A Weekend of Cake: pt.2

Facebook is dangerous. A stressed out "IHAVETOOMUCHCAKEBATTER" status cry can lead to all sorts of suggestions of what to do with said batter. And I'm really not one to give up challenges. Hence why what could have been a second lego brick cake morphing into the second installment of my Weekend of Cake - a typewriter cake for my friend Aimee, who also had a birthday this weekend.

This was actually incredibly fun to make. I baked the remainder of the batter (which had been colour gelled yellow with intention of being a lego piece) in a shallow rectangle cake tin, then did some creative cutting and iced it all together. Bang on some skittles and licorice along with some coloured fondant and BAM. Typewriter cake.

Token photobooth shot before I run away for birthday festivities...

And a better quality photo of the cake itself...

xo CB

A Weekend of Cake: pt.1

I'm on a fondant rampage at the moment, and it's not entirely intentional.

Friday just gone was my friend Nemo's birthday, and there is little she loves more than lego. So much so that she even has a lego man tattoo on her leg! Perfect cake then? Lego brick cake!

This should have been so much easier than I made it. Cake baked in a rectangle loaf cake, plus 6 mini cupcakes for the lego knobs and then icing over the whole thing, right? In logic this would have worked.

Sadly I misread the recipe and ended up with twice as much cake batter as anticipated (never mind that, however, as this led on to A Weekend of Cake pt.2!) and, a little overwhelmed, I managed to break the cake when removing it from the pan and the blue buttercream I'd made just wasn't cutting it. Hence the last minute supermarket dash for fondant!

It may have turned into a bit of icing overload, but overall it was pretty delicious... Blue tooth inducing as it was.

So many hilarious photos followed, but keeping it work safe I'll just post this one. Let's just say Lego Dave enjoyed it too!

xo CB

Moving up in the world

I'm currently in the process of moving the blog from my (very old) gmail account over to a new, Sweet Treats specific one. Shouldn't take too long, and it means I now have my very own blog email address, hooray!

In the mean time, check out this photo I found on the internet! It appears to have come from a 50's inspired wedding blog, and it honestly makes me drool a little.

Candy stripes, lollipops, and bunting...

...this is what my dreams are made of.

x CB

Sweet treats from my childhood

Last week I finally made it into The Yellow Brick Road and was SUPER excited to find this amazing book - Sweet Treats by Frankie Magazine.

Filled with well written, easy to follow recipes of old school sugary treats (including candy hearts, marshmallow cones, and honey joys...!) as well as being illustrated with beautiful photos and fabric prints to make me wish I was living in the 50s, I had to buy it. Not to mention it has the same name as my blog!

Since having a flick through I've taken it upon myself to make all 39 recipes by the year's end. With 49 weeks left I'm sure that will be more than doable, allowing for study/assignment breaks, laziness, and of course other exciting baking adventures.

This evening I got started by making two of the simpler recipes - Coconut Ice and Chocolate Crackles. Both of these scream childhood to me, and eating them (a girl has to taste test, after all...) reminded me of school galas and pony rides.

Sugary sweet!

Coconut ice

Chocolate Crackles

Can't wait for my next trip down memory lane!

x CB

Rainbow Unicorn Cake for Amie Wee

When my friend Amie Wee posted a photo of her dream birthday cake on facebook with an "I NEED THIS TO HAPPEN" tag, I couldn't pass up the challenge.

Can you really make a unicorn cake, with rainbows on the inside?

ABSOLUTELY.

And then on Friday night it actually happened :)

Luckily I had a photo for reference, because I was unsure how to make unicorns out of cakes, but baking paper cake patterns are my new best friend (you can cut them up and make mistakes without destroying the cake itself!) and a few smart cut-and-pastes out of a rectangular shaped cake and the unicorn was happening.

Once I had the shape sorted I covered the entire thing with fondant, made a fondant eye, mane and nose, and tested out my exciting sparkly yellow sugar on the horn. The end result?

A unicorn cake success!

Rainbows on the inside? ...Yes!

My colour gel experiment paid off, and then there was the happiest cutest existence of an Amie ever ^^;

x CB

Bake dates and giant cupcakes.

My friend Elicia bakes the most amazing treats with insanely elaborate icing and delicious flavors. I've been staying at her house the past few weeks, and so a few nights ago we had a spontaneous baking party.

I think naturally when you get two baking nuts together it will never be a case of baking a simple cake, and this was no exception. She happens to have a GIANT cake-sized cupcake mould, and so we decided to bake in that.

I haven't really used silicone bakeware before, but it turned out quite well. This particular mould was baked in two parts, and then iced together.

Thanks to a Nigella chocolate cake recipe (which was oddly simple - put all of these things in the blender and hit start...?) we ended up with this beaut of a cupcake - chocolate, with strawberry buttercream frosting.

xCB

Matryoshka cupcakes

I was really surprised the other day when I googled "Matryoshka cupcakes" (and then, when I found nothing, "Russian Doll Cupcakes") and came up with nothing except this amazing Hello Matryoshka cookie from bakegreek.com, and a few cupcake decorations.

Having decided (and then pretty much promised) my friend Anna that I would make her Matryoshka cupcakes as a surprise for her sister, and have them ready for Friday morning, I had some serious brainstorming to do.

A few sketches later and in a fit of determination I'd come up with 4 designs and had a vague idea of the stencils I would need for them. I think it's safe to say that everything sounds easier in my head, because I forgot how hard fondant is to work with in humidity. Life.

In the end I coloured and rolled the fondant and then chilled it before trying to cut it, and again between cutting them and decorating the cupcakes. I had a few problems with it going a little hard, but the sugar syrup I used when applying them to the cupcakes seemed to fix it well enough.

I decided on a plain vanilla recipe for the cupcakes themselves, and used a vanilla frosting under the fondant to help it stick. I think overall I am pretty happy with how they turned out, and can't wait to see what Anna thinks tomorrow!

x CB

An experiment with colour gels

Just a quick post today, the most exciting of baking adventures have yet to happen.

Yesterday, however, I played around with gel food colourings and made this great rainbow cake! It is actually in the shape of a roller skate, but the photo of it before it got chopped is hiding on someone else's camera currently.

Point is - I LOVE my colour gels! Absolutely a best buy. It has been a while since I have used them in anything other than candy or icing though, and with an impending cake challenge ahead of me I wanted to make sure they would work just as well in cake batter. Very easy, though, I just split the mix into 5 and stirred the gels through each and then poured them into the cake pan on top of each other. I was a little surprised at they layering effect that happened, but I think I like it better this way. Every slice has a different type of rainbow! Psychedelic rainbow cake... delicious.

Another exciting baking adventure (Amazing Rainbow Unicorn Cake aside) is that I am being commissioned by a friend to bake some cupcakes for her little sister's 21st this weekend! I've been given complete creative freedom with them as well, so as long as they are edible they can be whatever flavour, colour and design that I want. Very very amped, and flattered! I think I may play around with my colour gels for the cupcakes as well, and maybe some different kinds of icing. Photo fueled post to come next week!

x CB

Ruth Garden and The Yellow Brick Road

I read an article about this girl today, and she is living my dream.

She has this sweet little boutique store in Parnell that sells the most adorable dresses, as well as other treats like pre-loved sunnies and jewelry, tin robots, and everything awesome. Even better, she said in the article she daydreams of extending the shop to have a bookshelf that is actually a secret entrance to a vintage candy shop, a 50s diner-style coffee shop with waitresses on roller skates, and other cute things that make my heart sing. I think I need to make friends with her, manage and make things for the secret candy store, and fulfill my dream of being a roller skating waitress.

Check out the cuteness here.

xCB