in the right places - Thanks Vaughan!

The cupcakes were iced using chefmaster tropical fuchsia, but a word of warning under fluro lights, the colour just looks weird, take it outside in to natural light and it's fab! - the same can be said for our raspberry candy bags, again under lights, they look a totally different colour.

The Jelly Beans & Gumballs are from the Kiwicakes catalog - the life is sweet sign, was also from etsy.

The small chocolate bars are organic "Green & Black's" bars, which I stuck a Kiwicakes sticker to.

The Spearmint leaves in black & white are from Bin Inn in Kamo.

Miss Avalon, one of our guests must surely take the award for best dressed in the Kiwicakes theme colours.

This past month has been physically and mentally exhausting, we have tried to keep up with orders & email, we have done our best and at times have messed up. Our sincere thanks go out to those who understood our predicament and were gracious in accepting our apologies for errors in their orders.

We hope to have minimised this now - and regular blogging and sourcing of great new products should return to normal very soon. In the past month, many great new products have arrived and now that the new warehouse is settled, I will begin to list it all on the Kiwicakes website (including those great stainless steel stands.)

My special thanks goes out to all those who gave their time willingly to help me get to this point, during the last month. YOU ALL ROCK!

Come and celebrate with us

2011-10-22T20:44:00.000+13:00

Come and celebrate the opening of our new warehouse with us, on Wednesday evening. You can RSVP right here on this post. We'll have an awesome candy buffet, food & drink

Kids fun decorating class in Whangarei

2011-10-21T13:06:00.000+13:00

Members of the Whangarei cake guild will be running a workshop for 7-10 year olds in December

Check out the details by clicking to enlarge the photo of this flyer.

New cake decorating classes in Wellington

2011-10-10T19:38:00.001+13:00

Vicky from Trends asked me to post details of her latest classes. so here we go!

Trends Basic Cake Decorating Courses

These are the dates for our courses for the rest of this year.

Please book early for your preferred date as there are limited spaces available.

Payment is required at time of booking.

29^th October 9.00am to 1.00pm $80.00

26^th November 9.00am to 1.00pm $80.00

3^rd December 9.00am to 1.00pm (Christmas theme) $80.00

Want to know the secrets to making beautiful cakes?

This hands-on class will teach you tips and techniques for basic cake decorating, as well as giving you a chance to play with some of the tools of the trade!

You will learn to smoothly coat your cake in buttercream and cover in fondant, before learning some tips and tricks for decorating with flowers, polka dots, vines – the only limit is your imagination!

The class will also cover the correct way to colour buttercream and fondant, how to use rolling mats, press sets, silicone moulds and plunger cutters.

A fantastic basis for going on to decorate your own cakes at home!

You will need to bring:

1x 20cm/8” cake

2 batches of buttercream icing

1kg fondant

1x 10” cake board

All other equipment provided, including tea, coffee and light refreshments.

We will have all tools, equipment and decorating items available for sale on the day, with a 10 % DISCOUNT! Cash only.

Courses will be held at Johnsonville Community Centre

For more information contact Vicky or Becs

Trends Johnsonville Shopping Centre Wellington Ph 478 4877

www.trendsgifts.co.nz

Trends Cake Pops Classes

These are the dates for our classes for the rest of this year.

Please book early for your preferred date as there are limited spaces available.

Payment is required at time of booking.

29^th October 1.30pm to 4.30pm $60.00

26^th November 1.30pm to 4.30pm $60.00

3^rd December 1.30pm to 4.30pm $60.00 (christmas theme)

Cake pops are the latest craze taking the world by storm - come along and learn how to make your own sweet treats on a stick!

This hands-on class will teach you the basics from rolling and dipping to decorating, PLUS tips and tricks on how to make and decorate cake pops at home for any occasion!

You will be decorating 6 cake pops to take home

All you need to bring is something to take them home in

EVERYTHING else will be supplied!

Including tea, coffee and light refreshments.

We will have all tools, equipment and decorating items available for sale on the day, with a 10% DISCOUNT! Cash only.

For more information contact Vicky or Becs ph 478 4877

Classes will be held at Johnsonville Community Centre

Trends

Johnsonville Shopping Centre

Ph 478 4877

www.trendsgifts.co.nz

Decorating classes in Whangarei

2011-10-08T15:55:00.000+13:00

I'm pleased to be announcing today, that with our move to new premises, we have organised some visiting demonstrators for decorating classes. Click on the tab that reads CLASSES and you'll see all the details for cake pop, cupcake, figure modelling and cookie classes. Book early to avoid missing out.

9 colours of tasty chocolate modelling paste in stock

2011-10-07T19:48:00.002+13:00

When this big delivery of yummy chocolate modelling paste arrived earlier this week, I was a happy girl!. Finally it seems here in NZ we are getting some of the supplies we always wished we could get. This new modelling paste has been months in the fine tuning and it's finally ready for you to model with!

