Monday, 9 June 2014

Baby Blessing Cake


So you may have noticed that there have not been very many decorated cakes on my blog lately. This is because I am having some problems with my right arm (shoulder and neck issues) which also happens to be my dominant arm. As a result, I can barely use my arm or hand and have had to cancel all of my cake orders. But there was one cake I just had to make - my friend's baby's blessing cake. Only, I didn't actually make the cake, my friend did, under my direction. Doesn't it look amazing? And she has never done anything like this before either!


The cake is a chocolate/vanilla chequerboard cake, all stuck together with ganache.


Then covered in buttercream - just look at those straight lines.


And then the white fondant (I love The Mat by Sweetwise).




She was so amazed and happy that it worked!



Well done my friend!



Wednesday, 21 May 2014

Articles of Faith {printable}

We have recently moved into our beautiful new home, and I had a blank wall in the family room that was begging for something bright and cheerful to fill it. I came across some beautifully composed and colourful Articles of Faith printables (by It's Always Autumn) via Pinterest. As soon as I saw them I knew that they were what I wanted on my wall.


For those who don't know, we are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The Articles of Faith are 13 statements which summarise the basic points of belief of the members of our church. We are encouraged, from childhood, to be very familiar with these statements, and even memorise them.


I have a thing about symmetry and am not a fan of prime numbers above 5, so the idea of hanging 13 frames on the wall was quite unappealing. So I designed two more pictures to match the set, one of Jesus Christ, and one of a temple, to make it a set of 15. If you would like to download either of these images, please click on the pictures below. 



Just to add a bit of baking to this post - here are the desserts made for our house warming party. They include lemon meringue pie, trifle, chocolate pie, vanilla bundt cake, chocolate fudge cake, rocky road brownies, chic-chip cookies, New York cheese cake and gingerbread houses. Now our house is really a home!



Wednesday, 23 April 2014

But, there's no such thing as a Gruffalo!

Thanks to a lovely new friend, we have been getting to know all our local parks (we moved home very recently.) One of our favourites has to be the deep, dark wood, where we happened upon the Gruffalo!













I just had to share this photo of my beautiful doggie too!




Thursday, 27 March 2014

Minecraft Party


Tasha has been wanting a Minecraft themed party for a long time, she finally convinced me to do it for her this year. It was actually a lot of fun to pull off! You will notice touches of pink throughout, Tasha loves pink and I think it makes a good contrast to all the green.

 

We created a Creeper face on the wall using square party plates. It made a great backdrop for photos.


Some friends helped me to make life sized Minecraft characters out of cardboard boxes.




The cake is a slightly simplified Grass Block, the figure on top is Tasha herself, using her Minecraft Skin, she is standing next to a Minecraft Cake. Each square on the cake is a separate little piece of fondant.



I was a bit disappointed with the finish of my cake cube, it was so perfect after crumb coating, I'm not quite sure where I went wrong, but the finished cake is very warped, the sides seem to have sagged downwards.



We vary carefully selected every bit of party food so that it matched with an Item from Minecraft.


Each food got a corresponding sign to identify it's Minecraft item name.




In order to earn their piece of birthday cake, each child had to collect specific items to arrange on the Crafting Table and craft their cake (the crafting recipe we used is close, but not exactly the same as the one for cake on Minecraft, due to availability of supplies).



They had to collect wheat, milk, eggs, and sugar. Eggs were collected by searching for them around the building where they had been hidden (an egg hunt). They could also find hidden emeralds along the way. The emeralds could be used to trade with Villagers (adult/teenaged helpers at the party) for sugar lumps.


They earned wheat by knocking over wheat skittles (i.e. cutting the wheat).



And milk was earned by feeding the cow (throwing a tennis ball into its mouth from a distance.)


All items could also be bartered with the other children or the villagers, until each child had all the items they needed to craft their cake at the crafting table.

Another activity the children enjoyed was creating their own Skin, by decorating a T-Shirt with fabric markers.


The remainder of the party was spent eating and playing various party games. Minecraft parody songs played in the background for most of the party.