Spring Garden

I did a wonderful cake and cupcakes for 70th today.  

Went all out with the flavouring of the cupcakes:

Lavender Cupcakes - Made some Lavender sugar from loose lavender tea,  then followed the rest of the recipe to the dot.  The aroma through the house while they cooked was beautiful.  Once cooled I piped on purple butter icing with a piped Lavender sprig, over all effect was very elegant.  

Rose Cupcakes - Added rosewater and pink food colouring to the mix then iced with pink butter icing then added a haphazzard rose to the top.  I did learn a new skill I can now use the leaf tip from wilsons yay me :)

Lemon Cupcakes - Added Lemon juice and rind to the mix, only thing I noted was they didn't rise as well as the others so next time I will experiment with more baking powder.  I iced with yellow butter icing then added to green leaves,  it looked really cool and they tasted beautiful.

Chocolate Cupcakes - I made a Chocolate cake and wondered if it would work as cupcakes, it did and people loved them I used my mums Chocolate cake recipe which I can devulge sorry but iced them with ganche and royal icing. 

Vanilla Cupcakes - I have to thank Julie for this very versatile cupcake recipe.  I did blue Butter icing with a large yellow sunflower on.

Loads of fun to do took a while but totally worth everyone really enjoyed them.  I will post photos over the week.

Cake adventures

I will start off with what I have done so far in the world of cakes 

 

 

These are from a 90th birthday party last weekend, I used a friends very yummy cupcake recipe and a chocolate mud cake recipe from my cafe days, in hindsight was a little to dense for the large cupcake size, next time they will be delegated to mini cupcakes :)  I am still learning so these took me a 8-10 hours to complete.

This was for a 70th birthday party, a patchwork quilt cake, very proud of this one took a while got my dates mixed up so started 2 weeks early . . . opps.  It was a fruit cake so not so bad, got the almond icing and royal icing on and then made the quilt the night before delivery.  Learnt a couple of important lessons with this one:

1. Make your icing thicker for a smoother finish

2.  Don't use so much icing sugar it drys out the icing and your hands

3.  Learn how to smooth out cracks it is not as simple as smoothing with a damp cloth that makes water pool on the surface