Modelling chocolate is a sweet, pliable and colourful dough made from fine chocolate, right here in New Zealand. It is as easy to use as clay. Pastry chefs and cake decorators make flowers and figurines with it - now you can, too! From designs and roses on wedding cakes to kids baking and decorating, modelling chocolate is easy and fun for everyone. Figures made with modelling fondant are more robust than straight fondant figures.

In the past week, I've had quite a few packs go out to Kiwicaker's around NZ. I've been getting good reviews back on it. One thing I can tell you is it is TASTY!

9 great colours to choose from. We will have a chocolate modelling class in store, using this great paste (towards end of November). Details will be loaded regarding our class schedule next week.

Fun Halloween sprinkles in stock NOW!

2011-10-04T15:05:00.000+13:00

I am still alive and kicking (just). We're still not quite finished with the move - I will have photos and details for you soon. BUT I did get listed on Kiwicakes today 6 great sprinkle mixes for Halloween. If you haven't tried the sugar strands (jimmies) yet. You simply must, as the aroma from them is simply gorgeous!

Fun day with Julie Bashore

2011-09-27T21:21:00.006+13:00

Last week, I spent the day with Julie Bashore (and some other great people, all looking to learn). She is one of Satin Ice's ambassadors. She was in New Zealand to teach us how better to use Satin Ice Fondant. Now I knew I would learn a lot - but I learnt HEAPS!

Julie is a very giving person, such a wonderful lady, who says the only stupid questions, are questions not asked.

I was particularly thrilled to learn Julies marbling technique. She has a You Tube video here on this technique.

It starts like, this after a few folds and twists, it begins to morph in to............................

Then it gets a bit of a wiggle on

When she told us, we'd be rolling our Satin Ice to 2mm, without any cornflour or icing sugar, using only a silicone mat. I only-kinda-sorta believed her. But you know what, everyone of us did it, and no one's icing tore.

In the end, we had a very crazy cake dummy, covered in marbled icing with ruffles, drapes, broderie anglaise, bows & more.

Julie demostrated making bows, our gumpaste was only 1.5mm thick. She explained a thin bow, that dries in 15 mins, is actually much stronger, than a thicker bow, which after 2 days might still not be hardened. We all made the bows too.

It was amazing covering a cake in only 2mm of fondant, how very little fondant is actually used. Providing great value for money. Julie explained she came up with this technique, after noting how people always peeled fondant of their cake, because it was too thick & rubbery. She did go on to explain, at only 2mm thick, your layer of buttercream or ganache must be very flat and smooth, so the fondant also very flat on the finished cake.

We also did fun things with crimpers - that I never knew were possible.

She also showed us one more great technique, that I didn't get photo's of. I will create it for you, in a blog post to come (once we get this move to new premises done & dusted)

I've also got more exciting news to share with you a little later from this day (think competition!)

Kiwicakes is on the move!

2011-09-26T21:53:00.000+13:00

The mere thought of moving, makes me quake at the knees, but after nearly 6 years, we've simply outgrown our current location. So we're on the move. From next week we'll be operating from 1c Grant St in Kamo - Whangarei.

Kamo is a lovely village, in fact I grew up here (Kamo Kindy, Kamo Primary and Kamo High). Grant St is a quaint little street. I have always loved this giant tree right out in the middle of the road. I just adore how it hasn't been sacrificed for the road, you actually have to veer right out round it. And now I'll be able to look at it every day.

The main part of our move is this weekend (we've spent the last 2 weeks organising new shelving, paint, alarms and all sorts of other things needed for the move)

I would like to take the opportunity to ask you to bear with us, during this mammoth undertaking, we will endeavour to answer emails and ship orders in a timely manner, but please don't be offended if you call for a same day order and we just can't manage it.

Our move will mean many changes, but for those in the North, or just visiting, we'll have drop in hours, no appointment needed between 10am and 2pm daily.

Here's a sneak peek of the front our our new digs - I'll update you with an "after shot" soon.

Huggies Dry-Nite winners

2011-09-26T21:01:00.003+13:00

Well now, it's a first for me!, the random number generator brought up comment#1 for the huggies girls dry nites. Casper that's you. If your address on Kiwicakes website hasn't changed, these are ont he way to you. Kat (KRussell) I've emailed you for your address. Regards Sandra

New Monkey cookie cutters in stock at Kiwicakes

2011-09-22T12:57:00.000+12:00

I just adore these new monkey face ccokie cutters in stock at Kiwicakes. Special thanks go to Lisa from The Whole Cake & Caboodle for the photo of cookies she made using these cutters.

