Ombre Buttercream Cake

For my Mother In Law's birthday cake I decided to change from the normal ganache and fondant to buttercream.  The cake was a caramel mud cake, which I layered with leftover white chocolate ganache, and toffee sauce.  I then made my usual buttercream, and coloured it in 3 colours to make the ombre effect.

After icing the cake,  I placed the macarons on the top of the cake.    I would love to say that I made the macarons, but they were store bought.  Using a Wilton 1M tip I piped swirls of buttercream between the macarons, and covered the cakes with sprinkles.

Pink, White, and Gold Birthday Party

Last year I planned to do a cute ballerina themed birthday party for my daughter.  I had pins on my Pinterest board with pink themed dessert tables, pink ballerina cakes and other pink food goodies.

Planning was going well…until my daughter attended her friend’s birthday which was Frozen themed.  So of course, my daughter wanted a Frozen themed party as well……sadly I had to say goodbye to my pink décor and embrace the blue!!

This year she didn’t mention anything about a particular theme, so I decided to go with Pink, White and Gold which seems to be popular at the moment.  The good part was no figurines to make, as they are not my strong point.

I decided to go with a 7” chocolate cake, layered with vanilla buttercream, encased with milk chocolate ganache and covered in fondant.  The top layer was a 5” white chocolate mud cake, also layered with vanilla buttercream, encased with white chocolate ganache and covered in fondant.

I used Americolor Dusty Pink to colour my fondant, and cake board.  The gold was brushed on using Metallic Light Gold edible paint by Rainbow Dust.  For the name plaque I used the Vladimir Script font in Microsoft Word, flipped it horizontally, and printed it out.  I then traced it with parchment paper using a pencil.  After rolling out my fondant and using a circle cutter, I flipped my name to the correct side and traced this on the fondant.  You can then see the outline of the font, and then use edible paint or an edible pen to write on the fondant.   In this instance I used a black edible pen.  

The gold balls were made a couple of days before I assembled the cake, and didn’t work out well.  They were made with white fondant, left to harden and then painted with the same Metallic Light Gold edible paint that I used on the cake.  As they were hard they would not stick to the cake, and kept falling off. So I made new balls out of white fondant, and while they were still soft stuck them to the cake.  When they dried I then painted them gold, and the next morning gave them another touch of paint.

For the cupcake toppers a couple of days before the party I rolled out white fondant mixed with a bit of tylose, and cut out heart shapes.  The night before I painted them with the Metallic Light Gold edible paint, and left them to dry.  They were then nice and hard the next day, and wouldn’t go soft while sitting in the buttercream on the cupcakes.

The cake pops were made using leftover cake and ganache.  I dipped them in pink coloured white chocolate, and when the chocolate was set I painted Metallic Light Gold edible paint on them.

On Pinterest I found a tutorial on how to make the tassel garland.  They were very easy to make, the hardest part was trying not to burn my fingers with the hot glue gun!!

Semi-Naked Drippy Cake

My sons birthday was last week, and we had an afternoon tea on Sunday for family members.  He had a birthday party late last month with his friends from school, I blogged earlier about his ice-cream dessert table, and his request not to have a birthday cake then.

For his afternoon tea I wanted to make him a drippy cake after seeing all of the delicious semi-naked dripping cakes on Instagram, and topped it with his favourite lollies and chocolates.

He wanted a banana cake, so I made a small 6” white chocolate and banana mudcake and layered it with buttercream, fresh bananas and toffee sauce.  Decorating the top with the toffee shards, lollies and chocolates was the fun part.  I added Chocolate Fingers, Kitkats, Crunchie Bars, Maltesers, Jaffa’s, Chocolate Fish, Picnic Bars,  Cadbury Milk Chocolate and Whittaker’s Santé Bars.

The Chocolate Fish which is marshmallow covered in chocolate, and Jaffas are very Kiwi, and are a part of every kid's childhood.  When I was a kid a Chocolate Fish was a reward for doing a great job, or doing well at something. The term “I’ll give you a Chocolate fish if you do xxx for me” is still used.  Now you can also get small Chocolate Fish which are called Sprats, and along with Jaffas are quite often found on your saucer when you purchase a cup of coffee from a café.  Jaffas are the small red balls filled with chocolate and are orange flavoured.  I have fond childhood memories of going to the local picture theatre and buying a box of Jaffas to eat while watching the movie.  Way back then our picture theatre had wooden floors, and you would always hear people dropping their Jaffa’s on the floor, and hear them rolling down the steps.

