Wilton - Fondant and gumpaste student graduation cakes

The following cakes are the finished cakes, from my students that have just completed the Wilton fondant & gumpaste class. (see our class schedule here for future classes) They are all gorgeous. Yet each is so very different from the other.
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This cake was very tall, it was hard to photograph, so I've included a close up of the roses.

Culinary adventures - On shore - cruising with P&O

As my family contemplates our time aboard the Pacific Pearl cruise ship with P&O cruises (from December/Jan 2012).  I realised there was a post that never made it to fruition. And that is the culinary adventures of our shore trips. We left Auckland Dec 26th and took in some gorgeous places throughout the pacific. Whilst the cruise was a long time ago. Our small children talk about it, like it was yesterday. 

I just have one photo to share with you from Port Vila in Vanuatu. This cake whilst unassuming looking, was seriously tasty. Grandma Kiwicakes and I had morning tea, in the restaurant of a hotel, that was out over the water. We could see fish swimming in the water below.

My hubby loved the garlic snails we purchased at the Isle of Pines in New Caledonia (I was too scared to try them). We also purchased what my kids describe "as the best hot dogs ever" - the long french bread sticks were filled with what can only be described as a cross between chorizo and salami. I have to agree, it's the best hotdog, I've ever had!

Our time spent in Noumea, was my favourite shore trip. I was really looking forward to trying out my 5 years of school girl french. I didn't do too badly - I even managed to impress myself, when turning to my hubby to say "look at that", the first thing that came to mind was "regardez la!". We left our cruise ship and joined a short tour around Noumea taking in some of the popular sites. At the top of a lookout, we pulled over and our hosts opened up enormous boxes from the local patisserie.

Of course I was the only one crazy enough to need lots of photos of them.

There was toffee

Filled with yummy patisserie creme

a dark bitter ganache may also have been consumed.

This kitchen store I got a little waylaid in - it was directly opposite the docks.

A little local colour

The smell within this air conditioned chocolate store was addictive

I'm used to marzipan fruits - but not marzipan breads!

I bought one of these marzipan peaches to take home - it was so hard to decide what to buy ( a fair few other things from this store may also have made it in to my bag)

These funnels caught my eye

This designer homewares store was such fun. I got a little tangled up in a few goodies here. A few sets of demi tasse came home with me from here.

The brioche and breads in this bakery were amazing, they fashioned breads in to all sorts of shapes for the holidays.

And if the bread wasn't already a fancy shape, you could adorn it with a bread crown.

I snapped this photo from the pages of their photo album. They made profiterole towers - or pirate ships

The supermarket directly opposite the docks - I wanted to take home to be my local supermarket. The bakery department, was nothing like you'd ever see in a NZ supermarket. Imagine caneles at your fingertips every day.

Grandma Kiwicakes & I - in the interests of research took back to the ship with us, one of every flavour macaron. We declared the violet the winner (and just about made ourselves sick in the process).

The petit fours were amazing considering they were simple supermarket fare.

The enormous bags of sugar almonds and silver cachous/dragees were only aprx $16NZ - I'll admit quite a few of those came home with me too. Fancy finding those in a supermarket!

I snuck in to Chocolat Morand while Grandma Kiwicakes was otherwise occupied. The window display had caught my attention. This large cone had circular discs, placed up the cone to act as shelves to hold up the chocolates - it was then covered in a burgundy metallic lustre.

Whilst I was there, I was able to purchase a couple of treats for Grandma Kiwicakes, as it was her birthday while we were away. Nougat and violet cachous - two of her favourites.

And right before we climbed aboard our cruise ship for what was to become our last shore visit (due to rough seas we could not disembark at Norfolk Island). Hubby & I settled in for a quiet wine along the docks, whilst Grandma Kiwicakes entertained the kiddies on board the ship.

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Designer Handbag Cakes - from Kiwicakes test kitchen

My babysitter just turned 18 and her mum wanted to surprise her with a designer handbag birthday cake. I love that it's still possible to delight your kids when they are teenagers!