New Huggies Dry Nites giveaway

2011-09-18T21:51:00.001+12:00

After our last successful Huggies Pull-Ups giveaway, the lovely people at Huggies have given us some DryNites to give away this time. To enter simply leave me a way to contact you below. And whether you'd like boys or girls if you win. We have 1 pack of 4-7 year old girls and 1 pack of 4-7 year olf boys to give away to two lucky winners.

DryNites® Pyjama Pants have been designed with your child in mind. DryNites are comfortable, discreet and absorbent, so they feel more like underwear. DryNites features include:

Pant graphics with underwear-like designs so they look like regular underwear

Prints in colours and designs tailored to boys and girls

Discreet fit so they disappear under clothing

Leak guards for protection against leakage

Internal elastic waistband for a more snug fit

Soft stretchy sides to fit just like underwear

Customised absorbency requirements of boys and girls, where they need it most

Night-time bedwetting affects around 15 to 20 percent of otherwise healthy 5-year-old children. The good news is that bedwetting is just a stage that many young children go through and DryNites can make this difficult time a little easier by providing discrete and absorbent protection. DryNites not only protects your child’s self-esteem by providing them with the tool to manage this stage themselves, but they also help your child get a good night’s sleep.

Kiwicakes & Chocolate Earth airbrush collaboration

2011-09-16T16:04:00.000+12:00

I've often been asked for advice on the purchase & use of airbrush machines. I don't know alot about them, so I was thrilled when Kevin from Chocolate Earth came to me and said "lets work together on airbrushes". As my expertise is in the importation of supplies from overseas and Kevin's expertise is in airbrushing (amongst other things), it was the perfect match.

You can now purchase from Kiwicakes website or instore at Chocolate Earth in Browns Bay model #1 for $439.00 and model #2 online only, at this stage - with Kiwicakes for $625.00 (Kevin uses model #2 himself)

Kevin will be organising airbrushing classes over the coming months, his first class was booked out less than 24 hours after posting details of it.

Kevin has even asked me to star in an airbrushing movie with him for you tube - now that will be a first for me! (I promise I will be trying to hide in the background!)

Kevin pioneered the paua airbrush look for cakes - which I adore!

Kevin is well known for his amazing 3d cakes, he's made some amazing cakes over the years, the structures inside to hold them up, are a work of art in themself.

Kevin's wine barrell blew me away - how realistic it looks.

These cakes are just some of many of Kevin's corporate cake orders.

These are some of Kevin's simpler airbrushed cakes sold through Chocolate Earth

Simple is still pretty fantastic looking in my book!

Cricut Cake SUPER DEAL!

2011-09-14T12:47:00.002+12:00

Today we've received notification from the distributors of the Cricut Cake machine that for a very limited time the Cricut Cake machine will be on sale from $799 down to $499 saving $300. Stock is very limited. So order now to avoid missing out. Click here for Kiwicakes Cricut Cake products. If you have any queries regarding this machine I'm happy to help.

And to celebrate this special deal, there's also selected Cricut cartridges on sale. Again limited stocks, so be quick, some are discontinued, so once they're gone, they're gone!

All Cricut brand cartridges can be used in the Cricut Cake machine

Offer available whilst stock lasts on a first come first served basis. Sorry no holds, rainchecks or laybys

Push Pop containers - new in today!

2011-09-13T20:58:00.000+12:00

Every now I get one of those products arrive that makes me jump up and down and clap my hands together like a 5 year old waiting for an icecream to be scooped in to a cone. Today is one of those days!. I would use the phrase "Like a pig in mud" to describe myself when I opened this new delivery - but I think I use that phrase too often, so I won't!

So what is it you ask? PUSH POPS!. I can't wait to start using them, I can think of heaps of ideas already. What would you use them for? Buy them here at Kiwicakes

Push Pop Containers are the newest, hottest way to serve cupcakes or an array of other tasty treats! Each container easily holds two frosted miniature cupcakes, or three if squished in and comes with a lid for easy transportation.

Layer fudge, brownie, icecream, sorbet, candy, jelly ANYTHING!. A mini cupcake slots right in, or cut layer cake using a 4cm diameter round cutter.

Overall height with handle, 7"/17.5cm

Without handle, 3.75"/9.5cm

Diameter, 1.75"/4.4cm

Holds, 4oz

These can be hand-washed & reused or disposed of after 1 use. However we do encourage you to pop them in your recycling bin, rather than the rubbish as they are fully recyclable plastic.

Wow your guests at your next party with something completely different. Easily transportable to location parties, as each has a clip top lid.

Salted caramel cupcakes - a taste testing adventure

2011-09-13T20:25:00.000+12:00

This post is titled adventure. Because that is sure what it was! I've often pondered why something I adore has little or no affect on others, yet people rave about things I can take or leave - I'm talking about taste!, the taste of things that is (specifically related to cake).

