Edible icing images not just for cake tops

 

Here in NZ my daughters birthday fell during level 4 lockdown. Luckily a few gifts had been purchased earlier in the year, so we still had something of a celebration. Although turning 17, I decided to turn it in to a treasure hunt (as she'd loved this as a child. And lets face it, I had to do something to fill those long lockdown days)

There were 4 of us at home, so I decided to make a small cake. I'd taken home some supplies on our last day of work prior to lock down.

I'd printed an edible image of our wee dog Kenzie. then trimmed the background so it was the exact height of the cake.

Whilst we are used to seeing edible icing images used on cake tops, I really enjoyed the different look of this one on the side of the cake

If you'd like us to print an edible image for you check that out here

So this is me

I recently had my portrait taken, wearing makeup no less!. And for anyone that knows me, will know this is likely a once a year occurrence. However this all came about when I was invited to an event "Celebrating Hardworking Woman" for business woman here in Whangarei. It was an event run by Nikita Parker with proceeds going to "Look Good Feel Better"And the gorgeous Minette took our photos.

So with this lovely photo in hand, I thought I would tell you a little bit about myself
I am a wife, mother, daughter, sister and furbaby owner.
I wear glasses and can't manage without them.
I am not a follower of fashion, I live in jeans - I do not enjoy shopping (unless it's for kitchen gadgets, cake toys or good food & wine, then I LOVE Shopping!)
I love to travel. My favourite places to visit are OLD, I love museums and galleries.
I live, breathe, eat and even dream about cake. When visiting new places my first stop is often to do with food or cake related.
I hear all too often "I just don't know how you do what you do - how do you have time". I could laughingly say it is due to not wearing makeup and not co-ordinating my outfits. But the truth is I have an amazing support network. My long suffering husband has at times been both mother and father to our children whilst I've travelled throughout NZ and overseas to cake shows and cake related events. And Grandma Kiwicakes, whom many of you know and love has been my rock not only in business, but with the family too. And here at Kiwicakes I have a great staff that have been with me for years - I'd be lost without them.
I read A LOT and if I have a good book in hand, I've been known to be unable to put it down. I don't have a favourite genre, if it's good I'll read it.
I love to cook and take great pleasure pottering about in the kitchen.
I love discovering new restaurants and eateries
I strive to shop locally, whilst I have been known to make an appearance at the supermarket, I am a regular at the local butcher, Bin Inn, Co-op and markets. I prefer old retro to new items.
My fitness regime is pretty much non existent, but I walk a few kilometres every day with our wee dog. The rest of the time you'll find me glued to my computer, doing everything behind the scenes that is needed to run Kiwicakes.

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.

Kiwicakes article in Creative Junction magazine

Our new range of cakes is profiled in the latest issue of Creative Junction magazine. You can read all about it here 

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 

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

Kumara cheesecake recipe

Last year on a trip to NZ's Kumara capital (Kaipara district). I was thrilled to discover something new - Kumara cheesecake. Once I returned home I was determined to create my own version of the dish. Whilst mine differs from the one I ate, I was very happy with the taste and texture of mine. And it couldn't be easier to make. The topping has a fudgy texture which contrasts nicely with the cheesecake filling.

My recipe makes a large cheesecake, you could half the recipe if you have a smaller pan. I used a 10" diameter Fat daddios springform pan

For the base

1 packet of Superwine biscuits crushed

1 tbsp sugar

150g melted butter

Mix and press in to base of pan

For the Cheesecake filling

500g kumara peeled and cut in to small pieces

500g Philadelphia Cream Cheese at room temp

3 Tbsp condensed milk

Boil kumara until soft. Allow to cool. Place in food processor and blend until smooth add cream cheese and condensed milk. Pulse to combine. Pour on top of biscuit base.

For the topping 

2 cups brown sugar

125g butter

Good handful of macadamia nuts

Warm the sugar & butter gently together in a pan on stove top until sugar dissolves. Allow to cool slightly stir in nuts and pour over top of cheesecake filling.

Refrigerate 4 hours or until set.

Dome shape desserts using millionaires caramel from Kiwicakes

These delicious desserts were made by my 13 year old at Christmas time, using an idea given to her by the lovely Laurel Watson (dessert lady extraordinaire). With three simply ingredients, these are actually created from ready made ingredients, which made it easier for my 13 year old to cope with.

Using an size sphere shaped mould fill 2/3 full with either white or dark Bakel's truffle (a type of ready made ganache avilable from Kiwicakes) cut circles of trifle sponge slightly smaller than the dome using a round cutter and press down in to the truffle mix. They have a tendency to want to float upwards, we found poking a hole in them with a skewer helped the trapped air escape making them less likely to do this. Freeze.

Remove from freezer. taking a sharp knife gently remove some of the sponge. Taking some warmed millionaires caramel, to which we added some sea salt (30 seconds in microwave), fill a piping bag and pipe a small amount in to each cavity. Replace sponge discs on top of caramel and freeze again.

After 30 mins (or longer) remove from freezer and spread more truffle sealing the base. Freeze again.

Once frozen to this stage, the desserts are ready in their basic form, as we were ready to serve we took a strawberry and dipped it in the opposite colour truffle, placing the strawberry on the frozen dessert provided the chill factor needed to set the strawberry coating

I prefered the look of the drip above, however if you prefer the neater look below, this was how they naturally ocurred, I had to encourage the drip above by giving it a slight shake.

50th Golden wedding anniversary cake for Grandma Kiwicakes

This weekend was my 17th wedding anniversary. I was married on my parents 33rd wedding anniversary and today would have been their 50th. Sadly my Dad passed away when I was a teenager. So I made a cake just for Mum today.

