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

Satin ice fondant colour mixing chart

Click to enlarge & print this awesome colour mixing chart for Satin ice fondant. Make a huge range of awesome colours from the standard Satin ice range.

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

Her magazine profile

What a surprise I got today when I opened up my latest Her Magazine and found myself profiled towards the back of the magazine. And I'm in good company for this issue, there's an article on cakes which features cakes from BJ's, Custom cake designs, City Cake Co, Iced & Rosebowl. Over the page is a great article on the lovely ladies from Bite me Cupcakes. There's even a lovely ad for Annah Stretton featuring loads of CUPCAKES! Great to see all things cake getting such good coverage in a magazine devoted to fashion & business.

A quick and easy fern leaf using the FMM cutter

This quick how to make a fern leaf, using the FMM fern leaf cutter came about, because a customer is having trouble with the fern cutter. I thought some of my other beginners might enjoy it too. I am not an overly experienced flower & leaf maker. In fact there are many in NZ that specialise in teaching this art and I'm not one of them. This "how to" is merely meant to convey the steps required to create a leaf for those who aren't familiar with how it is done.

I coloured some Satin Ice Gumpaste

-->  using  green gel paste I rolled it out very thin and created a thicker vein up the middle of the paste. This can be done using a grooved rolling board, or by simply rolling from the centre outwards, first from one side, then the other, leaving a vein in the centre, that you never roll over.

If your paste is thin enough, the item you've cut should stay right there on the board. My first cut left a little paste in the gaps, I just flicked it out with my scribe. If you're worried your paste will stick to the cutter, you can over hang the bottom end of the cutters fern stem 2mm past the bottom edge of the paste, this allows you to pop your scribe in to the gap and flick your stem out of the cutter, this works well as it is the thickest part. In my case, this was not necessary, but can often be helpful if your paste is a bit hot or sticky.

Using a ball or dog bone tool on a foam pad, soften the cut edge of the fronds, to take away the sharpness of the cut.

I heated my wire in a flame and inserted it in to the thicker stem of the fern at this stage, as I wanted the wire to adhere immediately, so I could move forward with photographing the steps.

Once your fern has dried you can dust it with dusting powders or lustre, to give it's finished colour. And wire in to your finished floral spray.

How to use a silicone mould

This short tutorial shows how to use a silicone mould. I am using a silver fern mould, but the principles are the same, no matter what shape your mould.

The first step is to make a size guide for your fondant icing, that you will use to fill the mould. After some practice you can skip this step, as with time, you begin to be able to eyeball the amount of fondant required. It is much quicker to use the correct amount of fondant to fill the mould, than to try to trim it afterwards.

Quickly press down in to mould, to see if the amount you have is too little or too much.

Once you have the correct amount of fondant for your mould, roughly shape it in your fingers to the shape of the mould

Then dust the fondant (not the mould) with a little corn starch, potato flour or icing sugar.

Press to fill the mould, you only need press gently. If your icing if very soft & squishy, it may stick. If it does, it is far quicker to start again, thean to mess about trying to unstick it. knead a little corn starch or icing sugar in to your fondant if it is very hot & sticky.

To release the shape from the mould, turn over on to a work surface or the palm of your hand, and peel from one end, moving along the length of the fern. The finished shape may show some cornflour on it, this can be brushed off when the shape is dry, or you can use a little clear alcohol on a brush (NOT WATER!)

However if you wish to cover in lustre, such as I have here (I've used starlight comet white) there's no need to even worry about brushing the cornflour off, as you'll never see it.

Our full range of silcione moulds can be used with fondant icing, melted chocolate or gumpaste. I mostly use fondant, as it's works best on cupcakes & cakes. If oyu need the item to stand up and set hard, then you need to use gumpaste or add a hardener such as tylose or gum trag to your fondant.

If you use chocolate, it will have a matte finish, as the interior of the silicone moulds is not polished. However for items such as the paua shell this doesn't matter, as the entire surface is covered with lustre.

