New maori word wedding and cake toppers now available

At Kiwicakes we love all things Kiwi. So we've had these wonderful new acrylic cake toppers made suitable for wedding, birthday, baby shower, christening or 21st cakes. Aroha, Kia Ora and Kia Kaha. Proudly made right here in NZ. Click here to view on the Kiwicakes website.

Love cake - with silver dragees

This LOVE cake was displayed by Kiwicakes last year at the GoBake Cake Expo and we've had it on display here at Kiwicakes for some time. I've often been asked how it was made....... SO here's how!. It's a 3 tier cake, covered in black Satin Ice fondant. The centre tier and the cake board edge are covered with diamante wrap (which you cut to required width with scissors). The love topper can be found here, we've quite a selection of different words in our diamante topper range here at Kiwicakes.

The edges where the two tiers meet were spread with black royal icing (just do a small section at a time, or the icing will set before you make it around the circumference) Over the top of the royal icing, a selection of our Greek dragees were applied. Over the top of this I sprinkled 2mm silver cachous to fill the little gaps. I used the Wilton Decorator Favourites pattern press set, to press in the patterns on the top & bottom tier, which I then piped with black royal icing and adhered dragees to. The black fondant drop tier border around the base of the cake was created with this mould.

This cake was very well received at the expo, it looks super complicated, but actually was very easy to produce.

Pretty shell cake - great for birthdays and weddings

Todays fun post comes from my American friend Autumn Carpenter. Autumn designs and manufacturers a broad range of cake decorating supplies, which I'm proud to stock at Kiwicakes.

This cake would be a sure favourite with Grandma Kiwicakes, she adores shells and corals.

Tools and Ingredients

6", 9" and 12" two layer cakes

14" cake board or drum

light blue rolled fondant

ivory rolled fondant

Hawaiian Texture Sheet Set

seashell chocolate chocolate moulds

white candy coating

milk chocolate

pearllustre dust

mop brush

8mm sugar pearls

pastry brush

piping gel

flexible poly blade

pastry roller

Method

Melt chocolates separately and place in towel lined electric skillet to keep warm and fluid. To add stripes to shells, dip finger in milk chocolate and wipe finger into cavity. 

Flood cavity with white candy coating and place in freezer to set. 

Once set, remove from mould and use mop brush to brush tops of shells with lustre. 

Roll light blue fondant to desired thickness, brush board and cakes with piping gel and cover. Using mop brush, dust cake and board with pearl dust. Prepare cakes for stacking and assemble. 

Roll ivory fondant to 1/8" thickness, roll shell texture sheet over fondant making a strip long enough to go around the cake. Make a straight cut along the bottom of the strip using a pastry roller then use the flexible poly blade to cut shells so that strip is 4" high. 

Brush sides of cake with piping gel then apply shell strip. 

Repeat with each cake layer. 

Attach shells and pearls to cake using piping gel.

Black lace, skulls and pearls cupcakes

Lately, I've notice an upward trend in the use of skulls for bridal showers & weddings (till death do us part). I think they'd also be great for birthdays and Halloween too.

The Black 3D skulls were very easy to make using this Wilton 3d skull chocolate mould and black candy melts. You mould them in two halves, but with a little melted chocolate they glue together seamlessly.

The cupcakes are baked in Black lace cupcake papers. They're great to bake with, as no muffin pan is needed to support them, they sit flat on a baking sheet, which means I can get two dozen on one shelf of the oven at a time.

I've finished the tops with a 1m swirl of buttercream icing and a few Kiwicakes own brand sugar pearls. The long strands of pearls were made with fondant, that has a little tylose added, which was moulded in these bead moulds (6mm & 3mm).

Wedding cookies

A few days ago I showed you a LOVE cookie I was given. I've just received an email from Lisa at The Whole Cake And Caboodle of a lovely grouping of wedding cookies, I just had to share them with you (yes we have the LOVE, Ring, Heart & Dress cookie cutters at Kiwicakes.)

A lovely day in the Bay!

A couple of weeks ago, I travelled ot the Bay of Plenty for a friend's daughter's wedding. Olivia & Mark were married on a beautiful sunny Saturday and their wedding reception was held at the award winning Charthouse

I had the pleasure of being asked to help with the candy buffet and cupcakes. As I couldn't fly down until Friday, I didn't have enough time for the wedding cake as well (above), this was entrusted to the lovely Sondra from Sweet Bites Cakes I spent Saturday morning at the Charthouse. From their lovely views, to their amazing staff and service, I can see why they continue to win awards. Check out these views out the window.