I adore chocolate and mint paired together, yet we never have it here in the house, because I am the only one that thinks so, my hubby thinks its like trying to eat chocolate after you've brushed your teeth and he hates it (I'm not sure what he's on about, the thought of chocolate after brushing my teeth sounds great!)

I decided I would play around with salted caramel cupcakes, as it is a flavour I adore. I found some wonderful natural pink salt and this post grew from that purchase.

I learned an awful lot along the way. I selected a few taste testers at random (well people who were available and near by and would agree to do it), I have had to look beyond my family, as when you're surrounded by sugar all the time, like my family is, they can often complain about having to eat more cake (yeah seriously!) I had wanted to also get feedback on Wilton candy melts taste, so included this on my taste testing sheet (each taster was issued with homework). One of my taste testers is a roller derby skater, so in her honour I made the candy melts in the shape of skates.

I decided to use red velvet cupcakes. Cream cheese is most commonly paired with red velvet, so I made one cupcake like this, as a comparison (spot #1 in top photo). Rows 2 and three are two versions of salted caramel icing. On one cupcake I sprinkled the pink salt, the other was left plain.

Surprise no#1 I had a total of 9 testers (I was the 9th). The results were wild & varied, but what surprised me was I actually had every single cupcake in the box from 1-5 be the favourite of at least 1 person. I had imagined one flavour of Salted caramel would win out over the other, or that salted would lose to non salted. NOT THE CASE.

Surprise #2 I had a preconceived notion of which flavour I would like, prior to making the icing NOT THE CASE.

My basis for the start of my salted caramel icing was to take a tin of Highlander caramel condensed milk and mix it with, what is essentially a cream cheese icing base. I expected to love this icing best of all - as I love the taste of Highlander caramel.

The reason I thought I would love this best, was the stovetop caramel I made, following a recipe from scratch was a very subtle flavour, I expected when added to icing, the icing would be too subtle for me NOT THE CASE.

Icing recipe #2 was my clear favourite, it tasted divine and was so light & fluffy, the perfect compliment to the red velvet. I also preferred it with the crunch of the pink salt crystals sprinkled over, rather than just plain.

Recipe #1 Salted caramel icing

1t in Highlander caramel condensed milk

150g butter

200g cream cheese

4-5 cups icing sugar

Beat butter & cream cheese together in electric mixer, add caramel. Slowly add icing sugar to combine, until you reach your desired consistency

Recipe #2 Salted caramel icing

Ingredients - FOR THE CARAMEL SAUCE

4 tablespoons water
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon salt, kosher or sea

FOR THE FROSTING

180g butter at room temperature
200g cream cheese
4-5 cups icing sugar
3/4 cup salted caramel

Instructions

FOR THE CRAMEL SAUCE

Combine the water, sugar, and the corn syrup in a deep saucepan and cook over medium heat—stir with a wooden spoon to combine

Cover the saucepan and let it cook over medium/medium-low heat for 3 minutes.

After 3 minutes, remove the lid, increase the heat to medium-high, and bring to a boil.
Continue to cook until the caramel turns an even amber color then remove from the heat and let stand for about 30 seconds.

Pour the heavy cream into the mixture. Be careful. The mixture will bubble up!

Stir the mixture. Add the butter, lemon juice, and salt. Stir until combined.

Stirring occasionally, allow to cool until thick and warm, about 20 minutes.

FOR THE ICING

Beat butter and cream cheese at medium speed until creamy.

Sift 2 cups of icing sugar into the cream cheese mixture and beat to combine.

Add 3/4 cup of the salted caramel and beat to combine.

Sift rest of icing sugar, in 1 cup increments and beating between each, until you arrive at the thickness and sweetness you desire.

As I previously mentioned, I had a taste tester that chose each and every cupcake as their favourite, which meant none of them could have tasted bad. In fact every tester told me, they actually liked all 5, but had to pick a favourite, as required by their homework.

Some of my questions were ......

Did you prefer the cupcakes salted or unsalted? I had votes for salted & votes for unsalted - the reasons varied. One tester like #1 salted and #2 unsalted. Most agreed the texture of the granules was a nice addition

Can you explain why you prefer one cupcake over the other? The answers on this were quite varied, what one tester liked about a cupcake was what another did not like. One taste tester AKA Grandma Kiwicakes liked salted caramel #1 best "becasue it tastes like Russian fudge" (her favourite) she also preferred it salted

Did you like the red Wilton candy melts? "yes but very sweet, couldn't eat more than 1 at a time", "YES! - it was so good I could eat more" & "YES tastes like white chocolate which I love!" "Yes it had a nice white chocolate taste - not too sickly".

