Red Velvet cupcakes in support of All Blacks rugby

I recently outed myself as a closet rugby fan. I attended the first Lions test match her in my hometown of Whangarei and have been glued to the TV ever since. Tonight the Lions take on the Maori All Blacks. I'll be perched on the edge of the couch screaming at the TV as all good rugby supporters like to do.

I seemed a good day for some rugby cupcakes. I'd been wanting to try the new Whittakers Full Eighty chocolate bars. Which consequently are very nice. Using Rainbow Dust edible metallic lustre dusts, I trialed "metallic dark silver" left, "metallic light silver" (middle) and "starlight silver saturn" (right) - whilst the beauty of each colour is hard to portray in the photo, my favourite was the "silver saturn". I dusted the lustre powder straight on to the chocolate and on to grey fondant silver ferns, made using this mould

I Wanted a black cream cheese icing for my red velvet cupcakes, so I first made a chocolate cream cheese icing to which I added black progel food coloruing . I find a good dark cocoa such as this one makes a nice dark buttercream/icing meaning you need less black food colouring to go from dark chocolate brown to black 

Recipe

125 grams softened buter

125g room temp cream cheese

4 cups icing sugar

3 Tbsp cocoa powder

6 Tbsp water.

Beat together butter and cream cheese. Add. cocoa powder. Add 1 cup of icing sugar at a time and continue to beat. Add a little water after the addition of each cup of icing sugar.

If you do not want chocolate flavoured icing, omit cocoa powder and add a good squeeze of lemon juice instead.

Because I'm 99.9% sure the Maori All Black are going to come out on top It's black icing atop red cupcakes for me today

Rocky Road Easter Eggs - a fun tutorial from Kiwicakes

These rocky road Easter eggs were fun to make and so easy even children could make them with you.

I used gluten free mini marshmallows in assorted pastel colours, as small bag of blanched almonds a 3d cracked Easter egg mould  and coloured Wilton candy melts.

The finished product I stuck to coloured cake cards, which are inexpensive yet look so pretty.

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The first step is to melt coloured candy melts in the microwave or on the stove top in a double boiler. I coated the inside of the mould using the back of a teaspoon. I hold it up to the light to look for any thin spots. Once satisfied I placed it int he fridge for ten minutes until cooled. 

Any left over candy melts can be spread on to parchment paper and cooled

They can then be broken up in to pieces for remelting another time

I used Malteser bunnies which I dusted with Rainbow Dust lustre dusts

Simply dust the powder dry over the chocolate, using a fluffy brush

To melted candy melts I added the marshmallows and blanched almonds

I placed a small amount of melted candy melts on to the cake card and placed the half egg on top to glue it in place. 

I spooned the rocky road mixture in to the egg half and pushed the bunny down in to the soft mixture. Over the top I sprinkled easter sprinkle medley

A Happy Easter Plaque finished him off.

Frozen Olaf cake with cake lace for Gracie's birthday

This awesome Olaf, Frozen themed cake was made by Jenny here at Kiwicakes for her daughter Gracie's birthday recently. I think she did an amazing job, so I begged her for the photos for the blog. Gracie's full Frozen party will come in a second blog post soon.

Jenny used an 8'' hemisphere cake pan to make the top dome, which is covered in Satin Ice turquoise fondant icing. to get it nice and smooth be sure to use a cake smoother as it's a tricky shape. 

Our lovely range of blue cake drums work well with the Frozen theme, Jenny used a 12'' square board as the base. Then she placed a 10'' square cake on top, that she rough iced with royal icing using a spatula. The white cake is trim with a border of white fondant icing, in to which is pressed a design using a shell tool. The hemisphere turquoise cake is bordered with pearls from a bead mould 

Jenny tells me Olaf loves purple flowers, so our wafer paper purple flowers were perfect. 

These were alternated with Frozen edible cupcake images

Topped off with a Frozen candle

And covered in pearlised snowflakes using cake lace in the the Crystal Cake Lace mat

Jenny used pearlised white cake lace mix, then over dusted some with blue lustre dust from Rainbow Dust

Jenny's Olaf was made using white satin ice fondant, to which a little tylose was added to stiffen it. The pieces were glued together using edible glue

I thing Jenny did an amazing job. Gracie declared it "The best cake ever!"

