Thursday, August 24, 2017

Having cake tins made in India

I have literally thousands of photos from my trip to India. They could never be one post. I shared many photos whilst I was in India both on the Kiwicakes Facebook page & Instagram - thanks so much to all those who commented and kept asking for more.

It was hard to decide which blog post to start with, rather than a chronological order for my posts, I decided to just pick a topic and leap right in

I travelled to India with the lovely Pereira/Mascarenhas family. Who I will be ever grateful to for welcoming me in to their family fold and taking such great care of me for the 2 weeks we were in Mumbai.

My sweet friend Florinda asked me "what do you want to do in Mumbai" my reply was always "I don't care, I am happy to do anything". I was not being polite, I was being 100% truthful, I really was happy to do literally ANYTHING as every sight sound and smell was new to me. Perhaps I should have said "I want to do it all". Florinda suggested I might like to have some cake pans made, from the man she has used for many years to make all her wonderful shaped pans I readily agreed.



We arrived in Mumbai just after Christmas day, above is the adorable home I stayed in for 2 weeks. (Pali Naka Bandra) I had the entire top floor to myself. My hosts Florinda & Leyland lived here for many years before moving to NZ.


So it was by Rickshaw we went to Florinda's "cake pan man" At Jyoti Tin Works. A ride in one of these Rickshaws is so much fun and costs between 20 and 40 cents NZ depending on how far you need to go (we could fit three adults across the back seat). I tried to describe the road noise to my kids on my return from India, I've never heard anything like it (including having been to Shanghai). The horns beep non stop, as in the never ever stop and there's hundreds beeping all at once. I had the biggest grin on my face the entire time. 


This tiny little store is located in a narrow alley way, we arrived at Friday lunchtime to find the roller doors down on every store in the alleyway and the lane was filled with men dressed in white thobe kneeling in prayer. I discovered this was to last one hour. We'd arrived just as they started, so we popped down the street for a spot of Sari shopping (more on that later)


As I cannot speak Hindi, I left my lovely host to order my two cake pans, they were to be ready the following week and I paid a 50% deposit. Both pans costs less than $20


The staff at Jyoti Tin Works were so friendly, I asked if I might take photos and they happily agreed (I found this the case, every time I asked anyone during my stay)


At the time of our visit they were making cookie cutters 



My pans we repeatedly not ready, and it was not until the last day of my stay that I was able to collect them. I took with me from NZ these line drawings, my pans did not go according to the paper plan.



I gave the line drawings on paper, and asked for them to be the size of the paper. The team at Jyoti Tin works took this as a guide (I think) - as this is what I received. 


However I took it all in my stride, I actually had no need of the pans, I just really really wanted to experience going to the cake pan maker to have them made. My host assured me, she had always received exactly what she asked for. The pans had not cost much at all, so I decided to pay my remaining balance and take them, as there was no time left for them to correct them.


When I ordered the fern cake pan, I'd had in mind to create a brush stroke style fern. As the exterior of my original drawing was styled to fit what I needed, my brush stroke fern came out a little chunkier than I wanted, however I wasn't unhappy with it, and it still looks like a fern. I've yet to try my kiwi, he may need a little work in the feet department, as they are far too long, but my basic outline is there.


I coloured the base of my cake with buttercream and coloured with Grey Progel.


 I really like how the Grey Progel tones perfectly with Rolkem Super Silver lustre, as you can see from my photo below, there's no need to paint the buttercream silver too.



I painted my chocolate brushstrokes once I had placed them on the cake by mixing Rolkem Super Silver with Rose Spirit to form a  paint.


Overall there's no mistaking this is meant to be a silver fern, albeit a little on the chunky side.


Wednesday, August 23, 2017

Mini chocolate bars cupcake decorations


These cute little cupcakes were super easy to make. I'd been dying to get my hands on some of the limited edition Caramilk by Cadbury, as it had been a favourite of mine as a teen. I teemed it with a Millionaires caramel drizzle over vanilla buttercream


To create the drizzle, I popped a spoonful of Millionaires Caramel in to a disposable piping bag and zapped in the microwave for ten seconds, I then snipped off the end and drizzled over the cupcakes. The larger you cut the hole in the end of the bag, the heavier your drip will be, I did both fine and heavy drizzles, to test out which I liked better. Start small though, as you can't go backwards if you cut the hole too big.


These are super easy to make, each little bar weighs aprx 7 grams, so you get a heap from one block of chocolate. I used this mould -5-with-chocolate-printed-on-each-square I melted the caramilk gently int he microwave and spooned in to the mould, Tap underside of mould gently on bench to expel air bubbles


 Lots of cute little bars just waiting for their cupcakes.


Tuesday, August 8, 2017

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