Her cake is pictured here along with my first attempt. I was inspired by Sandra's Table of Eight handbag cake class a couple of months back where I made the mini cream coloured fruit cake purse. I love the detail that the super-realistic silicone zip mold in conjunction with edible gold paint gives both of the cakes. A good trick I learnt from experimenting is to colour up your fondant for the features to be painted with metallic paint to grey (for silver) or peach (for gold). 

Here is the fondant setting (I do carefully count and remove the pins after!) 

I baked a 9" round chocolate cake and levelled the top then cut it in half to create two semi-circles. When stood up together and sandwiched with buttercream they give you this easily impressive handbag shape.

This purse has been finished using a bead mould to decorate the base. I used an impression mat from my floral set to beautify the handles and with a little tylose hardener in there I was able to drape the straps naturally across the top of the bag.

You will see that I used a different floral impression mat from my set to decorate the purple handbag panels. So simple yet effective! I am keen to invest in the fabric texture impression mat set at some stage too because they would have looked great here.

The finished product!

SPCA Cupcake Day Prep Underway - from Kiwicakes test kitchen

As you know Kiwicakes proudly supports the annual SPCA cupcake day and this year we are baking for the cause, too. 

We will have team Kiwicakes' cupcakes for sale on the day in-store. You can support the SPCA's fine work whilst enjoying a cute cupcake! Here are the details to put in your diary now:

Monday 26th August
Cupcakes available in-store from 11am to 2pm (1c Grant Street, Kamo, Whangarei)
$2.50 each
$20 for 1/2 dozen in a presentation box
$35 for 1 dozen in a presentation box

You can pre-order your cupcakes by emailng sandra@kiwicakes.co.nz . All funds go directly to the SPCA, so please remember to bring cash with you.

You can never prepare for these things too early, so we got cracking on some toppers today. With the addition of a magic little powder called Tylose our shapes made from regular will last for weeks. Here is a sneak peek at some pieces coming together so far...

When making cupcakes in large quantities it's worthwhile having a few tools up your sleeve to produce uniform shapes, and quickly. For the cute little dog houses below I used a cookie cutter from the Precious Paws mini cutter set. It's adorned with a Funny  Bone candy and will look great when some green grass is piped at its base.

I achieved the woodgrain look by marbling warm shades together. To make 20+ dog house shapes you will need:

50g Dark Chocolate fondant (this is yummy!)
50g Pastel Yellow fondant
1/2 teaspoon Tylose hardening powder (mix 1/4t into each colour)

You can learn to marble by visiting an earlier Kiwicakes blogpost here. This is my 'wood grain effect' which I rolled out to 3mm thick. Remember to store pre-made decorations in a breathable cardboard-type box as they will sweat and wilt in an air-tight container. I like to keep them in the hot water cupboard, up and out of little fingers way!

Click here if you are interested in registering as a cupcake cook yourself and using your baking prowess to support the SPCA. Remember there are some great prizes to be won.

Butterfly cake for good friend Lyndsey

My friend Lyndsey and her family came for dinner last night. It was Lyndsey's 35th birthday, so we had to celebrate. However, Lyndsey's cake posed a small problem for me, as I was away the day before, so I needed something that looked stunning (that goes without saying) but could be put together in limited time. My solution was the butterfly cake above.

Last month, we received these beautiful edible wafer butterflies in stock. I'd been wanting to try them out for awhile. I used two packs of the "mixed colours" (I had a few left over).

When I considered the shape of my cake, I firstly tried stacking just two round cake pans together, but then decided on the additional shape on top, which would make it a bit different. The cake pans are an 8'' hexagon, a 5'' round, and a 2 3/4'' hemisphere.

The hexagon cake was chocolate, and the round and small hemisphere were vanilla. I made white chocolate ganache, to which I added two tablespoons of Fresh-As freeze dried raspberry powder (600g of white chocolate/200ml cream/100ml condensed milk).

The cakes are covered in pastel green Satin Ice fondant and the base of the cake is trimmed with a 6mm pearl bead trim. The board I impressed with a design using the graceful vines impression mat.

I mixed up a batch of royal icing mix and the butterflies were easily adhered to the cake with a small spot behind each one. 

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