Pineapple Lump truffles YUM!

I made these simple truffles a little while back, after we had a macaron making demonstration at Kiwicakes - our lovely tutor left behind quite a large quantity of dark chocolate ganache, flavoured with pineapple Lorann's oil (if you've never used the lorann's oil flavourings before, you don't know what you are missing - a few drops goes a long way and they are only $3)

Ganache makes awesome truffles, simply scoop out small pieces with a teaspoon once chilled and roll in to a ball. The pineapple flavoured ganache tasted so much like a pineapple lump - it was uncanny. I rolled the truffles in our golden yellow lustre Kiwicake's non pareils, they stick right on the ganache. Initially I was worried a truffle rolled in non pareils would be too much crunch. But they were lovely - our wonderful non pareils are not solid and hard like some brands (are Kiwicake's brand sugar pearls are also easy to bite). I asked every member of the Kiwicake's staff if they liked them with the non pareil coating, they all agreed the crunch was a nice contrast to the rich ganache.

Now I'm thinking rainbow truffles, pink with strawberry or bubble gum, green with key lime or pistachio, blue with blueberry, purple with grape. Oh! the possibilities. What flavour would you try? My truffles are bottled in one of our "MADE WITH LOVE" preserving jars

Candy Crush cake for Leisa

Last week my good friend Leisa came to visit from Hong Kong. We are both huge Candy Crush addicts (it's a game we play via facebook). We had a quiet dinner out with her Mum & Dad and another special friend. But as always - I wanted to make a cake to celebrate. This is what I came up with.

I had a lot of fun with this, I printed the images from the game on edible paper and glued on to the cake, which was covered in baby blue Satin Ice fondant. I wanted all of the candy on the cake to be the same colours and shapes it is on the game. A trip around the corner from Kiwicakes to my local Bin Inn proved a fruitful trip, I was able to find most everything. The pink floral cachous candy I added the black centre to with fondant, so it properly matched the game. I couldn't find anything that looked like the purple flower candy so I made them with purple chocolate modelling paste using a floral silicone mould.

The photo in the little gold frame is of one of Leisa's work posters (she is a fitness instructor). I used this silicone mould to create the frame in yellow gumpaste, which I then painted gold using gold metallic paint.

The top cake was white chocolate with white chocolate raspberry buttercream. The bottom cake was chocolate with hazelnut praline filling (a.k.a Nutella)

Kiwicakes 7th birthday competition

It's that time again! - Kiwicakes is turning 7. And we're running our annual birthday cake competition.

Click here to see details of the 3rd birthday cake winner and here for the 4th birthday winner and here for the 5th birthday winner and here for the 6th birthday winner. I strongly encourage all past entrants to enter again, as when I think back on all the entries, it is with fond memories. I would have been proud to have any of the entries, as the winning cake - it has always been tough to pick a winner. Your entry need not be a tiered cake, as you can see from our 5th birthday winner - it was stunning and a single level cake.

I'm asking anyone interested to design a birthday cake for Kiwicakes 7th birthday party. This years theme is Trixie goes on holiday. (For those of you that don't know Trixie is the Kiwicakes Kiwi) Your design ideas can be sent to me in any form, for example, a sketch or even a photo of a previous cake you've made, feel free to add written notes describing how you might alter the cake from your photo, or what elements in your sketch represent. The winner will be required to bake & decorate the winning design.

Be sure to include what flavour(s) the cake will be and the approximate size of finished cake. I'm a great fan of discovering new flavours of cake. Our previous winners have wowed me with some of their flavours.

Where to send it
You can email your ideas to me at sandra@kiwicakes.co.nz or post to me snail mail at Kiwicakes, Po Box 4441, Kamo, Whangarei. Entries close May 7th 2013. Please include your telephone number with your entry.
The details
There are no design limitations for your cake, you can make it as big or as small as you like. However there is a limit of $75 for cake ingredients. I felt by limiting the cost of ingredients, this would allow design talent to shine through, rather than lots of expensive ingredients. The winner will be reimbursed for ingredients, to the value of $75
The winner will be required to make bake & decorate the winning design,  between May 25th and June 15th 2013 , at a time to suit them. I will then arrange for the cake to be collected from their home town for delivery to Kiwicakes at our expense.
I'll be loading the entries to the Kiwicakes blog (without the entrants names - so you can all remain anonymous) so that anyone interested can check them out.
Terms & Conditions - Kiwicakes 7th birthday competition
Prize is $600 worth of cake decorating supplies, chosen by Kiwicakes - delivered to the winner, at a destination within NZ. Prize is not exchangeable for cash.
Winner is required to bake and decorate the winning design between May 25th and June 15th to receive their prize.
Cost of ingredients up to the value of $75 will be reimbursed by Kiwicakes.
Competition is open to all residents of New Zealand (pick up address for cake must be within mainland New Zealand).
The winner agrees to their name & photo of cake being used for publicity purposes.
Entrants designs will be loaded to the KiwicakesNZ blog.
Winner will be posted to Kiwicakes blog and will feature in a future edition of the Kiwicakes newsletter.
Entries close May 7th 2013

