How to make your own custom chocolate bars, to make your cakes really pop

 Making your own custom chocolate bars is quick, easy and fun! And they will really set your cakes apart from store bought chocolate bars.
The examples above use chocolate moulds from Kiwicakes . You can either use pre-coloured candy melts OR colour your own white chocolate using candy colour oil based colours or powder colour. (You cannot use gel paste or liquid food colouring, as this will cause your chocolate to seize and make it unsuable)

You can mould them with or without sprinkles. As a single colour or marbled. The choice is yours.

A finished bar weighs less than 100g, making them quite economic to make.

Bars like this are often referred to as "bark" this is the Wilton Happy Birthday Mould, you can find them in other seasonal designs (which are not always bar shaped - but do consider other shapes). Simply melt your coloured chocolate, spoon in to mould, tap on the bench for a good ten taps, to ensure any bubbles trapped are popped. Then lightly sprinkle over your sprinkle medley and allow to cool. They will release easily once set

To create the marble colour simply place your dominant colour in the mould first, then add small blobs of other colours, and stir gently (I use a lollipop stick to do this).Do NOT use your candy colour to do the marbling, as once removed from the mould, the swirls of colour can come off on your hands.

If you're after a traditional bar shape. And you want sprinkles on the side that would normally have the lines where you break the bar apart, take care to look at the example below.

You cannot add just a little sprinkles to the mould, if you do, you will get the result as shown in my photo. as the melted chocolate allows the sprinkles to move around.

You need to pack them right in there and fill it right up.

The bars can be bagged and given as a gift, just like thy are. When placing on a cake, I find they look best at differing heights. You can simply break off a piece of one bar, to make it shorter. It is important when placing on the cake, to cut a narrow aperture for the bar to be pushed in to. If oyu push down in to solid cake, you risk breaking the bar. 

These little bars make an affordable take home gift, from your party, and can be made to match the birthday cake.

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

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 

New sprinkle medleys available from Kiwicakes

These lovely new sprinkle medleys are available now at Kiwicakes. Just perfect for sprinkling on your drip or drizzle effect cakes. Click here to view $8.95 for 150g

Loaded Chocolate Celebration Cake - from Kiwicakes test kitchen

Here is a simple idea for the next cake you have creative license with. Simply load the top with the recipients favourite chocolate bars and lollies! I made this cake with inspiration from my baby sister for her 21st birthday and was really pleased with the result.

Think about height and variation of textures when you are shopping for goodies. Position the biggest items first. Cut a shallow hole out of the cake where you will anchor each piece and press them firmly in. Turkish delight and Crunchie bars can be sliced to expose their colourful centers. Red licorice choc logs work well too. Remember that odd numbers look best with any creative endeavors like this. Somehow the cake looks most balanced when there are bars coming out on completely different angles!

Pipe some buttercream swirls in and around the base of your bigger chocolate bars to further cement them in. Top with a generous mixture of lollies and sprinkles to fill in all the gaps. I used some Glo Hearts and Sour Strawberries from Kiwicakes old fashioned lolly range as well as a chocolate transfer sheet to create the stunning chocolate shards with swirl effects.

Christmas Tree Pops - from Kiwicakes test kitchen

With the festive season just around the corner we thought that these Christmas Tree cake pops might inspire you to get decorating! The basics you need are your cake mixture, cake pop mould, cake pop sticks and melting chocolate (I used a mixture of green and white to get this pastel colour). 

These snowman sprinkles are beautifully moulded and so realistic! 

Our new range of dragees look neat on a stippled chocolate tree. Here I used a triangle and rice shapes. You can also get dragees in a handy assorted pack.

These edible star decorations together with hologram glitter give this tree a classy look.

This look can be acheived with a mix of green and peacock coloured jimmies.

Classic garland decorations are easy to achieve with Christmas sugar pearls and fit-for-purpose tweezers. Stick them on while the chocolate is still drying and they will adhere easily.

Lastly you can use turquoise edible glitter for a quick and easy festive coating.

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.

Completley Mad Cupcake Buffet - from Kiwicakes test kitchen

Crazy themed celebrations at the preschool our two youngest children attend are not a surprise to us anymore. They sure keep learning fun! To mark April Fools day a Mad Hatters tea party was held in a beautifully decorated garden. The high tea was complete with china cups & saucers and of course marvellous cupcake creations. 

The kids cupcake station was a world of colour and fantasy with buttercream to swirl then a buffet of decorations, sprinkles and edible spray paint to choose from. Able parents were on hand to assist but we found that the preschoolers were super capable anyway! Kiwicakes donated some magical topping products for us to use.

The firm icing discs (being pointed to by a cute, chubby finger no less!) are made from coloured fondant hardened with tylose powder and rolled out with impression mats. Ais especially visible on the pink heart, and mini cutters were used to shape the discs. These were made the night before to give them time to firm up. 

The variation achieved was just beautiful and so fitting of Mad Hatter style! 

And finally here is my littlest monster Mitchell being assisted by our good friend Kimmie. Yay for edible fun!!

St Paddys Leprechaun - from Kiwicakes test kitchen

This crazy little leprechaun is achieved with a silicone mould, which has arrived just in time for St Paddy's day! Its just a case of pressing fondant in, snap-freezing him, then finishing with the detailing. He is presented a top these cool shamrock cupcake papers. 

Firstly with any new mould, give it a wash in hot water and let it air-dry. Then season it with a smidgen of crisco vegetable shortening for guaranteed easy-release. Use tiny balls of flesh coloured fondant and press them into your little man's face, ears, hand and pot as pictured above. Roll a thin sausage for the pot's handle and press into place. I love this pre-coloured fondant for skin tone because so many times I have mucked around with a small amount of my peaches and browns and can't seem to get the colour quite right. It also works well as a warm base colour for edible metallic light gold paint as you will see further down the blog.

Next I pressed green satinice fondant into the remainder of the mould.. He only weighs a few grams when completed so we are only talking about tiny amounts of fondant here! When the cavities are full, sit the mould in your freezer for a couple of minutes to firm up the fondant before turning out to release the funny little leprechaun and clover leaf. Release the feet from the leprechaun mould first and then the rest of his body will follow. Use a scalpel to do any microscopic tidying if your skin tone and green have spread a millimeter or two in the wrong direction.

I used light gold metallic paint and the finest paintbrush to highlight his little pot of gold. When he has been at room temperature for a good half an hour he will have hardened with a slight crust all over. Now its time to add wee dots for his eyeballs with an airforce blue edible marker pen and his smile with a red edible marker pen. I tried to do the facial features on mine too early when they were still too 'fresh' and ended up with less-than-perfect lines so it is worth waiting if you have that luxury.

The shamrock silicone mould (included alongside the leprechaun) is super-simple to use and looks really effective with these themed cupcake papers.

You could jazz these cupcakes up even further with the addition of some sprinkles. L-R...

Emerald green non-pareils, Shamrock mix sprinkles, Lime green gloss lustre jimmies.

You will be a hit in the office if you arrive with a tray full of these green goodies next Monday!