New Kiwicakes ad

I'm really happy with how my new print ad appears for the latest issue of the NZCDG magazine. Special thanks goes to my talented husband, without whom I would only have mediocre ads, instead of the lovely ads he creates for me.

A very special recipe

Today I'm treating you all to the recipe from Stephanie Curnow for Pumpkin Chocolate chip cake. This was one of the flavours in the winning 5th birthday competition cake. The flavour is hard to describe, but I can say, this cake was an abslolute favourite with Grandma Kiwicakes, Mr Kiwicakes, me & the lovely Karina (who works for me). Everyone was amazed Pumpkin was an ingredient. Well it was just so delicious. Steph kindly agreed to share the recipe.

Pumpkin cake with cream cheese icing

2 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
4 large eggs
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups cooked mashed pumpkin

Combine sugar, vegetable oil, and eggs in a large mixing bowl; mix well. Sift dry ingredients into a separate bowl; stir into oil mixture, beating well. Stir in pumpkin and add choc chips if desired .
Pour batter into two greased 9-inch round layer cake pans. Bake at 180° for 35 to 40 minutes. Turn out onto racks to cool.
Icing
250g cream cheese, softened
250g butter, softened
500g icing sugar
splash of milk
cream together cream cheese and butter until a uniform colour. Slowly add icing sugar, then add enough milk to bring to a creamy consistency. Best to keep this icing refrigerated.
Enjoy!
Steph

Safari Sunset cake

If you would like the instructions for this safari sunset hat box cake using Fmm safari Tappit set, or the lovely cake using the Fmm farm & domestic animal set click here for a downloadable PDF

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The Daisy collection makes all these great flowers

The newly arrived Daisy Collection cutter sets, makes all of these great flowers from FMM. Better yet, you can download their instruction sheet here on how to make them all.  This set is great value at only 14.50

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Clikstix - hearts & stars tutorial

Here's a great tutorial produced by the manufacturer of Clikstix, for which Kiwicakes is the New Zealand distributor.

Materials/Equipment

Heart clickstix Star Clickstix

Flower paste
Vegetable fat (Crisco or Kremelta)
Corn flour in a muslin bag
Edible glue
Rolling out board and rolling pin
White floristry tape
Floristry scissors
26g metallic wires
PME Lustre spray (optional)
Paste food colours

It’s important that the flower paste is brought to working consistency before commencing any work – knead a small piece of flower paste with a tiny smear of vegetable fat in the centre of your hand till it stretches like bubble gum.

Lightly grease the rolling out board and rolling pin with vegetable fat. Roll out a piece of flower paste till just over1/16th inch in thickness.

Lightly dust part of the rolling out board with corn flour. Transfer the rolled out flower paste onto the dusted area and gently move around to make sure the flower paste can move freely.

Place the star Clickstix on top of the flower paste. Place fingers on the side bars (not the springs or central area) press firmly and move the cutter over the rolling out board.

Remove the surplus flower paste.

Optional - flip the Clickstix over and return it to the rolling out surface and press the centre of the Clickstix firmly (the plunger mechanism will indent the paste).

Hold the Clickstix above the rolling out surface and press the central area to activate the plunger mechanism.

Dip the tip of a half length metallic wire into the edible glue and remove the surplus. Carefully insert the wire into the star. Press the flower paste around the wire firmly (to secure).

Repeat the above instructions with the heart Clickstix.

Optional paint the indented area in the star and heart with a shimmer petal dust mixed with food grade IPA

Leave the hearts and starts to dry for 24 hours before continuing.

Cut a the white florist tape into 1/3rd width and tape the wires together

Wires must not be inserted directly into a cake you must use a flower spike

Optional spray the completed wire spray with PME edible lustre spray.

The Royal wedding cake

I've had a couple of folks mention to me, they haven't seen the Royal wedding cake yet. So I thought I'd post a couple of the official pics of the cake. Made by Fiona Cairns  What did you think of the cake. What aspects do you think will feature in requets from brides this year?