Custom sprinkle medleys now available at kiwicakes

 Three months ago I started on the lengthy process to offer Custom sprinkle medleys at Kiwicakes. AND NOW THE SERVICE IS HERE

It’s been a lot of work, the ingredients document was like writing a small novel. And I am so thankful for the wonderful Hayley who created the awesome custom medley photos (I don’t envy her laying all of those sprinkles out in straight lines).

We’ve sourced extra wonderful sprinkles from around the world, to extend our already awesome sprinkle selection. And a complete overhaul of our kitchen shelves was needed to create space, for each colour.

Some wonderful Kiwicakers agreed to be my custom medley testers, so I could try to iron out any wrinkles in the service, their medleys have been mixed and delivered.

I can’t wait to get mixing for you! Click herehttp://www.kiwicakes.co.nz/711-sprinkle-medleys to find out more about the service 

SPCA Cupcake Day 2017

Kiwicakes made the local newspaper. In support of SPCA Cupcake Day. We are donating $2 from every animal themed sprinkle medley until August 14th 2017

Kiwicakes blog mentioned in NZ House and Garden Magazine December 2016

It's great to know all of the time spent preparing blog posts is worth it. When something like this happens!. Kiwicakes blog got a mention in Small Bites by Sally Butters in the Christmas issue of NZ House & Garden magazine for our Chocolate transfers tutorial.

Here's a link to the tutorial Sally Mentions (shown above)

Here's a link to a tutorial using chocolate transfers with strawberries - I find these perfect for the CHristmas dessert table, as they're a light alternative when you're feeling full, yet still fulfill my sweet requirement whilst looking amazing.

Here's a link to a tutorial for those wanting to put chocolate transfers on moulded chocolate shapes

And last but not least here's a link to a tutorial showing how you can make shapes using a chablon mat and chocolate transfers

New Kiwicakes cake mixes launch this week

My journey to launch Kiwicakes cake mixes started back in Melbourne in March. And finally this week they're launching at Kiwicakes. We've a super yummy caramel mud (yummy toffee/brown sugary taste), a deep rich chocolate mud and a great tasting red velvet. They've been tried and taste tested here at Kiwicakes and we've all given them the thumbs up. Clickhere to view. 

A little glimpse in to the treasure trove of Kiwicakes - our wire selection

Here at Kiwicakes we've over 8000 products in stock, that's a huge number of items. I frequently hear "I didn't know you had these" I wanted to show you today just what an awesome selection of wire we have, everything from thick to thin, paper covered to metallic. You can find it here at Kiwicakes

Kiwicakes Sprinkles in the making

I was recently invited to visit our New Zealand based sprinkle manufacturers factory, I'm not sure what I expected, but a scene reminiscent of Willa Wonka's greeted me. At Kiwicakes I'm proud we have our own brand of sprinkles and sugar pearls produced right here in NZ, which are nut free, gluten free & suitable for vegetarians. Where possible our sprinkles manufacturer opts for natural colourings too.

First of all I had to costume up like a sprinkles maker.

They even make their own icing sugar right here in the factory, starting with good old NZ Chelsea brand sugar. 

They make a heap of each colour at one time (the sugar pearls start off as non pareils and are grown larger, to the size required the more time they spend spinning in the drum)

I wonder how many years it would take me to use this many yellow sprinkles?

Here's how the sprinkles called Jimmies or Hail are made - it's just like a giant mincer. Once the sprinkles are extruded, they are chopped up and enter a low humidity drying room, the temperature and atmosphere is so pleasant in that room, I could have stayed there all day, not just because of the gorgeous smells permeating the room. The sprinkles are dried in there for a few weeks.

What you cannot tell from my photo is that these drums were spinning around and around, quite quickly and noisily. I sure had a blast visiting my sprinkles manufacturer and am proud to be selling Kiwi made merchandise.

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

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!

