luscious red velvet

So I made a Red Velvet cake with a Nutella-Cream Cheese frosting for my sister's birthday. It was so good, I had almost finished half of it, before remembering to take a photograph.

A Flurry of Wedding Daisies

I started baking these at 8pm and at 7am, was still piping on the icing. Wedding madness indeed! Congratulations Cousins M. and L. I hope you enjoyed these Pretty in Pink cupcakes.

Sticky, Messy, Chewy Brownies

These began as a meringue into which I folded Valrhona cocoa and flour and these became the most delectable brownies I have ever made. You would never imagine that these are butter-less. A definite keeper recipe.

Cupcakes from Lilliput

Inspired by Kristy Lynn's micro cupcakes, I made these:

Placed beside a 20cents coin for scale

The one from Lilliput beside the normal sized one

While these are cute for a themed party, say an Alice In Wonderland or Gulliver's Travels theme, these took triple the time and if you are hard-pressed for time, these whimsicals, while adorable, can be a tiny bit (no pun intended here) irritating to do. So here it is, putting the word "bite" into "bite-sized".

of cars and strawberry cake

Carved Car Cake

Final Cake on #4 cake with toppers provided by the client.

Three sleepless nights, amidst the frenzied happenings of work during the weekends, and this came into fruition. The final cake comprised of the carved car from cake (above) placed on top a number 4 made of strawberry shortcake with strawberry compote and puree I made and Madagascan Vanilla frosting, for the lovely child's age, with added Disney Cars toppers provided by the client. I can't say that this is an exact replica, more like a simulation of Lighting Mcqueen. Hehe.

Learning lessons:

I think I should have just left the car separate from the number 4. Putting it together made it too complicated and busy

I wanted to carve this out of baked honey rice crispies treats, but the honey sank to the bottom of the cake tin, (making it extremely difficult to dislodge) and while the resultant caramel was lovely, it made the rice crispies soggy and too saccharine, so I eventually carved this out of cake with fingers tightly crossed. As you know I've always been afraid of Disney Cars as the last time I did this, the fondant, made wet and heavy from all the red colouring and the humidity, melted into a gloop just an hour before the delivery. Thankfully, this one survived intact with a few superficial cracks.

The weather was lovely and the humidity low which made it the perfect day to work with fondant in the morning. However, the humidity rose steeply around 2:30pm and this resulted is some crackage, although I had enforced the fondant with gum trac! Grr!

of mascarpone and strawberry fields forever.

I had some extra batter and frosting for the cake I was doing, so this is a prelude of the flavours in the cake. A crumbly shortcake topped with a mascarpone and strawberry compote frosting on top. 

all's a splash with blooms of red and white

In line with the chosen theme colours of red and white for the wedding, this series of red and white Madagascan Vanilla cupcake blooms was made. Congratulations L. and A. on your blessed day!

The Red Blooms

The White Blooms

A Close-up of the Piped Red Roses

The Cupcake Tower - for some strange reason the wonky camera created this lomo-saturated effect, which is quite nice, so I'm keeping it.

Last but not least, the view of the cupcake tower from the top.