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

SPCA Cupcake Day 2017

I recently took a trip to the Whangarei SPCA to deliver some cupcakes and chocolate VW cars to Andrea (manager fo SPCA Whangare at right) and the staff/volunteers who work so tirelessly. I felt they deserved a treat.

The cupcakes were decorated with our 4 new sprinkle medleys which have been created in support of SPCA cupcake day 2017.

$2 from the sale of every pack of these 4 animal themed cupcake medleys will go to SPCA Cupcake Day. You can grab a pack here If oyu love the cupcake papers, you'll find these here too 

Trainer Tom comes to visit Kiwicakes for Pokemon Go

Recently we had a visit at Kiwicakes from Pokemon Go Trainer Tom. Kiwicakes baked cupcakes to sell for $2 each with all funds going to Toms charity Live More Awesome (supporting mental health awareness). We also made Tom a special cake just for him

A great time was had by all, then Tom had to scoot across town to take part in a level 4 Pokemon Go gym raid for a Tyrannitar.

If you'd like to create your own Pokemon go cakes & cupcakes, you can using these 

Check out Tom's YouTube channel, this video includes his visit to Whangarei

Pink Ribbon Breakfast Sweets - from Kiwicakes test kitchen

Support the New Zealand Breast Cancer Foundation during May of each year by hosting a pink ribbon breakfast. Or again in October when it's breast cancer awareness month. It's not difficult to do, its a good excuse to catch up with friends and family and the money raised goes to a great cause! Here are a few sweet ideas...

The iconic pink ribbon is super simple to create with either a strip of fondant or modelling chocolate twisted once. Cupcakes make a nice parting gift for friends to enjoy later, as they have probably filled up on other savouries and sweets at your brekky.

Kiwicakes have a good range of old fashioned lollies great for snacking on at gatherings. In the pink theme I went with sour strawberries and  Good to dot around the room in snacking bowls.

glo-hearts.

Store-bought mallowpuff type biscuits were made into boob shape with a dot of white chocolate melts and a pinch of crystal candy pink glitter. These were a great conversation piece!

Plain vanilla cookies are jazzed up with pink fondant or modelling chocolate toppers. Use any cutters you have to cut both the cookie and the topper. Smaller plunger cutters can be used to imprint extra decoration and adhere the pieces with sugar glue. Nice to have with a cuppa.

This photo does not do these scrummy meringues justice. They were a stock standard recipe that I added a couple of teaspoons of 100% strawberry powder and an equal amount of boiling water to before beating. They were punchy and chewy in the center, while crisp on the outer. The natural flavour of these fruit powders is just amazing.

 Get inspired, get your friends together and get collecting for this important cause.

Bronchiectasis Foundation launch here in Northland 7th April 2015

Yesterday was a very special day here in Northland with the launch of the Bronchiectasis Foundation the Culmination of a dream of Esther Jordan-Muriwai. Yesterday would have been Esther's 25 birthday. Sadly she passed away 10 months earlier. Family, friends, health professionals, dignitaries and the Governor General, Lieutenant General Sir Jerry Mateparae acknowledged her courage and determination during the launch event.

Katie pictured above also has Bronchiectasis. You may remember Katie from December 2013 when I made her 10th birthday cake for Operation Sugar. (you may also have seen her in Countdown supermarket ads, the local paper and other Bronchiectasis awareness campaigns)

Earlier this year the Whangarei Cake Guild had the pleasure of meeting Esther's parents Camron and Ana. They came along to one of our monthly meetings and told us Esther's story of bravery and perseverance living with this terrible illness. I had tears in my eyes listening to Esther's story and immediately my mind went to my young friend Katie, as she battles with Bronchiectasis every day. Esther's parents asked if as a club we'd be prepared to create a cake for the launch of Esther's dream the Bronchiectasis Foundation. Of course as a club we all wanted to help. The stunning cake you see is a group effort from many members. I was proud to get involved, in fact I was bursting at the seams to help. Kiwicakes donated the cake supplies needed to make this cake. Every member had a different job. Mine was to cover and emboss the cake board (using an impression mat). The Whangarei Cake guild was represented at the event yesterday by Anne & Megan, who both contributed to making the wonderful cake (Megan baking & covering, Anne was one of the rose makers and cake transporter - many other members helped to produce this stunning cake).

