Happy giant birthday Laura

A friend of a friend saw our photos on our Facebook page and like them so much, she requested a giant cupcake for her daughter's birthday.  The only requirement?  Pink! 

Using the last blue and white one as a guide, I again rolled out fondant to cover the base and used it to make the disc at the front, so they matched.  Her name was Laura, so I got to use my new embossing set to do the disc.  I wanted to do pink icing on the top half, so planned to use white for the decorations - sprayed with gold lustre to make them stand out more. 

I was quite pleased with this one, as I managed to make the rose swirls smaller and tighter, and thus fit 2 rows all the way around.  I delivered it earlier this morning, and the client was thrilled.  Some of her colleagues had waited around to see it too, and were also impressed  So pleased.  Then I got a comment on the Facebook page photo to say that not only did the birthday girl love it, it tasted great too - yippee!

Happy Australia Day

Today is Australia Day, (here's Wikipedia's take on it, FYI) Australia Day (previously known as Anniversary Day, Foundation Day, and ANA Day) is the official national day of Australia. Celebrated annually on 26 January, the date commemorates the arrival of the First Fleet at Sydney Cove in 1788 and the proclamation at that time of British sovereignty over the eastern seaboard of New Holland.

Although it was not known as Australia Day until over a century later, records of celebrations on 26 January date back to 1808, with the first official celebration of the formation of New South Wales held in 1818. It is presently an official public holiday in every state and territory of Australia and is marked by the presentation of the Australian of the Year Awards on Australia Day Eve, announcement of the Honours List for the Order of Australia and addresses from the Governor-General and Prime Minister. With community festivals, concerts and citizenship ceremonies the day is celebrated in large and small communities and cities around the nation. Australia Day has become the biggest annual civic event in Australia.

Hmm, the font is very strange in this post - sorry!

If you read the last post about Burns Night, you'll understand the cupcake.  Here I'm simply going to show you the Southern Cross topped cakes, and the latter is by Aspire2be. creative again.  Enjoy!

Burns Night, or Scottish Day if you're 4 years old

Tomorrow is Burns Night, which is (according to Wikipedia) - a Burns supper is a celebration of the life and poetry of the poet Robert Burns, author of many Scots poems. The suppers are normally held on or near the poet's birthday, 25 January, sometimes also known as Robert Burns Day or Burns Night (Burns Nicht), although they may in principle be held at any time of the year.

Basically, to Mini-2 it's Scottish Day (although technically November 30 would also fall under this category, as that is St Andrews Day, and he's the patron saint of Scotland).  They had China Day on Monday as it was Chinese New Year, so for snack they had prawn crackers and noodles and tomorrow they're going to have Haggis and oatcakes.  Ooh, wonder if she'll try the haggis? 

I felt like trying a new flavour of cupcake, then covering the top in fondant and doing a Scottish flag design on top (with an Aussie one for the day after tomorrow) and had a wee read through my favoured cupcake books.  Peaches and cream it was - only I didn't have any peaches and wasn't planning vanilla buttercream for the icing.  I had a tin of pears, and felt that the others ingredients would be lifted by the addition of about a 1/4 teaspoon mixed spice, resulting in Spiced Pear cupcakes.

However, after baking - the Team and I weren't thrilled with the result.  Don't get me wrong, they tasted good and were moist and so on, but it was really silly of the recipe to tell you to put the chopped fruit at the base of the cupcake case, because then the whole thing disintegrated when you removed the wrapper.  You kind of had to turn it upside down to eat, not practical. And Mr Becca and I felt that I could up the amount of spice, for a better flavour.  Still, they were the perfect foil for the fondant topping, which was the original plan.  So all's well that ends well!

And again, by Aspire2be. creative photography...

and another

Valentine's is for cupcakes, and brownies

I couldn't help but notice that all the other bakers on Facebook were offering treats for Valentine's Day, and figured the old adage was apt, 'if you don't ask, you don't get'.  Coupled with the fact that I hadn't made chocolate cupcakes often enough to feel really confident about them, and we have... ta da!!  Chocolate cucpakes with chocolate buttercream icing.

For some reason, despite using the same size cake cases and the same ice-cream scoop to fill them, the cakes didn't bake as flat as the vanilla usually do.  I followed the recipe as I do for vanilla, and they still tasted soft, light and lovely, just had a little volcano in the middle.  Do you have any idea why that happened?

The chocolate buttercream wasn't as problematic, just light and delicious.  Mmmm....

I played around with the candy letters I used to make the X and O on the rear cupcake, and whaddya know - it spelled out my name!  haha

Here are some photos taken by my friend Jill over at Aspire2be. creative photography, great aren't they?!

I'm more confident with Vanilla, so that's the offer for Valentine's - along with Chocolate Brownies for those who prefer their treats dark and decadent.  What would you choose?