Matcha swiss roll

I haven't made a swiss roll since I was in school doing a class in Home Economics.  Unfortunately, that said swiss roll didn't roll very well and I ended up with swiss 'fingers' instead.

This swiss roll however, turned out much, much better.  Very easy to roll and the matcha flavour was set off nicely with the whipped cream and anko (Japanese sweet bean paste) inside.  I got the recipe from a book by Junko, a clever lady who came up with the idea of making patterns on swiss rolls.

I have to say, though, that you have to be rather organized to make the different batters for the different parts of the pattern.  Other than that, it was quite straight forward to do.  The only thing I would do differently is pour the batter more carefully over the pattern to eliminate all the little air bubbles around it.

Happy Birthday, Diane!  I hope you enjoyed your cake. :)

Christmas cakes

Merry Christmas!  How are your holidays going?  We had a nice, quiet Christmas with lots of food, eggnog and cake.  Yummy!

This was also my first year to try and perfect the fruitcake.  I have made fruitcake before, but usually it is the cheat's version where you heat the fruit with liquids to plump them up rather than soaking them in brandy for weeks.  Well this time, I decided to try and do a traditional fruitcake which required me to soak the mixed fruit for 3 weeks (I know some people soak theirs for months, but this was hard enough trying to remember to stir it everyday!).  The mixture smelled divine after 3 weeks of soaking in brandy.  I also managed to squeeze in doing a cheat's version to compare the two since I had leftover fruit mix.  The second fruitcake required me to heat the fruit with brandy and juice for 10 minutes and they plumped right up after that.   My verdict is both versions are equally good so you can always skip the 3 week or 3 month soak for the 10 minute one. :)

The round fruitcake is the cheat's version and it is very yummy and moist.  Best part is it contains no butter, only oil and is just as moist and tasty as the traditional one.  This recipe is from Julie le Clerc's Favourite Cakes.  She calls it her last minute Christmas cake.  Very appropriate!

The next fruitcake I made is one from Little and Friday treats by Kim Evans. 

This is from her first book and she has added chocolate to the recipe, but I could not taste it.  It makes for a lovely and rich cake as well.  I also made her marzipan, a first for me as I am not a fan of commercial marzipan.  I was very surprised at how easy it was to make the marzipan.  The only thing I may omit the next time I make the marzipan perhaps is the orange blossom water.  I am not a big fan of it.

I wasn't intending to decorate my cakes as I was focussed on getting them right but I used the leftover marzipan to make a simple decoration on it.  I think it turned out nice.  The marzipan was easy to colour too.

I hope your holidays went well.  Thanks for stopping by! :)

Rhubarb and plum cake

This is one delicious cake!  I have never tried a rhubarb and plum combination before and this cake works!  It is from the book The Caker by Jordan Rondel.  She has many interesting and unusual recipes in her book which are worth trying, if this cake is anything to go by!  The plum cream cheese icing is so yummy and pretty in pink and completes it perfectly!

So gooood I wish I had another slice now.  Perfect with a cup of tea.

Thanks for stopping by! :)

Farmyard cake

This cake was for a friend's daughter whose only request was that it had farm animals on it.  It was a quick cake to make as I didn't have very long to do it, but I think she liked it in the end.  Everything is edible (except the candle!).  I textured the cake to make it look like grass by pressing over the fondant with a Wilton tip 233.   I made the animals out of fondant and let them set up a bit before placing them on the cake.  FMM cutters were used for her name.

Here is one side of the cake.  Little piggies having fun.

A lost, but happy sheep on another side of the cake.

 And more pigs on the top of the cake, playing in the mud.

Thanks for stopping by!

Chocolate covered Birthdays... {Recipe}

Growing up, I remember always having chocolate cake for my birthday.  It was the one day in the year that I got to decide what kind of cake I wanted, and as far as I remember, it always had to be CHOCOLATE.  (Yes I am a chocoholic and am proud of it!)  It was always store bought cake from a delicious bakery near where we lived, and even when we moved, mum would go down to get that Chocolate Etoile cake for me.  What was there not to love about light spongy layers of chocolate cake smothered in rich, creamy chocolate mousse.  Ah yes, those were the days.