You can read more about this wonderful event and Esther's dream here in a Northern advocate newspaper story
You can watch the story on Seven Sharp TV Show here and see the lovely Katie being interviewed and on Maori TV here
If you want to know more about Bronchiectasis you can check out the Northland support group facebook page here 
Photos used with permission - Lisa Reed.

Rachel Jenkinson from Operation Sugar is NEXT Woman of the year nominee

I can hardly contain myself, I have the most exciting news to announce. Rachel Jenkinson from Operation Sugar is a finalist with NEXT magazine for "NEXT Woman of the year".

Earlier this year I nominated Rachel for this award. I spent quite some time preparing a detailed application for everything Rachel does behind the scenes for Operation Sugar. This was an eye opener for me, as she does a lot more than any of us could imagine. I had great fun collating all of the wonderful press clippings about Operation Sugar that have appeared in newspapers, as well as on radio & TV across New Zealand.

It's been hard to keep the secret for the last month, until NEXT magazine came out today. Rachel is one of 5 nominees in the Community category and joins 24 other wonderful New Zealand women. 

The winner will be announced at a gala event in October at the Orakei Bay function centre. I'm extremely proud to be accompanying Rachel, along with her sister Tracey to the event as her date. 

Rachel and I have spent each afternoon for weeks messaging the odd thought for what we'll do while she is in Auckland (Rachel is from Balclutha, so her trip to Auckland will be her first time visiting). I think all of the ideas Rachel and I have come up with so far will require a year to do, so we'll have to work on narrowing our list down.

Rachel has received a snazzy invite for dinner and we've organised our glad rags

I am really looking forward to the awards evening. I was a nominee in the business category of the Inaugural "NEXT Woman of the year" in 2010 (you can read about my involvement here & here & also here). It was a humbling experience for me to be surrounded by such high achieving woman. I am thrilled to be accompanying Rachel in recognition of her amazing achievements with Operation Sugar. I'll be bringing you updates of our Auckland jaunts, as well as bringing you details of the awards night next month.

Please head on over to Operation Sugars Facebook page and leave a note of congratulations for Rachel here.

You can find out more about Operation Sugar here. If you are in a position to give a little, to help with the running of Operation Sugar, you can make a donation of any amount here. And Operation Sugar is always looking for more volunteer bakers & photographers too - check out their website. 

SPCA Cupcake Day 2013

Monday 26th August was SPCA Cupcake Day. Here at Kiwicakes Laura and I formed "Team Kiwicakes" as SPCA Cupcake Day bakers. We baked over 100 cupcakes and raised $282.50 for the SPCA. We worked furiously together for most of the day. Thankfully Laura had spent the week before making many of the decorations. Many of the cupcakes missed being photographed, as we had customers calling early than we advertised to collect cupcakes.

Many of our customers took away 6 packs of mixed designs. We used the SPCA vanilla cupcake recipe created by Chelsea Winters (winner of Masterchef). We also had red velvet with cream cheese icing. What didn't sell over the counter by the time we closed, my team sold around the Kamo businesses - they were all gone in 10 minutes! Since Monday I've received some lovely compliments on them. We also received some extra donations from our generous Kamo business friends.

Laura used our dog & cat face stencils, to make these fondant discs ahead of time. The fondant had tylose added to harden them. They were stencilled using royal icing.

The SPCA letters were cut using the alphabet fondant cut-outs

Our edible wafer butterflies were great to create quick yet stunning cupcakes, which was awesome as some of our other designs were labour intensive.

Our Bunnies have a pink mimosa for a tail. The bunnies were cut using the larger of the two PME rabbit cutters. The grass was green buttercream icing piped with tip 233

This little doggy digging for bones was made using chocolate modelling paste. The little candy bones were from our range of sprinkles.

