Thursday 30 April 2015

May cupcake of the month!

Just in time for Mothers Day! Lavender and Honey! A beautiful bouquet in the form of a cupcake!

Tuesday 28 April 2015

Give a dog a bone


Let’s face it, my boy Bentley is probably one of the most handsome dogs you’ve seen...


 
...and he deserves lots of yummy treats (based purely on his good looks as he is not a good listener)! In reality he doesn’t get a lot of treats, usually it is only once a day at bedtime, but I still wanted to make sure I was giving him something healthy. I put thought and care into the food myself and my husband eats, why wouldn’t I do the same for my dog?

Just before Christmas I started experimenting with some homemade dog treats and had successfully made cheddar cheese biscuits and sweet potato biscuits. Now Bentley would never tell me something didn’t taste good but I do think he enjoyed the cheddar cheese ones best.  We are just about out of those biscuits so I figured I better make some more. I love making new things so I searched for a new recipe.  There is a lady from Australia whose entire YouTube channel is about dogs. How to properly care for them, how to make them food and of course treats. The recipe I settled on was from her. Here is the link to that video!


Peanut butter dog treats…and Bentley loves them!

Thursday 23 April 2015

The Easter Bunny was here!


The month of April is lucky enough to have Easter weekend and I don’t know about all of you, but our Easter weekend is always full of family…and food. This year we stuffed ourselves with roast beef, turkey, ham and all of the fixings. We also had dessert. Homemade lemon meringue pie, ‘Stained glass’ cake, and it wouldn’t be an Easter without carrot cake. After all that is the Easter Bunny’s favourite kind of cake!

This year I decided to make the traditional carrot cake into cupcakes. I left out the raisins (several people in my life refuse to eat them…strange, I know.) and added in some toasted walnuts. I put in some crushed pineapple and found that it really kept the cake moist. The cupcakes were topped off with a swirl of cinnamon cream cheese icing and a sprinkle of more toasted walnuts.

They were definitely a hit and would make a great treat any time of year!



Monday 13 April 2015

Ladybug Theme


It looks like those cute little ladybugs I had made a while ago found their way onto a cake!

A little girly was celebrating her first birthday and needed a cake to match her adorable smile. Her Aunt ordered her birthday cake for her as gift and wanted it to match the ladybug theme of the party. She had sent me a picture of what they wanted the cake to look like, so I was able to use that as a reference and add my little twist of creativity to it.

I tried out some new recipes and techniques this time around. I baked a vanilla butter cake for the bottom layer as well as the large ladybug on the top. I looooooved this recipe. It was such a nice cake to torte and barely had any crumb. I think it would be a great cake to carve with. I also baked a chocolate butter cake for the middle layer. This layer was delicious but definitely more crumbs.  I made a simple syrup mixture and between each layer of cake I brushed on the simple syrup before spreading a layer of buttercream. This is a great trick to keeping the cake moist! I received rave reviews from the cake eaters at the party, they loved the new recipes! I will definitely keep them in my repertoire.

I covered all three layers in a simple vanilla buttercream before covering them in coloured fondant. The red and black fondants are store bought as those deep colours are so hard to make, but the rest of the colours are all homemade marshmallow fondant.

The parents also wanted a smash cake for the birthday girl so she could really get messy! They requested a sugar free cake, so I made a sugar free banana and apple sauce cake. Even without the sugar, it still tasted great! My hubby thoroughly enjoyed my test run cake!  I baked it in my giant cupcake cake pan and decorated it to look like a simple bouquet of flowers.  I tied it into the larger cake with both the colour theme as well as the little lady bug and leaf decoration.

Everything on the cakes is edible, minus the boards between the layers and the dowels used for structure. I think they turned out lovely and made a great addition to the party!