Stock take refreshments served up retro style - from Kiwicakes test kitchen

Its all hands on deck this week at KiwiCakes while we do the annual stocktake and keep up with all of your orders. I thought a refreshing Homemade Ginger Beer might go down well with my hardworking colleagues.

I couldn't get my hands on the favourite family recipie as my parents are gallivanting around overseas this month so I settled for a googled version. It was pretty simple with ingredients many of us have at home anyway - water, sugar, lemon juice, ground ginger and yeast. This is the cheats overnight version but if you want a challenge then have a crack at making traditional Ginger Beer! It takes a week to mature but you get a really good crisp fizz. All you need are some empty bottles and a huge mixing bowl (or what i find even better is a 10 litre bucket dedicated to kitchen use).

Jazz it up for parties and picnics by serving your Ginger Beer in these cute Glass Bottles and remember everything tastes better through a Straw. We have more than 20 varieties in stock to suit any occasion.

Back to the boxes for us...

Cheesecake and lemon curd Easter egg dessert

Some months ago when I joined Pinterest - a cheesecake filled Easter egg was the first thing I pinned, I have seen versions of this so often, since then, I really don't know who to credit with coming up with the idea first. These are so simple to make - so easy to impress your friends. I started with a carton of hollow eggs, I was careful to inspect the chocolate these were made from (I'm not a great fan of some of the cheap chocolate on the market).

This is what I purchased from our local supermarket -  German chocolate eggs. If you were taking these to a dinner party already made, the plastic container would be great for carrying them. I have a small guilty secret, I didn't make the cheesecake filling, I used the Tararua ready made filling from the supermarket (because I actually really like it) - the egg yolk is lemon curd, coloured with a little egg yellow colouring. 

Firstly I took a very sharp vege knife and cut in to the eggs, the cracked design provided some good lines to cut on. I removed the little top lids of the egg and filled the egg with cheesecake mix using a piping bag. I also put the curd in to a piping bag, so there would be a little more curd, than just the small amount you see sitting on top, I plunged the nose of the piping bag down in to the cheesecake mix and squirted whilst pulling upwards (kind of like how you fill the centre of a cupcake using a piping nozzle)

I found this gorgeous little egg carton at the supermarket with Cadbury eggs in it, it even came with the little spoons. What a perfect little gift this would be for the person who has everything at Easter. (Keep refrigerated)

Easter Bunny cupcake tutorial

I had so much fun with these Easter Bunny Cupcakes. They are very quick to make. I used Satin Ice fondant without any additives (such as tylose or gum trag). The mini Easter eggs are from the supermarket, I always grab some every year, as undoubtedly I find a use for them. The grass is piped using tip 233. The cupcake papers are our Toadstool papers.

First form a small ball with white fondant and slight elongate it. The make two oval flats for the feet and add pink ovals on top. I popped small lines on, with a vege knife.

I glued the feet in place with edible glue

Then popped on a pink mimosa for the tail. Once you place your bunny on top of the cupcake, it's a good idea to pipe a little more grass around the bunny, this way it looks like he's diving through it, rather than sitting on top of it.

Raspberry & White Choc Guide Biscuit Slice - from Kiwicakes test kitchen

Hello KiwiCakes blog followers,

I am the new girl on the block and am very excited to be a part of this inspiring team. We are fortunate to have access to all the newest and most exciting products available and I look forward to sharing my kitchen adventures with you. No doubt you will love baking and eating sweet treats as much as I do! 

As I am still finding my way around the newly established Test Kitchen I decided to make a no-bake slice first. Coincidentally it is also Guide Biscuit time again this month and as a former Girl Guide myself I couldn't resist supporting our nations young girls by purchasing their biscuits again. They are so versatile and yummy to bake with. I have teamed them up with intensely flavoured Fresh As freeze dried raspberries for a yummy fudgey treat. So here goes my first attempt...