Surprise #3 When you leave salt granules on icing overnight, they actually melt NOT GOOD, so if salting your cupcakes, please do so just before serving.

My final conclusion - I like Salted caramel cupcake icing #2 best and I like salt granules on top. Most of my testers did not agree with me. So in short I will sum up my adventure with some wise words I've heard many times......You can please some of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time.

You can buy the pink salt I used in this adventure at good deli's & food stores, it is a product of equagold.co.nz

The Great Whakatane Cake Bake

2011-09-12T08:10:00.001+12:00

If you're in the Whakatane area, you might be interested in The Great Whakatane Cake Bake You can also find them on facebook here (click to enlarge the poster to read full details)

A lovely new store in Auckland central to visit

2011-09-09T13:36:00.001+12:00

I recently had the pleasure of visitng my good cake friend Rachel. She is the owner of Cupcake and has until recently worked from within a licensed kitchen at her home. The photos attached to this post were snapped on my phone, when I visited (about 2 weeks ago) the weekend before the store opened. Since this time Rachel has opened the doors and she promises me some updated photos soon.

I even got a sneaky photo of Rachel and the back of Grandma Kiwicakes who is too cunning to be caught on film.

Oh! I'd love a big wall oven like this

Hire stands & hire pans waiting to go out on display (the shelving was wet with fresh paint when we visited)

Yet more of her beautiful stands for hire

The consulting couch for her cake customers.

Rachel also carries a range of cake decorating supplies - why not pop in and see her at 4 Newton Road (entrance off Abbey st). Very soon cake decorating classes will be operating from her wonderful kitchen.

I can't wait for Rachel's photos to come through, so I can update you all with the finished look shortly.

Fun record cupcake stand (and Father's Day cupcakes)

2011-09-04T17:11:00.002+12:00

This fun cupcake stand I made from three old vinyl records. (You can buy the stand fittings from Kiwicakes for $15, to make your own here). I picked three records up from an op shop. The top small record I chose for the record label "Love letters in the sand" as it seemed a lovely sentiment. I'm a huge fan of the colour duck egg blue, so I chose the bottom record for the label colour. The mid size records are harder to get, so I had to take what I could get.

It was fun to make, and really only took less than 5 minutes to screw together. No equipment is required (well other than a screw driver to tighten). I think it would be a great stand for men's parties, as there is so much pretty stuff out there geared towards ladies, but not so much for the guys. It would also be great for dance, 1950's and rock & roll parties.

The batch of cupcakes displayed on my stand were made for Father's Day. They are orange flavoured cake - I wanted a grown up flavour. Having only just discovered flavoured drinking chocolate from Cadbury, I decided to try "Caramel Chocolate Cream Cheese icing", and at the last minute I added a dash of Cointreau liquer. Initially I worried the flavour was a disaster. Taste testing it, I couldn't decide if the caramel killed it, or the drinking chocolate did. Or even if the liquer simply didn't work with it. I taste tested it time and time again, and in the end decided it was actually nice. I dashed a sample through to a taste tester (aka hubby) and he declared it good (he is not always complimentary).

I always taste every icing I make, long before it gets near cake. What was a revelation with this icing - was just how much better it worked in conjunction with the cake. Now some might say that is true of all icings, but not me, I am an eat-it-from-the-bowl kind of girl, so this was really a surprise.

The cupcakes are iced using tip 1a The chocolate musical notes ar emilk chocolate moulded using a musical notes chocopick mould (the beauty is the pic is moulded right in to the chocolate)

If you like to try my icing. Here is the recipe.

1 250g block of Philadelphia Cream Cheese

115g butter

4 cups icing sugar

1/2cup Cadbury caramel drinking chocolate

2 tbsp Cointreau liquer

In an electric mixer. Mix cream cheese and butter together until well blended. Add drinking chocolate and icing sugar a little at a time. add cointreau. Beat well.

Winners of the rugby prize packs

2011-08-30T16:24:00.002+12:00

Sorry I'm a little late with the updates for the rugby party pack winners. They are SuzieT and Ethel. Ladies would you please email me for your prize, as the link to your blogger does not include your email address. Thanks Sandra

I just love it when the children can teach me a trick or two

2011-08-30T16:17:00.000+12:00

I was inspired to write this post after eating the amazing lemon freeze my 8 year old made with her daddy over the weekend. We had to wait a full day for it to freeze.

Poppy kept commenting on how burdened our poor wee lemon tree was and how she thought we needed to make something with the lemons. She found a recipe for "Lemon Freeze" in her book titled "Grow your own tree hugger - 101 activities to teach your child how to live green" (something we've been trying to do more & more).

The photo above is after a large bunch of lemons were removed for this recipe, the poor tree is not quite a metre tall.