The little dog house and our yellow scaredy cats were both cut using cutters from our miniature precious paws cutter set. The blue paw print was made in just seconds by pressing fondant into our paws & bones silicone mould

I've been a part of SPCA Cupcake Day since its inception, both as a baker and as a sponsor of prizes. I looked forward to SPCA Cupcake Day 2014.

Team Kiwicake's - for SPCA Cucpake Day

Today I've registered "Kiwicakes" in the team category for the SPCA Cupcake Day. Laura and I will be baking up a storm in Kiwicakes' test kitchen Monday 26 August (more details to come on the cupcakes that will be available)

Kiwicakes is the official cake supplies sponsor for Cupcake Day - as we've been since its inception - so today I sent an enormous parcel of goodies off to the SPCA. The SPCA is a cause close to my heart and I've had fun baking for the SPCA each year. This year we intend to outdo ourselves!

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The SPCA has some pretty cool merchandise to support SPCA Cupcake Day. Last year Minette Hanekom from Red Cherry Design (who designed the Kiwicakes Trixie kiwi logo) designed these awesome tea towels (above). This year Beck Wheeler has made these funky designs (below). You can check out all their cool merchandise here I've just finished placing an order for tea towels, stickers and cupcake cases.

Chelsea Winter, New Zealand's Masterchef 2012 winner, has supplied her cupcake recipe for the SPCA Cupcake Day. The SPCA has granted permission for us to share this with you (click on our photo to print a copy).

Vanilla cupcakes with white chocolate ganache icing (Chelsea Winter)

Makes about 24

Cupcakes

225g butter, at room temperature

2 cups sugar

3 free range eggs, at room temperature

1 ½ teaspoons pure natural vanilla essence

2 ½ cups all-purpose flour

1 ½ tsp baking powder

1 cup milk

Icing

200ml cream

200g good quality white chocolate

 5 cups icing sugar

Freeze-dried raspberries or strawberries (or powder)

Method

Cupcakes

Preheat oven to 180°c. Line 2 x standard 12 pan muffin tins with cupcake liners (24 total – you may need to do in two batches).

Sift the flour and baking powder into a small bowl, stir to combine and set aside.

Cream the butter and sugar with an electric beater or mixer until very pale and fluffy (or you can do it by hand, it will just take longer). Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down the sides with a spatula. Beat in the vanilla essence.

In three parts each, alternate adding the dry ingredients and milk. With each addition, beat only until the ingredients are just incorporated, but at the end the mixture should be smooth. Again, scrape down the sides as you go.

Spoon the batter into the cupcake liners about ¾ full, and bake in middle of the oven for about 15 minutes until they just start to turn golden on top.  Cool the cupcakes in the tins for 10 minutes, then remove and cool completely on a wire rack before icing.

Icing

Melt the white chocolate over a double boiler. Add the cream and mix to combine. Cool, then chill in the fridge for an hour. Beat the mixture until it goes thick and creamy, then beat in the icing sugar until thick and smooth. Pipe or spread the icing on to cupcakes and sprinkle with the raspberries/powder.

Starship's Diamond & Stars Tea Party

I received an email recently from one of Kiwicakes earliest customers. Lenna has been with me right from the beginning. She asked me to sponsor some Satin Ice fondant, glitter and some foil cupcake cases for Starship's Diamond & Stars Tea Party. The event raised over $88 000 for Starship's national air ambulance. Lenna sent me some wonderful photo's of all her hard work (she had an accomplice in the lovely Donna) She also promised to send some photo's I could share with you all and I just loved what they did with their 350 cupcakes. I think they did an awesome job.

I asked Lenna what she thought of Satin Ice fondant and she said "Donna and I had a lot of fun making these cupcakes for such a great cause.We loved the Satin Ice Fondant, it was easy to use and tastes AMAZING! Love love love it!"

Enjoy the photos