Raspberry & White Choc Guide Biscuit Slice

Melt together:

- 100 grams butter

- 1/3 cup brown sugar

- 1/2 can of condensed milk

While still warm, mix into:

- 1/2 cup white chocolate baking melts

- 1 pack crushed Original Guide Biscuits

- 20 grams Freeze Dried Raspberries

Press into a lined 20cm square tin and sprinkle with coconut if desired. Cool and store in the refrigerator.

This recipie can be cut into any shape you desire - just remember it is really rich! With easter approaching I decided to use a Bunny cookie cutter  from our huge range of Easter Cutters. This makes a cute and delicious snack that you can prepare in advance of Easter Sunday, and it is simple enough to let older kids do alone.

We welcome Laura to Kiwicakes

Today I'd like to introduce you to Laura, the newest member of Kiwicake's. Laura is joining me as a recipe blogger here on this blog and on Monday's you'll find her at Kiwicake's either in the test kitchen or at the drop in counter. For those of you that are local please say hi to Laura if you're ever visiting on a Monday.

Any blog post you see with this smiling face as the writer will have come from the lovely Laura. Together we've been discussing some of her upcoming recipes and I'm quite excited as Laura has some really great ideas.

Planet Spencer cake

This cake was made for a very special little boy named Spencer who is having his birthday party tomorrow. I spent a while mentally planning this cake, I didn't want anything to fall over. It gave me a few heart failure moments along the way, but in the end, I was reasonably happy with how it turned out. It's hard to see in the photo, but the surface had a texture, so as not to be completely smooth.

The cake was made using a Fat Daddios 8 1/4'' hemisphere pann The lettering around circumference of the cake spells out HAPPY 4TH BIRTHDAY SPENCER REED - it was made mixing shades of Satin Ice fondant (white, red, yellow & orange) with tylose to harden. Each letter is on a toothpick. The little alien is made using green satin ice with yellow mixed to make this particular shade of green, with tylose to harden. The moon rocks are straight satin fondant marbled together (white brown & blue) - the cake also has glitter and glitter shapes stars on the planet & cake board.

The icing that covered the cake I marbled using this technique Before covering with fondant, I covered with a layer of white ganache.

Before placing my 2 halves together, I placed some fondant on the bottom cake card, so when the top half of the sphere was placed on top, it would create a several millimetre gap for the toothpicks to slide in to (so the toothpicks did not go in to the cake (and possibly get lost in cake)

This is what my board looked like with it's central dowel, the bottom hemisphere cake also had 4 dowels in it for strength. I drove this cake down to Spencer's home today and it arrived with no damage. Spencer won't see his cake until this afternoon, I can't wait to hear what he thinks of it (his mum loves it)

Red velvet cupcakes from the Kiwicake's test kitchen

Today I needed to whip up some cupcakes for a friends birthday. Things had got a little crazy here at Kiwicakes and I was a little time poor. I decided to run with the Red Velvet Cake mix from Kiwicakes. And it's actually really quite tasty! (The mix made 26 cupcakes)

I selected the Le Petit Gateaux Papillion butterfly cupcake papers, as well as our limoncello stripe. I just love these papers, as they are grease resistant. (Cakes with oil in show less grease than cakes with butter - the cake mix uses oil). You can see from the photo above, after baking there is no grease showing.

To decorate I used white chocolate modelling paste, rolled out with a rolling pin and I cut and embossed the butterflies using fondant plunger cutters. I left the modelling paste butterflies sitting at an angle to harden a little.

On any give day, there's many new things I want to have a play with, so I did some in yellow papers - so I could use our new exclusive to Kiwicakes Sugar pearls (read all about them here)  I was thrilled to find today, when eating these pearls they aren't jaw breakers and are actually quite pleasant and easy to crunch through (unlike many I've tried). I thought the 4-5mm yellow looked nice with the 2-3mm rose pink.

My friend Ange is the lucky recipient of these later today, so I've popped them in to one of our cupcake boxes, to get them safely across town. And a couple-or-three got gobbled by the Kiwicakes staffers who agreed they were pretty tasty.

Sleepover Pyjama cookies

Last Friday evening my daughter's class at school had a sleepover at school. My daughter attends a small school here in Northland, just north of Whangarei. She's a year 6 and this year she's in with the year 7/8 girls class. Quite an honour for her and she's really enjoying the challenge. It's lovely to see her really enjoying her school work. Every year her teacher has a sleepover in the school hall with her class.