Whilst her younger brother was off at a birthday party they set about following the recipe, I was out at the time, but came home to the most heavenly smells of lemons premeating my kitchen which hung around all day.

When we ate one, I must have raved a little too much when I was told "Mum - you don't have to keep going on about how beautiful it is", to which I replied "if you put this on a menu at a restaurant you'd be famous.

No seriously, I'm not kidding it was that good. If you have too many lemons at your home, give it a try.

Lemon Freeze (serves 12)

8 lemons (there are 2 extra in case of damage to shells used as serving bowls)

720ml cream

1/2 cup lemon juice

1 1/4 cups sugar

3 tbsp lemon zest

1. Cut all lemons in half and juice them

2. Scoop out remianing pulp from the lemon halves carefully avoiding make a hole in the bottom.

3. Level off the bottom of any lemon half that tilts too much to hold liquid.

4. using the two extra halves that are most imperfect grate lemon zest in to a large mixing bowl.

5. Add cream, lemon juice, sugar.

6. Set lemon halves in a baking dish that will fit in freezer.

7. pour heavy cream mixture in to each lemon half, fill to brim

8. Freeze overnight & up to one month.

9. Serve frozen

(Tree hugger chat point - if the lemon freeze is served with just a spoon, the whole fruit serves a purpose & some dishwater & soap is saved along the way.)

Enjoy!

Great new tool just arrived

2011-08-22T21:00:00.000+12:00

Just arrived today is Wilton's Slide-N-Cut cutter It cuts both wavy & straight lines with precision and ease. Here's a short video from Wilton

Is anyone having a RUGBY watching party with friends?

2011-08-21T16:50:00.000+12:00

Judging by the amount of All Blacks licensed partyware that has been shipping out the past few weeks, not to mention rugby shaped cookie cutters, cake tins & chocolate moulds I would say a there's a whole bunch of you out there planning Rugby watching parties with your friends.

Here at Kiwicakes, I've been planning a few treats for the supporters. I found these great stickers at our local emporium shop. Made by Kelrae Enterprises in Auckland. I wasn't quite sure what I was initally going to do with them, when I started planning this post.

Then it came to me, they'd look great on our miniature rugby ball gumball dispensers.

The tiny little rugby ball sticker fitted perfectly on the turn crank of the gumball machine.

This particular gumball machine is sold with orange gumballs (direct from the USA - it's the colour the manufacturer chose for football). However I thought they might look better with black jelly beans - the kids easily took the gumballs off my hands (I have jelly beans available in many colours) sold in 1kg bags)

Realising that not everyone is a black jelly bean fan like Grandma Kiwicakes, I decided perhaps white or black & white might be more suitable. In the process I discovered I LOVE WHITE jelly beans. If you're a fan of milkshake or milk bottle lollies you'll LOVE these too.

Of course you can fill these with Jaffa's, nuts, M&M's anything really, as long as they are big enough to fit out the hole when the crank is turned. Jelly beans work great, tried & tested by me.

It doesn't really matter what party I'm throwing, I can never just toss chips in a bowl and open packets of food, whilst I might include chips in a bowl. I always like to make something specific to the event I'm holding. Yesterday afternoon we took the children to the playground, this is very close to the Fudge Farm shop in the town basin of Whangarei. I left the children with hubby and snuck off to see what I could find that might be interesting for Rugby cupcakes. I came up with Chilli chocolate from Bella Chocolates. And the Whiskey & Walnut fudge fromt eh Fudge Farm.

I grated the chilli chocolate

And crumbled the whiskey & walnut fudge. I've previously crumbled fudge in to icing recipes before and found it can stick in the piping nozzles, so if you're including it in the icing, you need to ensure you have a very large opening to your nozzle. The nozzle is used is Wilton 1A

Visually I thought the Chilli chocolate a little more sophisticated

Than the more rugged crumbled fudge

Both were equally delicious, I would happily eat both of them. The cupcakes are chocolate normally I don't pair cream cheese icing with plain chocolate cupcakes, but in this case, I thought the whiskey & walnut & chilli chocolate were well off set against my version of cream cheese icing which is;

1 block of Philadelphia Cream Cheese

120g softened butter

3 3/4 cups icing sugar

1tsp vanilla

2 tablespoons of hot water

a squeeze of lemon juice

Cream together butter & cream cheese

Gradually add the icing sugar mixing slowly. When half of the icing sugar is mixed in add lemon, vanilla & hot water, continue to slowly add icing sugar. Mixture should be light & fluffy, if left to sit, or made ahead of time, add 1-2 more tbsp of hot water before piping to ensure light fluffy consistency.

COMPETITION

If you'd like to win one of two prize packs to kick start your Rugby watching party, leave me a comment below this post telling me which team you think will win the Rugby World Cup 2011. I will draw a winner August 27th and two winners will each receive one prize pack as outlined below delivered to an address anywhere in New Zealand.