When I started cake decorating a few years ago, I decided that I would start making my own cakes, as well as my hubby's.  (He gets a chocolate cake every year too!)  This gave me the opportunity to experiment with different recipes (always chocolate!) and dress my cakes up the way I wanted.  Funnily enough, I love my cakes simple.  Just pure, decadent chocolate cake is what I want. 

This year, I decided, after much research, that I would use Julie le Clerc's recipe for her Valrhona chocolate pearl cake for my birthday cake.  This cake happens to be gluten free as well, so even better!  And oh boy oh boy, I think it is one of the best, most decadent chocolate cakes I have ever had!  Plus, on your birthday the calories don't count, right?

Since there is no flour in the cake, the bulk of it is almond meal, and you get that slightly nutty taste together with the chocolate, which I love. The cake is then smothered in dark chocolate ganache and covered in crunchy chocolate pearls.  Yuummmyyyy!!!   Julie le Clerc's recipe is available in her book, Favourite Cakes, available at Amazon.  (See website link on the right).

Another chocolate cake that I love by Kim Evans of Little and Friday.  She owns a couple of cafes here in Auckland and her chocolate cake is a must try for anyone who visits.  It is also available in her book, Treats from Little and Friday.  Try covering it in ganache and coconut as that how she makes her lamingtons.  Delish!

The third chocolate cake I love is this mud cake.  I found the recipe online and have used it several times to make my husband's cakes as I find it carves well and holds it shape for the 3D cakes I make for him.  If you have not tried mud cakes before, this is definitely one to try and it is rich and chocolatey, and it goes very well with the ganache.  Best of all you can put away your cake mixer, everything can be done by hand.  Always use the best quality chocolate you can afford because it does make a difference!  I have tweaked the recipe slightly.  (see changes in brackets below)

Recipe for Chocolate Mud Cake    (Recipe from www.exclusivelyfood.com.au)

250g chocolate (125g dark chocolate and 125g milk chocolate)

250g butter (if using unsalted butter, add 1/4 teaspoon salt with the butter)

1 teaspoon instant coffee granules/powder

188ml (3/4 cup) water

325g (2 cups plus 2 tablespoons) plain flour  (I changed it to 285g)

30g (1/4 cup plus 2 teaspoons) cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)

550g (2 1/2 cups) caster sugar (I changed it to 500g)

4 large eggs

2 tablespoons (40ml) oil (any mild-flavoured oil) (I used canola oil)

1 teaspoon (5ml) vanilla extract

125ml (1/2 cup) buttermilk

1. Preheat oven to 160 degrees Celsius (not fan-forced).  Grease and line a 23cm round cake tin with baking paper.
2. Place chocolate, butter, coffee and water in a large saucepan over low heat, stirring occasionally. When chocolate and butter have melted, remove mixture from heat and allow to cool to room temperature.
3. Sift the flour, cocoa powder and bicarbonate of soda together into a large bowl.
4. Add the caster sugar to the bowl with the flour mixture, and mix well with a whisk.
5. In another bowl, whisk eggs, oil, vanilla and buttermilk until well combined.
6. Add the egg mixture to the flour mixture and stir until well combined.
7. Now add the chocolate mixture to the egg and flour mixture in a three batches, stirring until combined after each addition.
8. Pour mixture into your cake pan and bake for about 1 hr 30 min or until a skewer in the centre of the cake comes out clean.
9. Allow to cool in pan before removing.  Make and spread the ganache over the cake.

Recipe for Chocolate ganache

250g chocolate (equal mix of dark and milk), chopped

125ml cream

1. Heat the cream in a pot til scalding.  Take off heat.
2. Add chopped chocolate and whisk till smooth and creamy.   
3. Set aside to cool until ready to use or use warm to pour over cake.

What is your favourite kind of birthday cake? 

Barney Cake

I made this cake for my friend's little boy who was turning two.  He loves Barney and it was so cute watching his expression when he saw Barney on the cake.  I am glad he liked it. :)  His mum wanted something simple, a square cake with an edible image.  Since I don't own an edible printer, and I couldn't find a suitable edible image online or in the shops, I decided to make one out of fondant. 

