Alexandros turns 6

I have known Ale since he was in his mommy’s tummy, and I spent a year looking after him and his older brother, Nicholas, while I finished off my Master’s degree. When he heard I made cakes he asked his mom if I would please make him a cake for his birthday. His request was “Chocolate with chocolate and more chocolate”. The result was this:

Moist chocolate cupcakes with a Nutella icing, topped with Tumbles and KitKat. I made a few extra because I knew Ale and Nicky wouldn’t be able to wait till the next day, and they wolfed them down within 5 minutes of my arriving. The biggest compliment of the night was from the mom. I watched her weigh her salad, lettuce, cucumber, etc. because she’s on a “diet” and them eating not one, but TWO of my cupcakes. She has already ordered more from me!

The second thing Ale wanted was a cake. The cupcakes were for school but he wanted a cake for his party – and since he’s a fan of chocolate he wanted his favourite chocolate as his cake: a KitKat. Just like a KitKat the cake was vanilla inside and topped with a Nutella Icing and covered in a red fondant wrapper. I had such fun making this cake, simple yet effective, I loved it. The expression on Ale’s face when he saw it made it completely worthwhile.

Fairies in July

The one thing I have avoided making over these last few months is people. I am not a fan of drawing/painting/sculpting faces as I tend to find them creepy! I love cartoonish faces but the more “realistic” ones bother me. Every time Tracy has asked me to make I have managed with “not yet” until now… Not one, not two but three fairy cakes all due the same weekend! I don’t know what it is about little girls born in July, but somehow their mothers’ felt a pink and white theme with fairies was the way to go.

I spent all week modeling these fairies and actually landed up having loads of fun.

I decided to make 4 fairies just in case and I was so grateful I had. Ten minutes before delivering Isabella’s cake I opened the box and saw the the lid has crashed the fairy’s head!! I was really disappointed because she was my favourite of the lot… but thank goodness I was prepared.

Brighid ordered a vanilla cake with chocolate buttercream for Isabella, while Stacy ordered a Vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream for Angela, a moist chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream icing for Gabriella, and some pink and white cake pops for the parents. I had an exhausting weekend, but when I saw the girls’ faces when they saw their cakes, it totally made up for everything.

Learning the ropes

I started this blog as a place to put up all my delicious baked goods, although I would like it to be a place for me to share… Whether it be photographs, food, recipes… I’m new to blogging, so I don’t really understand how the intricacies work. Please excuse while I play around and figure out how it all operates.

Birthday Cake for Brannan

I received a phone call the week before from a very excited mom: her youngest daughter was turning 12 and she would like to give her something special for her birthday. Since she had already had her Batmitzvah this was going to be a small party with close friends and family. The mom’s excitement was contagious, she even wanted the cake delivered on the morning of her birthday so that she would wake up to it. I made Brannan a moist vanilla cake filled and dirty iced with Nutella and covered with fondant.

The shoes were silver, with an imprinted floral pattern. These flowers were filled in with orange and yellow Royal Icing to give texture and colour to the shoes.

Father’s Day

I decided to make my father something simple and delicious for Father’s Day. His cake was a vanilla cake sandwiched with chocolate ganache and topped with a cream cheese icing. The Fondant colours were bright blues and pinks with pink and white royal icing.

Happy 80th Freda

Leandra decided that I should be her own personal baker. She ordered a vanilla and buttercream cake for her gran who was turning 80. She wanted something simple with a flower or two to add some character.

As much fun as I had making this I received 2 speeding fines while dropping off the cake (turns out the South of Joburg has roads that look like highways which are, in fact, limited to 60km/hr). Hmm, turns out this cake resulted in a much bigger loss than profit. Oh well, at least Freda enjoyed it…

A birthday present for myself

It might be worth mentioning that I am severely allergic to wheat. I don’t go into anaphylactic shock or anything, but my reaction is instantaneous and the effects last between 4-7 days. As a result I cannot taste my cakes and rely on everyone else to give me honest feedback so I know how to change/improve my recipes. I always do a gluten-free version for myself to get an understanding of the cake and use everyone’s criticisms to go the extra mile.

Even though I had my birthday party at Wolves, whose cakes are famous, they allowed me to bring in my own as they don’t provide wheat-free treats. I agreed to make a cake that was not available at Wolves (this eliminated vanilla, chocolate, red velvet, hummingbird, and cheese cake) leaving me with the ever faithful carrot cake. This was a double score as my carrot cake is dairy-free, which meant my lactose-intolerant friends could also enjoy the cake while avoiding the icing. I made the top tier Gluten-free and the bottom gluten-full. I decided to do this as the price difference between cake flour and gluten-free flour is astronomical (gluten-free is almost 9 times the price of normal cake flour).

I wasn’t sure whether the cake would be a hit, but before the evening was over the bottom layer was polished off and people started digging into the top layer! I had about 30 guests but somehow I left that evening with only 2 slices of cake left to take home – which I was very grateful for as I had not had a chance to taste and this allowed me to eat cake for breakfast on my birthday!

I went all out with this cake – it was mine so I didn’t feel anxious or pressurised. Turns out this is still my favourite cake to cake and I should probably ease up a bit more in the future.

 

Happy 90th Birthday!

As a tribute to her 90 year old grandfather, Lori ordered a cake made specially for him. Her grandfather is a huge fan of chocolate and coffee, so Lori asked me to combine those two and make her a cake.

The cake was a moist, rich, chocolate, dirty iced with chocolate buttercream. The cake was decorated to look like a tablecloth on which coffee was being drunk. To stay in theme in the cups were solid white chocolate, topped off with dark chocolate ganache. The cups and saucers (as well as the tablecloth) were then finished off with some royal icing which was then painted gold to give it a touch of class. Unfortunately the picture does not do this cake justice, but it brought me great joy knowing that the ninety year old birthday boy had a blast.

Nutella Cupcakes

I was asked to make something different for some friends. I have recently been given a new icing recipe and wanted to try it out! The initial cupcakes were supposed to have cream cheese icing, but I decided that since Kym is Italian she would prefer Nutella.

Kym and Helen gobbled their cupcakes down with much praise. The rest of the batch were taken to a lunch party and placed next to a triple chocolate cake. Even though these were somewhat ignored at the luncheon they didn’t last more than two days, so I will take that as a compliment

Happy Birthday Cupcakes

As a result of my Facebook album album I got several messages from people who had seen my stuff. Lori has since become a regular client and I thoroughly enjoy baking things for her! She requested a batch of Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Icing and a simple HAPPY BIRTHDAY! across the 14 cupcakes, with a letter on each cupcake. Lori loved these so much she has ordered them again and again. They were simple but such fun.