Prize consists of: 1 pack of 25 black foil cupcake papers, 1 pack of 24 world top 8 rugby nation supporters flag picks, 1 pack of 24 silver fern black flag picks & 1 mini gumball machine with black & white jelly beans.

Great new mould for arms and so much more

2011-08-17T15:25:00.001+12:00

I am loving this new mould which has just arrived priced at $36. The wonderful creator of this mould produced this short & helpful video on just how easy it is to make arms using it. Well worth watching!.

How to make miniature high heel shoes in icing video

2011-08-16T15:20:00.001+12:00

This great video from Frances, the manufacturer of our miniature shoe cutter set, shows how easy it is to make shoes & jandals in fondant or gumpaste.

Video above is high heel shoe & bow

Video above is for Jandals (or flip-flops)

New Kiwicakes website

2011-08-16T14:15:00.000+12:00

Did you know Kiwicakes now has a wishlist function?. I received a sweet message today from a Kiwicakes member that got just wanted she wanted for her birthday, by sharing her wishlist with family. To add an item to your wishlist click the red "add to wishlist" button at the centre bottom of any product you are viewing.

Northern Advocate newspaper article Monday 15th August

2011-08-16T13:39:00.001+12:00

Yesterday I was featured in a story on the front page of the Northern Advocate newspaper. Mike Dinsdale did a great job with the article. For the full story click here (photo Michael Cunningham)

Fun tractor & bicycle wedding cake toppers just arrived

2011-08-16T13:24:00.001+12:00

Today I was thrilled to receive my latest air freight shipment with some fun new wedding cake toppers. The Tractor couple is available in red or green at a cost of $65.

The bicycle couple is available for $55

Huggies Pull-Ups winners

2011-08-12T19:38:00.000+12:00

The winners of the Huggies Pull-Ups are
l1zzybeans - Girls Pull-Ups
Mumma2s - Boys Pull-Ups
Ladies you have been emailed for your delivery addresses.

A fun popcorn bag cake using Satin Ice Fondant

2011-08-07T20:31:00.000+12:00

This cute popcorn bag cake from Elisa Strauss of Confetti cakes is so much fun. Satin Ice fondant makes everything so much easier!

Her Magazine bloom awards coverage

2011-08-07T20:16:00.001+12:00

I was looking forward to receiving my latest copy of Her magazine, to read all about the coverage of the bloom awards (for which I was a finalist for best use of technology). The magazine gave some wonderful coverage to the 2 day conference, as well as the awards. As a finalist, I received a lovely glossy 1/2 page ad.

However I was floored as I was flicking through to find I'd made the websites to watch column,as I did not know I was going to be featured there. I think the Kiwicakes website looks mighty fine in print.

I'm a big boy now!

2011-07-28T21:29:00.001+12:00

It is with mixed emotion for me, that my youngest turned 5 recently. When my first child was born, I couldn't wait for her to reach each new milestone, with my youngest I now think "oh that's the last time we'll ever go to kindy". As I was driving to work the day before my son's last day of kindy, I was thinking to myself about the play-doh birthday cake I received when I turned 5 at Kamo Kindy, and lo & behold when I got to work Grandma Kiwicakes had propped this photo up against my computer.

The photo above lead me to thinking about my 5th birthday cake, I can still remember the anticipation of waiting for Mum to go and collect the cake. I had chosen it from the Kamo Home Cookery. They always had a few dummy dolly varden cakes in the window, which I used to gaze at longingly as we walked past the window on the way to kindy, they also had stacks of photos of them in their cake albums, mine was pink & white and very girlie. Some where is a much better photo of it, but this is the only one I could find. In 30 years, not much has changed, this style of cake hasn't changed, except perhaps the 1980s hair do on the doll and the style of piping on the dress.

However I cannot dwell on it for too long as mister 5 is so full of life and rip roaring ready to go to school, I cannot be sad for more than 2 minutes. We've already been shopping for school uniforms, books and a new bag. So we're eagerly awaiting Monday morning.

Both my husband Vaughan and I went for the "happy happy last day" at Kindy, the children get to choose their mat time activity/song and receive a card & play-doh cake. Mister 5 chose dinosaur cupcakes to give to his friends, as he lives, breathes and dreams about dinosaurs, all day every day!

So it was not surprising the party theme was DINOSAURS! I used the Diggin for dino partyware

Mister 5 had very specific ideas about the candy he wanted in the jars on his party table I used green & orange jelly beans from Kiwi candy buffets the kids really enjoyed using the tongs and scoops to get the candy from the old fashioned candy jars

If it could be made in the shape of a dinosaur it was, such as the sandwhiches, which I cut out using these cookie cutters These dinosaur picks were perfect for spearing cheese & dinosaur eggs, oh I mean grapes!