How to make a fire truck cake {Tutorial}

When I made this cake for my friend's daughter, I did so with a lot of inspiration from the web, but with a lot of guesswork along the way too.  If I had known earlier, I would have got my hands on Debbie Brown's Children's Character Cakes book as it has instructions on how to make Fireman Sam and Jupiter (the truck), as well as other brilliant and well-loved characters.  It is a fabulous book to read through but I only managed to get it after I had to make the cake.  So this post is just my way of making the truck.  It may or may not be the best way, but it came together pretty well in the end and I was quite happy with the results.

The first step is

Fireman Sam cake

This cake was a lot of fun to do!  It was a HUGE cake as well, measuring 11 inches in length and 5 inches wide.  My friend's daughter loves watching Fireman Sam so mum thought it would be great if she could have it for her second birthday.  I have to say it did come with a few challenges.  I have not covered such an unusual shaped cake before so it took a couple of attempts to cover the whole truck in the red fondant smoothly.

Purple ombre cake {Tutorial}

I have been wanting to do an ombre cake for a while now, and when my dear friend's birthday came round, I decided it would be a perfect opprtunity.  I have to say though that it is a LOT of work, most of which comes from making all the frills for the cake and making sure they line up properly.  That was the most time consuming bit for me, but well-worth it in the end.  The cake looked so pretty and frilly and I was really pleased with it.  Unfortunately, I ran out of time and did not get a chance to take any good photos of the cake.  So remember, if you are planning to attempt this, give yourself a lot of time!

For those of you keen to try this,

Hobbit Hole 'Bag End' Cake

This cake was made for my hubby who is a huge LOTR (Lord of the Rings) fan.  Every year, he comes up with a different themed cake.  Last year was Stargate (see cake here) and the year before that was Star Wars (see cake here).

So this year, of course, it had to be Lord of the Rings.  :)

 

The cake is a dark chocolate mud cake layered with dark chocolate ganache and covered in fondant details as well as Swiss Meringue buttercream icing (SMBC).  If you have not tried SMBC, you should definitely give it a go!  It is not overly sweet like normal buttercream icing and has a very smooth and satiny finish.  More on that in another post!

Here are a few more close ups...

Stiletto heel and shoe box cake

I am really pleased with how this cake turned out! This is a model for a class I want to teach.  The gumpaste shoe took a lot of patience to do.  There was a lot of waiting in between, waiting for each part to hurry up and dry before another layer could be applied, but I am really pleased with how it turned out.  The shoe box is a dummy cake, which I covered in fondant.  The letters were cut out of the alphabet set from Patchwork cutters.  All in all, I am really happy with it. :)


Thanks for looking!

Kokeshi Japanese doll cake

I wanted to make a cake for a dear friend who has been really wonderful and helpful to me, especially in the last couple of months when I've had to juggle a few things.  I really don't think I could have managed without her and this was a way to say thank you to her for being such a wonderful person.

Christmas cake and cookies gift

It's been so long since I have blogged I can't believe it's March already!  Our computer decided to have a meltdown at the end of last year and so I haven't been able to put up any pictures of what I've been up to. 
Well I decided to switch it on again today and lo and behold it is up and running again!  Maybe it just needed a holiday too!

Well this post is either very late or very early but I thought I should post some pictures of a Christmas cake and cookie tree stack I did.  The cake is fruit cake and the cookies are lemon based shortbread.

The fondant striped bow was really easy and fun to do and I really must put together a simple tutorial on it soon.  Fingers crossed the computer works next time I start it up!  But just in case, here is a quick run down on how I did the stripes.

Roll a sheet of white fondant as your base.  Then overlap with strips of red at even intervals.  Gently roll over the strips with your rolling pin so the red fondant merges with the white.  Cut out strips for your bow and ribbon and you have your striped ribbon.  I used a new set of cutters from Patchwork for the letters.   A bit fiddly but I am sure I will get the hang of it soon.  I then painted the letters with edible gold paint.

The cookie stack was a lot of fun to do.  I baked lots of star shaped cookies in various sizes using the Wilton star cookie cutter set, decorated them with royal icing and silver dragees and then stacked them together, criss crossing the cookies along the way to get the effect you see in the picture below. 

Very effective don't you think?  It would look really nice in green too of course.  You could even pipe little icicles on the edges of each cookie to make it look like snow.

Thanks for looking!

