Forgot my Handbag!

Here are some pictures of a handbag I made at cake decorating class a little while ago. It was pretty hard to get the pleats in the icing but it came out pretty cool!! I love the pattern on it, I used the Cuttlebug embossing mat to get the quitled pattern.

More photos coming soon - I still have to make a cup and saucer and an Asian Lilly!

50th Birthday Cake

Hello again!! It has been awhile. I finally have working internet again, so I can post these photos of a cake I made 2 weeks ago!

A friend of my sister wanted to order a cake for her Mothers 50th birthday party. She decided on a chocolate cake with buttercream icing, "Happy 50th Birthday Lynley"and some pink on it somewhere. I decided to make a white Swiss meringue buttercream, similar to what we used at the French Bakery where I worked for the gateau's. I wanted to keep it grown up, so used soft pink roses to add some colour, as well as lettering cut out with my stencil cutters.

I got some great feedback about the cake so I'm glad it was a hit!!

Prizes Galore!

Wow it has been a long weekend!! I arrived at the place where the competition was being held on Saturday morning and was dragged over to the competition work by the woman who teaches the classes I'm in. She directed me towards my floral spray, then my wedding cake, then my fondant entry...a certificate for each!!

Floral Spray - 73 points, Bronze Award

Wedding Cake - 78 points, Bronze Award

Fondant Section - 81 points, Silver Award!!

I was pretty happy with that!! My wedding cake was 2 points away from getting a silver, I needed a slightly bigger board but as I was up until 3am the night before finishing it, it would have been impossible to find a new board at that time!! My spray was slightly too large, I was trying to use all the flowers I had made as they took so much time. The whole weekend was a great experience and I can't wait to do it again!! Next time I will definitely start preparing earlier though, it takes so much time to make everything!

Hope it has been a great weekend for everyone. 

Competition Entries

These are the entries I put into the competition today. I'm pretty happy with how they came out! The wedding cake came out just as I planned which was great. The floral spray and the pettnice  (fondant) entry kind of came out of the blue, but they worked out and I'm pretty proud of what I've done in a short amount of time! 

They were getting marked this afternoon so I can go along tomorrow morning and see how I went. There was some gorgeous entries so it might be tough in a few catergories!

Have a great weekend guys, I'm looking forward to a decent sleep after many hours working on these!

Cakes times 2

I had to post these pictures of the cakes made for my parents recently. They have their birthdays within a couple of days of each other so we celebrated them in the middle.

My Dad is really into tramping so I wanted to make him a mountain cake with snow, a glacier and a lake like the photos he brings home from his trips. For my Mum I wanted to make a simple, classic cake - her favourite colour is red and I included these shoes I learnt to make the other week at class.

The tramping cake is banana flavoured, the red cake is carrot flavoured. I say flavoured, because they don't contain fruit or nuts. My tutor recommends not using real fruit or nuts in a cake as a classmate made a banana cake for a wedding and the fruit fermented, causing the cake to explode when the bride cut it....not pretty. I'm so happy with how they turned out!! We cut the red cake and tried some, it was pretty good and fed about 12 people with some left over so that worked out well!!

I have also been busy making my competition cakes. I have one week left!! So next weekend I will have some new photos to put up. I''m so excited to see what everyone else comes up with!

Sweet Sweet Roses

I was a busy bee this weekend making a bunch of roses in preparation for competitions coming up in March. I took some photos of the various steps while making them. It's pretty cool when you get into a routine and you can bust them out at a reasonable pace!! I've still got a lot more to make this weekend, but at least I've started now.