Sparkly Tiara Treats - from Kiwicakes test kitchen

Today in the kitchen I used our tiara cookie cutter to showcase our new silver dragee range and produced these adorable crowns fit for a princess.

There are a dozen new shapes in our range including the tear drop, marquis and rice dragees pictured above.

To make these treats I used the same cutter for both the cookie dough and the pink fondant. Once my cookies were baked and cooled, I brushed a little sugar glue on and eased fondant tiara shapes over.

To stick the bigger dragees securely to the iced cookies I used a fondant cement. To make one is simple! Inside a disposable piping bag add a small lump of the coloured fondant you are using and a few drips of water. Microwave it for 5 seconds then massage the liquid into the fondant to create a paste. Snip off the end and pipe blobs where the big dragees will sit. If this  hardens inside the piping bag while you are working then pop it back in to heat up for a couple of seconds again. Smaller decorations can be stuck on using the tiniest dab of sugar glue.

Let the peaks of the crown determine the placement of your decorations or freestyle it like I did. Lastly highlight the cookies with a shimmery lustre dust to give them some magic!

Pina Colada Mousse cake for Grandma Kiwicakes birthday

Last week was Grandma Kiwicakes' birthday. She asked for a birthday cake with tapa and pineapple. However at the time she didn't know I'd planned to make her a pina colada mousse cake using a recipe I purchased online in support of the Helping Sweet Kate charity drive. The recipe is from the lovely Jo at Ciccio cakes. A mousse cake doesn't really lend it self to decorating in the usual manner. I didn't let that stop me and set out to give Grandma Kiwicakes what she asked for. This cake was a whopping 12'' in diameter.

Layered with 2 layers of pina colada mousse and another thin layer on top. The pineapple decorations were marzipan and the tapa design was pastel yellow Satin Ice fondant

To make the pineapples I coloured some marzipan yellow and green using progel

Using a pineapple plunger cutter, I cut out lots of little pineapples, the design was a bit one dimensional, so I added green tufts to the top of each one.

Using a fondant cutting wheel, I sliced randomly from the outside edge, as I wanted the ragged edges left on my tufts.

The marzipan sticks to itself when pressed, so no edible glue is needed. These are so quick and easy to make. In less than 20 minutes, I had enough for the whole cake.

The tapa design was made using this mould. I made two strips to go around the circumference of the cake. It is over dusted with lustre in a coppery tone. The pineappples rest on the ledge of the tapa surround. The Kiwicakes girls declared the cake delicious and this huge cake was spread around many people, each with a piece to take home. It was fun to do something a little different for a change.

Note: Mousse cakes needs to be refrigerated, so ideally this should be decorated shortly before serving.

Chocolate coins finished with edible lustre dust

I find these chocolate coins difficult to find throughout the year, however in the lead up to Christmas they seem to be everywhere, so I stockpile for the year ahead. Chocolate coins are great for pirate cakes and those cakes pointing the finger at bean counters. I remove the foils before placing them on a cake. I dusted the silver 50 cent piece with edible light silver dust and the $1 coin with edible golden sunny savannah dust (both by Rainbow Dust).

How I colour my paua shells

I frequently get asked how I colour my paua shells (made using the paua shell moulds specially commissioned by Kiwicakes), after having explained it at length many times, I thought a photo tutorial might be quicker. If you need to know how to use a silicone mould see here

--> . The photos above have white hologram glitter on top of brown sugar, to look like twinkling sand on a hot sunny day.

My paua shells above I made using Dark Chocolate Satin Ice Fondant (you can use any colour, although colours don't show up well on white, or you can use melted chocolate and wait for it to set.) I greased my moulds with crsico, so I wouldn't have cornflour to dust off the dark colour fondant, this gives them a nice shine too.

I start with at least 5 colours of lustre, 1 blue, 1 green, 1 pink, 1 purple and the essential secret to making them come alive 1 gold (I often use more colours, but 5 is the minimum)

I line my paua up, open any colour of lustre and cover all of the pauas in random splats of that colour.

I repeat this process until of the paua are completely covered in splats of colour. At this stage, they look ridiculous.

Taking a large brush, sweep all of the dust off in one direction only, this blends the paua colours in one quick swift motion. I find the paper towel works well to stop excess floating around.

They are so quick and easy to make for cupcakes or cakes

They look good placed among other seashells & corals

And when required, even look good in paler tones, to match other colourways