It's Raining Cats and Dogs - from Kiwicakes test kitchen

This selection of pet themed cupcakes was made for our local Kamo SPCA opportunity shop on SPCA cupcake day recently. We have all the fun tools and equipment here to make a wide selection! Here are some of them...

These spooked kitty cats were shaped with a cutter from the Mini Paws set and black eyes were stuck into indents made with the back of the paintbrush with a little sugar glue. 

Here are the three finished scaredy cats lurking in fields of toadstools.

These butterflies were made with the medium plunger cutter from this this set and they float atop billowy clouds of white easy frost icing in sky blue butterfly cases. Champagne oil was added to the icing for a beautiful flavour.

Here you can see the intricate detail that the plunger cutters gives these butterflies with one simple push. The yellow butterfly has been dusted with a lustre dust for sheen and the entire cupcake is sprinkled with yellow edible glitter. 

We used alphabet cutters to brand these cupcakes with their blue SPCA. A pinch of tylose was added to the blue fondant to stiffen it. Once cut, the letters were indented with the back of a paintbrush for a dotty effect. The easyfrost icing was coloured and flavoured in one easy hit with the addition of lemon flavacol. These also come in other citrus and tropical fruit, and classics like coffee, peppermint, chocolate, caramel and butterscotch. A 1A tip was used to pipe the soft lemon swirls. 

These neon cats were formed with the help of a silicone mould and they look so peaceful! I always rub a tiny bit of finishing creme into moulds before I push the coloured fondant in. This ensures they pop out perfectly. These sleeping cats have been simply dusted with a lustre filled dusting powder pump brush.

These cartoony green grass cupcakes added vibrant colour to the boxes. We added mint green gel colour to our easyfrost icing as well as a couple of drops of mint chocolate chip oil flavouring. Then it was easily piped on through a grass tip #233.

The decorations on top were simply pressed into a dog themed silicone mould set. For the two-tone paw I rolled 4 tiny rounds of soft pink fondant and flattened them into the guide then put a touch of sugar glue on top of each. The ball of brown fondant was eased over gently to complete the shape. I used a sturdy pink foil cupcake case to match the pink touches on the paw.

Butterfly Party Food - from Kiwicakes test kitchen

Last month our wee girl Indie turned 4. She's into all little insects, bugs (and even slugs!) so we ran with a butterfly party theme. This is her cake and it is followed by plenty of plenty of sweet treat ideas below...

As I do with all my kids parties, I popped a keyword into the Kiwicakes Quick Find box for decorating inspiration. The search "butterfly" currently brings up 41 varied products to enhance cakes and parties. Our party table was full of edible fluttering beauties.

These ever-popular honey rice bubble cakes were made by my mum. Bless! The mini butterflies on top look like they are ready to take off. They were made the day before with thinly rolled pink fondant (with a pinch of tylose worked in) stamped out with a mini plunger cutter, sprinkled ever so lightly with some pink glitter and set to dry resting in a v-shape overnight. Like all pink/purple fondants remember to keep these in a dark place away from fading UV light. Shoe boxes are great for fondant decorations as they are dark yet they still breathe. The sparkly butterflies were adhered with a wee dab of electric pink coloured royal icing just before serving. Royal icing can also be made, coloured and refrigerated in a piping bag in advance.

These pretty cookies are a basic chocolate biscuit base shaped with a butterfly plunger cutter. Coloured fondant was plunged with the wing design and adhered to each baked cookie with sugar glue. Again these can be made in the days leading up to the party.

Here's a twist on regular fairy bread - just use the same butterfly plunger cutter as for the cookies above. It makes a nicely sized item for small hands!  Lightly butter soft white toast slice bread and dip into/sprinkle over non pareils of your choice. You will get 4-5 butterflies per slice of bread. To stay fresh these must be assembled right before serving so enlist some help! I know I am mad but I proudly save the crusts and trimmings so later on I can turn them into an easy and colour-spiked bread and butter pudding with currants and zesty lemon that everybody loves. Yum.

These winged beauties were made on the morning of the party. All you need is a bag of pretzels, a bag of pascall clinkers, a wee bit of melted chocolate in a disposable piping bag and some edible bling! This is best achieved as a 2 person job as you need to work quickly while the chocolate is still warm. Kids loved seeing the surprise colour inside the chocolate clinker and the pretzels added to the savoury mix on a very sweet-laden table offering.

Inside the birthday cake I electrified my everyday cake batter by marbling 3 coloured batter portions. I used a wee squirt of gel colours neon colours , swirled them together with a cake tester before baking. I made a double mix to fill a round and a square tin. The butterfly torso was 1/3 of the square cake and the remainder was cut in half for the top wing shapes. The bottom larger wings were two halves of the circle.

To crumb coat the butterfly body and wings I made a ganache using 2 Cadbury blocks (so 440g dairy milk chocolate) chopped and added into 180ml almost boiling cream. The fondant-covered cake was decorated with flowery panels utilising my floral impression mat set and topped off with pastel coloured share-pack mini mentos lollies.

Butterfly cake for good friend Lyndsey

My friend Lyndsey and her family came for dinner last night. It was Lyndsey's 35th birthday, so we had to celebrate. However, Lyndsey's cake posed a small problem for me, as I was away the day before, so I needed something that looked stunning (that goes without saying) but could be put together in limited time. My solution was the butterfly cake above.

Last month, we received these beautiful edible wafer butterflies in stock. I'd been wanting to try them out for awhile. I used two packs of the "mixed colours" (I had a few left over).

When I considered the shape of my cake, I firstly tried stacking just two round cake pans together, but then decided on the additional shape on top, which would make it a bit different. The cake pans are an 8'' hexagon, a 5'' round, and a 2 3/4'' hemisphere.

The hexagon cake was chocolate, and the round and small hemisphere were vanilla. I made white chocolate ganache, to which I added two tablespoons of Fresh-As freeze dried raspberry powder (600g of white chocolate/200ml cream/100ml condensed milk).

The cakes are covered in pastel green Satin Ice fondant and the base of the cake is trimmed with a 6mm pearl bead trim. The board I impressed with a design using the graceful vines impression mat.

I mixed up a batch of royal icing mix and the butterflies were easily adhered to the cake with a small spot behind each one. 

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How to make realistic butterflies for your cakes

http://www.cakecentral.com/ is simply one of the best how to websites check out the video tutorial for how to make reaslitic butterflies for your cake. I want to try it!

http://cakecentral.com/articles/76/how-to-make-realistic-edible-butterflies