Monica

Puppy cake - woof!

My friend's daughter just turned 6!  I have been making their cakes now for the last 3 years and I have to say this is probably one of my favourites.  I loved making this cake!  And I am so pleased with how it turned out.  This is a Debbie Brown design and I changed the colours around to suit the little girl's request.  The cake is made with the Wilton sports pan (for the head) and Wilton's soccer pan (for the body).  The checkerboard pattern took ages to do but I was quite happy with how it turned out and brightened the cake as well.  The letters are cut from FMM funky alphabet cutters, which I love using.  I added some bling to his collar using blue cauchous.  All in all, a very easy cake to make.

Isn't he adorable?  Woof!  :)

Giant cupcake

I finally got to try out my new giant cupcake pan from Baker's Secret.  After reading all the recommendations online on whether to bake the top and bottom half of the cake at the same time, I went with the 10-15 minute gap by baking the bottom half first for 10 minutes then adding the batter to the top half after that.  Both halves baked almost to the same time after that.  The only issue I had was trying to get it out of the pan all in one!  I should have greased and floured the pan but decided to go ahead and not do it.  Big mistake!  Always grease and flour your pans before adding the batter and the cakes with pop out with no issues.  Anyway I did finally get most of the cake out in one piece, thank goodness. 

This cake is carrot cake with loads of cream cheese icing on top as well as in between the top and bottom halves.  Bottom half is covered in strips of fondant and the top is sprinkled with giant sprinkles made from fondant circles.  I did try rolling a large strip of fondant around the bottom half but it came out looking like a bowl instead, hence the individual strips.  Will have to try again, maybe with buttercream icing as cream cheese is rather soft and doesn't give a good undercoat.  Tasted yummy though! :)

'Taylor Swift' birthday cake

My dear friend's daughter turned 11 a few weeks ago and requested a 'Taylor Swift' cake for her birthday.  She specifically wanted a 'Taylor Swift' figurine playing a guitar in a red dress so this is what I came up with.  The main cake is an eggless vanilla cake covered in vanilla buttercream.  I decided not to cover the cake with fondant so I had to spend a bit of time smoothing out the buttercream before piping musical notes on the side with black buttercream icing.

 
The name and stars are made with fondant, as is the figurine.

The birthday girl really liked her cake, as did her other friends at the party.  Glad that went well!

Thanks for stopping by!

Stargate cake

If you are a fan of the show, you will (hopefully) recognize this cake.  Otherwise, you may be forgiven for thinking it is a swimming pool with a man jumping in :)

I made this cake for my hubby who is a fan of the show.  It didn't start off as a stargate though.  We had a long discussion (as we usually do) about what he would like for his birthday cake this year, and it always comes down to these themes: Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate or Lord of the Rings.  Well, the original plan was Minas Tirith from LOTR but I wasn't sure about making a 7 layer cake.  Then we decided on the Enterprise from Star Trek, which then changed into a hobbit hole (LOTR again) and finally into Stargate.  That was straightforward enough, I thought.  And with so many wonderful ideas on the net from people who had made a Stargate cake (yes there are quite a few!), I started on the cake.

The cake is a chocolate mud cake covered in chocolate ganache.  It has 3 layers, and for the top layer I cut out the centre before placing it on the cake.  Then I cut into the inside of the ring to make it dip a little.  There is an excellent video on You tube by someone who made a Stargate cake.  She shows you how to cut into the ring, which I found very useful. 
Here is the cake already iced with some ganache.

Next I covered the cake with light grey fondant and made some markings around the cake using a small star cutter and a knife.  You could use a triangle cutter if you had one.  I also used a larger star cutter (or a triangle cutter) to cut out the chevrons (triangle markers) around the cake.  Cut the tip off each triangle and space them apart around the cake. 

I then made some markings on each triangle with a spatula and added some red fondant to complete it.  I struggled a little with the event horizon (middle bit).  I thought of using blue jelly, marshmallow icing or piping gel and I am sure it would have looked great but in the end I went with something I had which was royal icing.  I filled the centre with white icing and piped a border of blue around it.  Then using a toothpick and brush, I blended them together till I got the effect I wanted.  On hindsight, I could have made the lines more wavy than straight.  To complete the cake, I used the rest of the royal icing to pipe the letters on the cake as well as some of the symbols from the Stargate.