All Mum's, big sisters, Aunties, Nana's and female carers are invited. There weren't a lot of ladies joining the girls, but I volunteered to do so. I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but ended up having a fun time. The girls (just over 20 of them) had a wonderful time, with lots of fun activities, games, amovie and even a midnight swim (well it was 10.30pm) Each family had to contribute a food item. I volunteered under the guise of "baking". And what better thing to make than "sleepover pyjama cookies". I used the Swimming trunks and t-shirt cookie cutter from the Kiwicake's catalogue.

The girls really loved them and I received many lovely compliments. Thanks room 8 for a fun time!

Tala now available at kiwicakes

Tala is now available at Kiwicakes - I can remember this brand from my childhood! - When choosing the icing items, I opted to stock them in the 1950's retro packaging as to me, that's what Tala is all about. The product and tool remains the same, but you get the iconic Tala presentation. 

Tala, originating from Taylor and Law, has been associated with baking and icing for over 100 years - since 1899.

They still proudly own catalogues ranging from the 1920's up until today, containing products which are still made in the same way; with lovely, English manufacturing.

Traditional methods are used to manufacture most of their products. This involves production by hand, by a small team of skilled people behind the high quality of each product.
A priority of Tala has always been to create products that are built to last. Take an icing nozzle manufactured in the 1920's, and it will still fit an icing syringe made today and vice versa. So they couldn't be more honest when they say you are using products that your mothers and grandmothers have always used

Kiwicakes branded non pareils & sugar pearls

When I started Kiwicakes nearly 7 years ago, I never dreamed I'd ever have Kiwicakes branded products. Today loaded to the Kiwicakes website is a new range of non pareils and sugar pearls (2 sizes) suitable for Vegans and Vegetarians and better yet they're gluten free!. But what's most exciting for me is they are Kiwicakes Sprinkles!

They're proudly manufactured in NZ and I'm pleased to be promoting them, as they are not simply the same sprinkles you see everywhere else repackaged by different brand names.

It's taken a ton of work - I had no idea how much!. Choosing a bottle size, lid cap colour - having stickers and ingredients labels made, photographing & loading to our website. But.......... seeing all of the little brown boxes, each box housing one of the 33 new non pareils or sugar pearl colours was quite exciting. And better yet these are priced at only 4.95 for 80g (non lustre) or 5.75 (lustre)

I'd love to hear what you think of the range. Click here to view them all 

SPCA Cupcake day 2012 update

This week I received a lovely Christmas card from the SPCA - with a lovely cheeky message from the cat & dog. I was thrilled to see the SPCA raised $267, 993 from cupcake cooks nationwide. Kiwicake's is the SPCA's largest Cake suppliers sponsor. I proudly supply prizes for all categories in the competitions the SPCA run. I also work with the SPCA throughout the year, on other projects for which we supply prizes.

For 2013 we have some great things planned around SPCA Cupcake Day. Here in Whangarei and nationally in conjunction with SPCA. I'll update you more on that in 2013.

Our Second Operation Scholarship cake

This lovely cake made for Brad (who is a twin) was the second cake Kiwicakes granted a supplies scholarship for. Stephanie Kavanagh from Kavanagh Cakes I included the baseball candles, as a little surprise for stephanie, I love how she put one on a wire and has the figures looking at it in flight. 

Bradley (on right of pic) is undergoing treatment for a brain tumour. The wonderful Stephanie (in the middle) from Kavanagh Cakes made this awesome softball themed cake for Brad to share with his twin brother Adam (on the left) on their 14th birthday!

I love some of the special details Stephanie did, such as the red stitching on the lettering

I think Stephanie made an amazing cake, if you'd like to know more about Operation Sugar and the Kiwicake's scholarships for cake supplies, click on the tab above in this blog

Our first Operation Sugar Scholarship cake

This gorgeous cake was made by Rebecca in Matamata for Kaiya who was turning 5. Beautiful Kaiya has had to cope with cystic fibrosis, diabetes & distal intestinal obstruction syndrome. However, as you can see by this picture that hasn’t dampened her infectious smile!

Rebecca was the first person to receive an Operation Sugar scholarship cake supplies grant from Kiwicakes. I think she did a great job. For more info on Operation Sugar scholarships, click on the Operation Sugar tab above in this blog.

Today I am 37 years old

Today I am 37 years old - this wonderful cake was made for me, by my friend Lisa. I love my cowboy boots. And since dislocating my knee just over a month ago, I have been able to wear them. The detail ont he fondant boots is amazing. Oh and just so you know, this cake is big!