Changing the face of birthday cakes at Kiwicakes

New licensed character cake kits

We have a great new range of birthday cake kits, as well as candle sets available separately.

We've got creative with what we can offer customers, as we no longer sell edible images of licensed characters (there's no license available in NZ
to print them anymore). We were disappointed to lose them, but we hope our new alternatives will prove just as popular. It's an opportunity to try something new. We have over 50 popular
kids themes to choose from click here to view (Popular themes to name just a few are Paw Patrol, Frozen, Disney Cars, Spiderman, Avengers, Disney Princess, Tinkerbell etc)

We still have a great range of edible icing images available in classic themes such as unicorn, pirates, animals and more. And of course we can print your own photos, adding text if required. We can print photos of your child dressed as their favourite superhero or princess. Think outside the square, like reading their Harry Potter book or playing with their favourite toy. See our website here 

New range of edible images from Kat at ibicci

What happens when Sandra from Kiwicakes teams up with stencil guru Kat Rutledge from ibicci? A new range of edible images is born.

Using Kat's amazing stencil designs and awesome graphic design skills, Kiwicakes is now offering a range of edible icing images that feature graphics used in Kat's stencils.

We have 4 inch cake strips available that are printed on A3 icing sheets. Simply cut the two panels using scissors and they are ready to wrap around your covered cake. They can be applied directly to Buttercream, fondant or ganache (an instruction sheet accompanies your purchase).

You'll also find on our website fun designs for cake tops, cookies and cupcakes. More new designs are on the way.  Check them out here

How to make your own custom chocolate bars, to make your cakes really pop

 Making your own custom chocolate bars is quick, easy and fun! And they will really set your cakes apart from store bought chocolate bars.
The examples above use chocolate moulds from Kiwicakes . You can either use pre-coloured candy melts OR colour your own white chocolate using candy colour oil based colours or powder colour. (You cannot use gel paste or liquid food colouring, as this will cause your chocolate to seize and make it unsuable)

You can mould them with or without sprinkles. As a single colour or marbled. The choice is yours.

A finished bar weighs less than 100g, making them quite economic to make.

Bars like this are often referred to as "bark" this is the Wilton Happy Birthday Mould, you can find them in other seasonal designs (which are not always bar shaped - but do consider other shapes). Simply melt your coloured chocolate, spoon in to mould, tap on the bench for a good ten taps, to ensure any bubbles trapped are popped. Then lightly sprinkle over your sprinkle medley and allow to cool. They will release easily once set

To create the marble colour simply place your dominant colour in the mould first, then add small blobs of other colours, and stir gently (I use a lollipop stick to do this).Do NOT use your candy colour to do the marbling, as once removed from the mould, the swirls of colour can come off on your hands.

If you're after a traditional bar shape. And you want sprinkles on the side that would normally have the lines where you break the bar apart, take care to look at the example below.

You cannot add just a little sprinkles to the mould, if you do, you will get the result as shown in my photo. as the melted chocolate allows the sprinkles to move around.

You need to pack them right in there and fill it right up.

The bars can be bagged and given as a gift, just like thy are. When placing on a cake, I find they look best at differing heights. You can simply break off a piece of one bar, to make it shorter. It is important when placing on the cake, to cut a narrow aperture for the bar to be pushed in to. If oyu push down in to solid cake, you risk breaking the bar. 

These little bars make an affordable take home gift, from your party, and can be made to match the birthday cake.

Cute fondant Penguin figurine tutorial

How cute are these penguins?. This tutorial was designed for us, by Lisa from The Whole Cake and Caboodle. Click on the photos to enlarge, and you can print the pages, for step by step how to.

Isomalt Snowflakes with Cake Lace

Whether you are making snowflakes for a Frozen cake, or for a Northern Hemisphere inspired Christmas cake, Cake lace trapped inside isomalt is just so pretty!.
The photos speak for themselves, however if you're wondering how it was done

(1) spread cake lace on to snowflake lace mat and allow to dry

(2) Pour melted isomalt over lace snowflake slowly, so that your snowflakes don't join together. Allow to cool
(3) spritz with glitter if desired

(4) peel away from mat - spray with edible glaze, to help fight the humidity

Cookies for a Cat Lover

A friend who is a great cat lover was having a birthday what better than cat cookies. Here at Kiwicakes we have a great range of items for animal lovers including lots of cat cookie cutters

 A dilemma which one to choose  I finally settled on this one a Sitting Cat

I used this biscuit mix we stock, it keeps its shape very well and doesn't spread during baking.