The cake is coated with Bakels chocolate truffle and the Kiwi is painted with Rolkem super gold lustre. The cake is accented with edible gold leaf and the 50th cake topper, as with all of the supplies came from Kiwicakes

Grandma Kiwicakes has a huge love of Kiwis (in fact she named Kiwicakes) this is the reason for the kiwi on the top of the cake.

My dad was a pretty cool guy, an engineer who was well known in our district for fixing those building problems no one else could fix. He taught me to swing a hammer and use a power drill (the right way) and he taught me to drive - and to parallel park! He fixed my 1961 Fiat Bambina every time it broke down (which was a lot) and at times hand made the parts when none could be bought. He gave me my height (thankfully - one really wouldn't want to be as short as Grandma Kiwicakes) He is the parent everyone says I most look like.

I love this photo of them, it was taken on their honeymoon (I think). Mum told me Dad had to produce the marriage certificate to one hotelier in Invercargill as he didn't believe Mum was old enough for a night away in a hotel, let alone be married. But then again Mum does look about 15 in this photo, not the 20 years old she was.

Just for a laugh I've added in some of my own wedding photos - here I am at a spritely 24 years old - where did the time go?

My wedding cake was 4 tiers made by City Cake Co Mt Eden Auckland. Tiers were fruit cake, orange & almond, gin & lemon & chocolate mud. Every single piece of cake was eaten by our 75 guests, as most people who had one piece wanted to go back and try the other flavours - as it was so good!

Kiwicakes in "Kiwi As" sugar art collaboration

Recently I was involved in the "Kiwi-As" sugar art collaboration. I decided on an Andy Warhol inspired Tiki piece. I had the privilege of my piece being chosen for the banner of the facebook page. You can check that page out here and see all of the other great works by NZ decorators.

To create these little tiki faces I used this mould. I coloured gumpaste with progel colouring from Rainbow Dust.

Pacific Pearl Food & Wine cruise Part 2

During our Food & Wine Cruise with P&O on Pacific Pearl, there were some great cooking shows in the Marquee theatre. Bridget Davis The Internet Chef was highly entertaining. This first show was aimed at no bake desserts.

The first poor lady up on stage faced seized chocolate

So when my daughter Poppy went up on stage, she was determined to not seize her chocolate

And she didn't. Bridget made with her a cranberry and pistachio white chocolate bark.

Poppy was given it on an enormous catering tray to take back to her seat while it set (everything int he kitchen is enormous, as they make things on such a large scale)

The audience was never short on volunteers.

At the end of the show Poppy took the bark up on stage. Sadly for everyone else in the audience it hadn't set yet, so the whole piece had to come back to our room to go int he fridge. Lucky us!

And it was mighty tasty 

Sachie Nomura from Sachie's Kitchen was up next. She had some simple yet wonderful techniques on how to cut cabbage finely, how to butterfly chicken pieces for teriyaki and so much more. I was thrilled to be able to purchase a signed copy of her cookbook on board.

As always audience participation played a huge part

Sachie made one of my absolute favourites - dumplings. I could eat these until I pop!

At the end of her demonstration everyone was invited up to taste. Since returning home from our cruise I have devoured Sachie's book, reading from cover to cover and attempting quite a few recipes.

Sunday morning Bridget was back on stage for "pan frying". First up she showed us how to make a cheese sandwich - now I guess everyone was thinking I don't need to know how to fry a cheese sandwich, but that's where you're wrong. Bridget's cheese sandwich was amazing. She used an Emmental type sweet nutty cheese along with a cheddar. AND she placed cheese inside & outside of the sandwich.

Poppy was sitting in her seat saying "I'd love to try that" - so when bridget called out who wants to try this, and no one did (must have all been a little shy). I called out yes. As Poppy had been up on stage the day before Bridget recognised her and called out "come on up Poppy"

Then it was my turn to salivate. Bridget made a Cubano, made even more famous on the movie "Chef"

So when Bridget called out for a helper, I had to say yes And of course I got one of the chefs hats too - don't I look snazzy.

I layered the sandwich with tasty cheese, ham, pork and pickle.

LOTS of cheese - I love cheese!

Then it was a matter of  frying the lavishly buttered )on the outside) sandwich.

Apparently I was a natural - and this is the result

As we'd just shared Poppy's cheese sandwich with those around us. We also shared this sandwich too. After all breakfast aboard the cruise had left us somewhat full already. Lastly Bridget showed us a salted chocolate sandwich, which was truly decadent. A young boy near us bought a piece over to us int he audience (as we'd shared our sandwiches with him). Just as well it was still a few hours till lunch!

Another fun event was the Pacific cook off. With the Pacific Pearl's executive chef Marc - a very tongue in cheek funny French chef and Bridget Davis the Internet Chef. Hosted by one of P&Os entertainment staff, who kept the jokes coming and attempted to fluster the chefs.

The chefs each had a audience member helper, a mystery bag of ingredients and access to the ingredients on the bench in front of them. Chef Marc decided bananas were useless and tossed them to the stage floor. It was at this point memories of the Muppet's Swedish chef came flooding back and I laughed even harder.

The Pacific cook off was won by Internet Chef Bridget Davis and her cooking partner. It was decided by audience vote, Grandma Kiwicakes had said to me, we're sitting in the front row, Bridget can see us, we'll have to vote for her. However we didn't have to worry, Bridget won us over with her dish. Sorry chef Marc! The prize aside from the glory was a culinary bag of goodies for the audience member helping.

If you love food and you love holidays, I can highly recommend the 3 night short break P&O cruise leaving from and returning to Auckland. For the price of your fare, you receive your room and all meals (unless you opt to eat at Salt Grill - see part 1 of my post). All shows, gym, pool, kids club and many activities are included. Optional extras can include things like wine tasting and cocktail classes, but these are reasonably priced in the $16-25 range