I made the mistake of telling Mister almost 5 to look through all of my cake books and see what he liked for a cake, he found an old wilton yearbook from the 1980s and chose the Wilton Megasaurus cake tin, long discontinued, so it was an expensive shopping trip on ebay to get the tin secondhand.

For some reason I've never been a great fan of poking candles right in a cake (unless it's round and plain), so I was really pleased to find this Wish-a-saurus candle holder, which makes a great keepsake of the party when all the excitement is over.
That's it for kiddy birthday parties in our house until next. Goodness knows what next years obssession will be?

Huggies Pull-Ups giveaway

2011-07-28T20:08:00.000+12:00

Recently I was contacted by the lovely people at Huggies to ask if I'd like to give away some of their product. Now I know many of my customers are parents of young children and there's plenty of grandparents out there too!. It's been a little while since my children were out of nappies, but not that long since Pull-Ups featured in our household, so I asked for the Pull-Ups prize pack to give away.

They have a really useful website, with helpful parenting e-books here and everyone can get free samples sent of Pull-Ups by clicking here By Joining the Huggies website you can enter to win a 6 month supplies of Huggies products also.

To enter to win my Pull-Ups prize pack, consisting of Pull-Ups, discount vouchers & a toilet training guide, simply leave a comment right here on this post, with your choice of either BOYS or GIRLS Pull-ups. The two winners will be contacted after August 9th. Delivery of prize is to New Zealanbd addresses only. Please be sure to leave me a way to contact you in your comment. Winners will be selected at random and published here on the blog, after August 9th.

How to make a purse or handbag cake using Satin Ice Fondant

2011-07-25T20:27:00.000+12:00

A purse or handbag cake is always a firm favourite, this simple tutorial using Satin Ice fondant is easy to follow and precoloured Satin Ice fondant makes it a breeze.

Making gumpaste pearls

2011-07-24T20:24:00.000+12:00

A great video of Colette Peters making pearls using Satin Ice Fondant

Yet more great free printables

2011-07-24T14:10:00.000+12:00

I know how much you enjoy the links to free printables for your parties. Pop on over to Living Locurto for some awesome freebies specifally for "girls birthday parties" There's a heap to choose from

For a "Pinkalicious" birthday party click here for the free printables

And for Fathers day cards & tag printables click here

Cake decorating Class in Wellington

2011-07-17T14:44:00.000+12:00

Vicky from Trends has asked me to let anyone in the Wellington area interested in a basic cake decorating class know about a class she is running.

Trends Basic Cake Decorating Class Information

Saturday 6th August 9am to 12pm $95.00

200 Newlands Road

Newlands Primary School (Afterschool Care Premises)

This class will cover:

Cover cake with buttercream and apply piping gel transfer

Making icing – different consistency’s

Colouring icing

Decorating bags and couplers

Cut, levelling and filling the cake

Applying the icing

Applying the transfer

Basic decorating techniques

Items students need to bring:

8” round cake of student’s choice

jam or filling for centre of cake

Tips 1,3,16,21

2 piping bags

2 couplers

large spatula to ice cake with

Wilton piping gel

Large spatula to ice cake with

10” cake board

Wilton Cake leveller or bread knife

Turntable (optional)

Scissors, pen, pencil and paper

Baking paper

6 x Small plastic containers to colour icing in and to take any left over icing

Plastic bag to take used equipment home

2 Spoons, toothpicks

Box big enough to take cake home

2 x tea towels, 1 dish cloth

Icing colours if you have them

2 x butter cream icing

There will a selection of decorating items for sale on the day. Cash only.

Trends Johnsonville Shopping Centre Ph 478 4877 email: info@trendsgift.co.nz

New Naturally coloured sprinkles just arrived

2011-07-14T15:33:00.000+12:00

Just arrived this wonderful new range of naturally coloured heart sprinkles 7 colours to choose from

Many companies supply Sugar Shapes and have done so for many years.
Rainbow Dust Colours likes to do things a little different and with a health conscious customer now scouring the labels, we have commissioned a range of shapes and colours that are 100% Natural and suit what todays shoppers want.

Using only natural ingredients you will see that these pass for "clean" label with flying colours (no pun intended!)

Look for the "Natural" Logo for fast identification of products in this range.

Each container holds 30g of product and comes in our very popular “flapper cap” container with a tamper-evident seal and a bar coded label.

Ingredients: Sugar, Rice Flour, Cocoa Butter, Potato Starch, Beet Root

Label Claims: Natural: No Artificial Colours, GM Free, Nut Free, Suitable for Lactose Intolerance, Vegetarians & Vegans