Winner of the Kiwicakes 6th birthday competition

The winner of our 6th birthday cake competition is Sonya Brown. This is Sonya's design (above). She will be making the cake during May and we'll update you with photos of the cake when it arrives.

Below are the other entries in no particular order.

Kiwicakes products to appear on TV

Later in 2012 the second series of Cafe Secrets TV show will air on TV3. Kiwicakes has products featuring in two different episodes. I'm not allowed to give out specifics, but I can show you a couple of sneak peek photos of some cupcakes Julie created using our products and Julie herself with some of the goodies.

I'll update you when I have the screening time for these shows.

Edible Glue from Rainbow Dust

-->From the manufacturers at Rainbow Dust - new large edible glue 50ml pots. I'm loving the new ad for our glue.

These pots are much better value than any glue we've previoulsy had from other suppliers per volume.

Today we had a lady bug party here at Kiwicakes

-->Today at Kiwicakes we celebrated the birthday of Karina (our parcel packer) with a surprise lady bug party. All of us here at Kiwicakes ooh'd and aah'd over the new ladybug partyware when it arrived. We said we'd love a ladybug party

Poor Karina had no idea we were going to surprise her. I sent her off to the city on an errand, we quickly whipped her packaging supplies off her packing table and transformed it in to this little lady bug party.

I had a lot of fun making the cupcakes & cake, both were super easy to do. The cupcakes are red velvet made in Robert Gordon mini red patty cases I did two styles of icing. One has scalloped circles of the new white chocolate Regalice fondant (which is SOOOOOOOOOOO yummy!) and little red ladybugs made using a ladybug chocolate mould with red candy melts. The other has little premade ladybug icing decorations, which sit on top of a piped leaf (piped using large tip 366) I put them on a silver cupcake stand, I love these stands, at the top, where the stand fits together, it leaves a slit, where you can slip any picture. The ladybug picture, is cut from the packaging of the honeycomb ladybug table centrepiece.

Karina's cake I styled after the ladybug centrepiece. It is made using a 61/4'' hemisphere pan, the head is a 3.5'' hemisphere pan It sits on an 8'' cake board.

The cake is Orange with cream cheese icing under the Satin Ice fondant

We got Karina so good! - she had no idea. I really adore the photo her. She heard us singing Happy Birthday a mile away, but it wasn't until she caught a look at her party table, that I got this photo. I think she looks gorgeous!

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

Photos from our Easter decorating classes over the weekend

Over the weekend we held cupcake decorating classes and cookie decorating classes. The ladies that attended had so much fun. I for sure got some great ideas for Easter.

Kiwicakes 6th birthday competition

It's that time again! - Kiwicakes is turning 6. 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. 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. 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 6th birthday party. Your cake should echo what you feel epitomises Kiwicakes. 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 April 14th 2012. 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 April 15th and May 15th 2012 , at a time to suit them. I will then arrange for the cake to be collected from their home town for delivery to Kiwicakes.
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 6th birthday competition
Prize is $500 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 April 15th 2012 and May 15th 2012 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 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 April 14th 2012