All directions are on the packet and it is very easy to use.

I used half a packet and that made a full oven tray of biscuits . I cut the biscuits out as instructions and thought I knew better and shifted some of my biscuits to fit more on the tray which distorted my shape slightly.I would not recommend this, I would use two trays next time .

The biscuits are baked at a low temperature and hold their shape well. Instead of Icing I used Renshaws Marzipan. I put this on while the biscuits were still warm to help it stick.

I chose this cat wafer paper. We have an extensive range of wafer paper printed designs at Kiwicakes

I  traced round the cutter and stuck the wafer paper down using Sugar Glue

All bagged up and ready to go with the cutter tied round the neck of the bag as an extra gift should the birthday girl like to make more cookies for herself.

I think they got the seal of approval from the birthday girl's cat Phoebe, here she is keeping warm on this cold Winter day.

I hope this inspires you to try your own cookies We have over 600 cutters etc click here  for our full range

So this is me

I recently had my portrait taken, wearing makeup no less!. And for anyone that knows me, will know this is likely a once a year occurrence. However this all came about when I was invited to an event "Celebrating Hardworking Woman" for business woman here in Whangarei. It was an event run by Nikita Parker with proceeds going to "Look Good Feel Better"And the gorgeous Minette took our photos.

So with this lovely photo in hand, I thought I would tell you a little bit about myself
I am a wife, mother, daughter, sister and furbaby owner.
I wear glasses and can't manage without them.
I am not a follower of fashion, I live in jeans - I do not enjoy shopping (unless it's for kitchen gadgets, cake toys or good food & wine, then I LOVE Shopping!)
I love to travel. My favourite places to visit are OLD, I love museums and galleries.
I live, breathe, eat and even dream about cake. When visiting new places my first stop is often to do with food or cake related.
I hear all too often "I just don't know how you do what you do - how do you have time". I could laughingly say it is due to not wearing makeup and not co-ordinating my outfits. But the truth is I have an amazing support network. My long suffering husband has at times been both mother and father to our children whilst I've travelled throughout NZ and overseas to cake shows and cake related events. And Grandma Kiwicakes, whom many of you know and love has been my rock not only in business, but with the family too. And here at Kiwicakes I have a great staff that have been with me for years - I'd be lost without them.
I read A LOT and if I have a good book in hand, I've been known to be unable to put it down. I don't have a favourite genre, if it's good I'll read it.
I love to cook and take great pleasure pottering about in the kitchen.
I love discovering new restaurants and eateries
I strive to shop locally, whilst I have been known to make an appearance at the supermarket, I am a regular at the local butcher, Bin Inn, Co-op and markets. I prefer old retro to new items.
My fitness regime is pretty much non existent, but I walk a few kilometres every day with our wee dog. The rest of the time you'll find me glued to my computer, doing everything behind the scenes that is needed to run Kiwicakes.

Custom sprinkle medleys now available at kiwicakes

 Three months ago I started on the lengthy process to offer Custom sprinkle medleys at Kiwicakes. AND NOW THE SERVICE IS HERE

It’s been a lot of work, the ingredients document was like writing a small novel. And I am so thankful for the wonderful Hayley who created the awesome custom medley photos (I don’t envy her laying all of those sprinkles out in straight lines).

We’ve sourced extra wonderful sprinkles from around the world, to extend our already awesome sprinkle selection. And a complete overhaul of our kitchen shelves was needed to create space, for each colour.

Some wonderful Kiwicakers agreed to be my custom medley testers, so I could try to iron out any wrinkles in the service, their medleys have been mixed and delivered.

I can’t wait to get mixing for you! Click herehttp://www.kiwicakes.co.nz/711-sprinkle-medleys to find out more about the service 

Pretty unicorn cookies

 This lovely step by step tutorial comes to us from Lisa at The Whole Cake and Caboodle 

Using a unicorn cutter from Kiwicakes. Lisa baked sugar cookies, to which she added fondant horns, shaped by hand. Painted with Rolkem Super Gold, mixed with a little rose spirit to form a paint 

Using the cookie cutter. Cut out fondant icing unicorn, then remove the horn and mane using a knife.

Glue the fondant to the cookie using  edible sugar glue and mark the ear and nose hole with a veining tool. The line for the mouth is cut with a knife.

These photos show the steps to pipe the mane. They are random squiggles of royal icing (which sets hard allowing cookies to be bagged) using Wilton tip #16

The eye can be drawn on with an edible marker pen, or painted with a brush and edible black paint.