In total I made 300 cupcakes, but with only an afternoon and evening to do them, I had to work as fast as my hands could move. I take my hat off to those of you that do this for a living it is no easy task! Special thanks go to the Bride's stepfather Chris, who worked tirelessly with me all evening (until 12.07am) putting together laser cut wrappers and stacking the finished creations

I utilised some of my silicone moulds, and the balls you see on the cupcakes are 4mm black sugar pearls, 7mm candy beads and 10mm sixlets, to which I rolled in my hands, which were smeared with crisco - then I rolled them in white holographic glitter (it looks green in the photo, but I promise you it's white hologram). I also used impession mats to create patterned fondant and used a variety of cutters, to cut out shapes from black fondant and white gumpaste.

I was quite pleased how these turned out, given the limited time I had to do them.

The candy buffet jars & vessels were collected by the bride's mother. She made the signs and allotted which candy went in which jar. I was in charge of bringing the tongs, scoops & ladles from Kiwicakes.

I especially like how she used pearlized white jimmies sprinkles to hold up the black licorice twists

My seat during the recption was right next to the candy buffet, as I was on refill duty. I really wished we'd had a candid camera turned on the buffet. It was priceless watching people faces as they studied the candy. Many stole some and ate it, as they made their selections. Other were very well behaved. The ones that had me chuckling were the people who put too much in their take home jars and then couldn't get the lid clamped down. But it sure was fun!

Thank you Jo, Chris, Olivia & Matt for letting me part of your day

The wedding of Mr & Mrs Stanners

This weekend past, I made my first ever wedding cake. In the recent years that I've been involved in Kiwicakes, none of my friends have got married, they're either married, not getting married, or haven't found someone yet. So when my good friend Jodie announced she was engaged, I offered to make her wedding cake, as a wedding gift. At the time I offered, I did not know this cake would be travelling to an island - would I have still offered if I knew? - YEAH PROBABLY!

Kiwicakes chews up the majority of my life and these days, I have little time for cake making, apart from for the kids - I had made a total of about 5 roses in my 12 year cake making hobby, so this was a big step for me.

The cake design was a collaboration of some design ideas the bride to be had seen in magazines, but the final design was not copied from any one cake. I covered the cake in white Satin Ice on Thursday afternoon, in the worst humidity ever (in the middle of a storm) - the fondant was like bubble gum, I was tearing my hair out, I could not use a smoother - as it was simply sticking to it - but with no time to spare, I forged on. And what looked bad on Thursday night, did not look as bad on Friday morning. By Friday night when it was covered with roses, it looked 100% better - and many of the pits/ripples that were a result of the terrible humidity were covered with roses. So I can say I was almost satisfied with the cake, I doubt anyone else noticed the less than perfect finish on the white fondant - except for me.  The most important thing was the bride & groom loved it. And I can now officially say I have made a wedding cake.

The groom picked us up at a tiny coastal town Rawhiti - 1 hour North East of my home - it took me a little over an hour to drive the road - as there are many hair pin bends, stretches of gravel road and pot holes. The boat was small - but fast

The groom assured me the back corner of the boat was the most stable spot. Thank goodness the top was covered in cellophane - it got covered in salt spray.

Leaving the bay was rather calm waters, I was reasonably confident the cake would get there in one piece - it had survived the car trip intact.

Then as we left the bay and entered open seas to head towards Urupukapuka Island, I became terrified for my cake, we hit some pretty big waves (the groom was being terribly careful), I could see the whole cake vibrating. I can only think my internal supports of one dowel down through all 3 cake boards, as well as individual dowels in each cake saved the day.

I am still utterly gobsmacked this cake arrived without a single broken petal - I had an extensive repair kit with me, and a few hours to spare.

I also did a blue/white/black candy buffet for the wedding. Unfortunately I only had about 10 minutes to set it up. This was due to the Island clsoing to the public when the last ferry left and the timing of the beginning of the wedding ceremony, once the guests had the island to themselves. The back drop of part of the cafe didn't allow me to get the best photos in my 60 second photo shoot. I look forward to the official wedding photographers photos.

Blue candy is not the easiest colour candy to find, I was thrilled to get Macey's milk bottles with blue tops (instead of just the usual plain white) I added personalised stickers to black lollipops and displayed them in a stainless steel lollipop stand from Kiwicakes

The sugared almonds I picked up in Noumea during my Christmas holiday.

Thank you Mr & Mrs Stanners for letting me be part of your wedding day

New Cupcake wrappers just arrived

These 2 new styles of cupcake wrappers have just landed today. I think the Olivia sea blue-green wrappers would be perfect for Paua or beach themed weddings as the wonderful photo below shows.

Or perhaps Sophia in Cheetah design, to let you show your wild side.