My cake filled Saturday - and the best ever chilli chocolate

Saturday was a day of cake, cake, cake and more CAKE!. My day started with a 5.15am wake up call, to get on the road to Auckland, as I was demonstarting the Cricut Cake machine to the Waitakere Cake Club. I love visiting the girls at Waitakere, they always make me feel so welcome. I had intended to take some photos for you, but as per usual, the morning whizzed past in a blur and before I knew it, the hall was empty and the floors were being swept.

After a quick lunch, I whizzed over to visit my online friends Kevin & Tracey from Chocolate Earth. They opened a brand new store in Clyde Road Browns Bay - October 1st. It's funny, it was the first time I'd met them in person, but we chat online so often, they feel like old friends.

The new shop is amazing. I don't get over to Browns Bay much (I do recall a visit to South Pacific Pictures at the studio for Shortland Street studio in the 1990s and a couple of visits to the Sunday markets over the last decade, but that's about it). For those of you that haven't been to Browns Bay, I suggest you plan a trip, the beach is right there, smack bang alongside the shopping area, so you can take the kids along for the ride. As I wandered the length of Clyde Raod, I was struck by these shoes, outside a shoe store, I thought they screamed paua shell colours, I envisaged myself wearing them for all of about 2 seconds and then continued on. (they were a lot more purple metallic in real life, than photo portrays)

Back to the new store..... I was treated to a hot chocolate, made with liquid chocolate, it was very yummy and one I'd have again in a heartbeat. I chatted with Kevin out the back of the store for a good while, in which time I watched him decorate a cake, make parchment paper cones at the speed of light, all while keeping an eye on an enormous bowl of melted white chocolate.

He also showed me some of the photos of his latest creations. The new store has the most amazing decor. Black & orange with classy cabinetry showing of their stunning range of cakes. And on the wall above the counter is a huge flat screen tv, which has a slideshow of some of Kevins creations. It can apparently show live feeds from the kitchen when interesting things are happening.

You can view Kevins amazing work on his website http://www.cakes.co.nz/ Kevin is a dab hand at 3d cakes and his airbrushing talents are legendary. He pioneered the paua airbrush technique in NZ.

From his website, you'll be able to follow his links to you tube, to see some pretty momentous cakes being created, including one that used a rubbish bin for a chocolate mould and one heck of a lot of chocolate. You will also find him on facebook.

Kevin kindly granted his permission for me to repost his pictures here for you all to see.

As I was leaving Kevin gave me a box of goodies to take home, a slice of his upbeet chocolate cake (it has beetroot in it), as well as a slice of his flourless chocolate cake. And a rather large Chilli chocolate. Apparently 1 round chocolate cake weighs 3.5kg, as he was telling me this, I lifted my take home box up off the counter, and I could see what he meant, there was a lot of chocolate in  that thar cake!

I snapped a photo of them on my knee in the car, in case they didn't make it home to Whangarei in one piece. (which they did)

Now what Kevin didn't know at the time, is I LOVE chilli chocolate. I am going to go out on a limb here and say Kevin's was the best I have EVER tasted. The centre was as smooth as silk and the chilli hit, was just perfect. If you're a chilli chocolate lover, you have to get yourself over to Chocolate Earth and get some NOW!.

When I got back to Whangarei I cut the point off each chocolate cake to taste test, It was hard to pick a favourite, from just looking at them, I thought it might be the flourless that won, but for me it was the "upbeet" chocolate cake.

Tracey told me as I was leaving the flourless chocolate cake is great microwaved, the ganache makes a sauce once heated. In Tracey's words "it's a self saucing pudding" - so I tried this with the remainder and in one word DIVINE!.

I whizzed back to Whangarei tired & happy, to collect my eldest child, who'd been disco-ing at the home of "The Whole Cake & Caboodle" for Miss Tessa's 7th birthday. Never to shy to ask for cake, I asked for a piece of chocolate orange to take home, as it's one of my favourite Caboodle's cakes.

The Whole Cake & Caboodles work can be found here on Flickr.

Lucky me, I was treated to an enormous plate of chocolate cake, orange chocolate chip as well as some gorgeous disco cupcakes. Well that's a lot of cake for one girl for one day. Nothing to do but eat it of course! (I did share)