Of course, hubby had to decide that it would look more exciting to have one of the characters jumping into the wormhole so Teal'c was made, carrying his staff weapon. :)  I made him using my basic tutorial on "How to make a simple fondant figure".

I did use some wire support for the arms as it was made last minute but luckily he stayed upright ok. 
Here is the cake lit. :)

Pretty cool, huh?  Well hubby thought so, thank goodness!  Are you a fan of the show?

Happy Birthday, sweetie, I am looking forward to our discussion about your next cake. xxx  :)

Baseball cap cake

 My friend's son was turning 15 last week so his mum asked if I could make a simple cap cake for him as he was into collecting caps.  She wanted it to match his favourite navy blue cap.  It was quite straightforward to make and since she wanted more servings I suggested a sheet cake underneath to make up for that.  Here is the cake all ready to go.

The cap itself was made up of 2 cakes - top was from half of the Wilton sports pan and the bottom was a 6 inch round.  They fit perfectly on top of each other and the only carving I needed to do was at the back to make it look like the 'material' was folded in.  I covered the whole thing in navy blue fondant and used my PME quilting tool to make the stitches, mimicking the real stitches on the actual cap.

The brim of the cap was made a few days in advance with fondant mixed with a bit of gum tex so it would dry hard.  I made a template using the real cap and copied that onto the fondant.  (Do make sure to check that the part of the template where the brim meets the cap body fits snugly around your 6 inch cake pan, you may have to adjust it a little.) 

To give the brim a curved look I rested the fondant template onto a kitchen towel roll insert.  You can use anything you have to make it curve.  I also added a small piece of cardboard underneath the fondant to give it some support whilst it was drying.  Alternatively, you can leave the brim flat.  Again I made stitches following the real cap using the quilting tool.  It really is a handy tool to have in your cake decorating kit!  The eyelets were made using a Wilton tip 12 to get the outer ring and the back of a paintbrush for the hole.

Assembling the cake was very straightforward.  I used large straws inserted into the bottom cake under the cap to hold it up.  I also used a straw under the brim as it was not completely dry and needed a bit of support.  For the star border I used a Wilton tip 21 as the sheet cake was fairly large - 12 inches!  For the writing, I used a Wilton tip 3.

The 'V' initial was drawn free-hand onto cardboard then traced onto fondant and cut out.

His mum was really pleased with the cake and so was the birthday boy.  Always a good thing! :)

Russian and Welsh Wedding Cake

I had the honour and pleasure of making a cake for a student's friend this week.  The bride is Russian and the groom is Welsh and they wanted a Russian doll and Welsh dragon as toppers on their cake!  It was a very unusual combination but I think it came together very nicely in the end.

My friend, Jin, a very talented cake decorator, made the dragon and helped cover the cake as well.  Check out how elaborate the details are on the dragon!  Amazing work!  I hand-painted the Russian doll from a picture that they gave to me.  I was really pleased with the results.

They were very happy with the cake.  It had to travel all the way to the Bay of Islands so I hope it made it ok!  Here's to the happy couple.  May they be blessed with lots of love and good wishes on their special day! :)

Farm cake

 
This week, I had the pleasure of doing another cake for my friend's daughter who was turning 5.  Last year I did the Mermaid cake and cupcakes for her.  The little girl wanted a cake with farm animals on it, so after getting some inspiration from a lot of ideas on the web, I settled for something like this.  It was a lot of fun making all the fondant animals.  The cake was an eggless butter cake filled with jam and cream, 4 layers in each tier and it weighed a ton! lol  I used thick pearl tea (or bubble tea as some of you might know it) straws as dowels to support the top tier.

Here at the top of the cake is a little duck pond.

The grass, vines and leaves around the cake were piped in green buttercream icing.  Everything else was made of fondant.

The cupcakes were covered in a rose buttercream swirl and I added a fondant butterfly to each.

I did the fence and wooden sign in chocolate fondant and used an impression mat with a wood texture to give it a more realistic look.

Mum and daughter loved the cake and I was very happy with the results too.  I will have a little tutorial up soon about how to make the little ladybugs and bees.  Stay tuned!  :)

Happy Decorating!