Along with his cake I also made Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese icing, and topped with fresh strawberries.  I didn’t take any close-ups of the cupcakes as we had high humidity and temperatures, and the icing was not behaving.  I could have quite happily dived into the fridge with them to cool off.  We don’t normally get high temperatures and humidity, so our air-conditioning is opening up all of the windows and doors.

Mason loves Chocolate Brownies so I made him a batch, and iced with a chocolate cheesecake swirl, and topped with a fresh cherry.

Frozen Dessert Table

Emme’s birthday was coming up and as she has started dancing lessons this year I had visions of a pretty pink ballerina cake, pink and white decorations, and a lovely pink dessert table.  I had pins stuck onto my Pinterest board and was getting excited about her birthday party. Well……all of that went out the window when Emme received an invite to a Frozen birthday party!!!  So it was no longer a pretty pink ballerina party, as she also wanted a Frozen party……arghhhhhhh.  So my visions of pink were replaced with blue.

She also wanted a buttercream swirl cake with snowflakes on it, just like her friend had.  So after a bit of compromising we ended up with two cakes…..the one I wanted and the one she wanted.

The fondant cake was a 5” chocolate cake with chocolate ganache and then covered in fondant.  For the icicles I used my extruder, which is a life saver but still a time consuming job putting them on.  As you can see figurines are not my strong point, and I struggle with getting the right proportions. That is why I went for something a bit more cartoon/caricature style.

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The buttercream cake was a 7” white chocolate cake covered in ombre rose swirls.  This turned out to be an expensive cake as I ended up breaking my scrapper blade when I started to cream the butter!!  I had softened the butter, but after starting the mixer it went around once, made a snapping noise and the blade broke.  So it was a rush to find another blade in the cupboard.  Then I had a bit of a colour mix up with the top layer of rose swirls.  As you can see it is more green than light blue.  This is due to New Zealand butter been very yellow, due to our cows been grass fed.  So if you mix yellow and a little bit of blue, of course you get green!!!  I was halfway around the top layer when Emme asked “Why’s the top green Mummy?”  Opps I was in such a rush I hadn’t even noticed, and with the party in about an hour I was not going to scrap it off and start again!!!

The snowflakes were made with fondant mixed with a bit of tylose (CMC).  I made these a couple of days prior to the party so they could harden up.  You need to make them at least the night before (the longer the better), otherwise they might start to soften when you place them on the buttercream.

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Emme dressed up in her Frozen costume in front of her dessert table.

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Call Of Duty Dessert Table

I always make a special cake and a dessert table for my kids birthday. When I asked Mason what cake he wanted this year it was no surprise that he replied “Call Of Duty” as it’s his favourite Playstation game.

I made an 8” chocolate cake, covered in chocolate ganache for the bottom tier, and the top tier was a small 6” white chocolate cake with white chocolate ganache.  If I’m making a black or red cake I always use the pre coloured fondant from Satin Ice.  It is more expensive than the Bakels I would normally use and colour, but it is a lot easier (less stressful) to use.  For the face on the bottom, and the lettering on the top I made templates out of cardboard.  I then used white gel colouring to sponge on the bottom, and a paint brush for the lettering on top.

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I wasn’t really organised for the backdrop, and should have brought some camo netting.  But as I left it to the last minute it was a DIY job.  I got some black netting from our local hardware store, and some green spray paint.  Hubby tied some ripped up rubbish bags onto the netting and spray painted it.  When it had dried I then put it up against a black table cloth on the wall.

The kids loved the blood syringes.  These were really easy to make - red jelly as per instructions on the packet, let it cool down a bit and then suck up into the syringes, and then into the fridge to set.

I used red licorice for the TNT, and then thin blacks strips of licorice to tie them together.

The chocolate cupcakes were iced in camo coloured buttercream.  For the water bottles and noodle boxes, I printed out pictures from the internet and glued these on.

As you can see it doesn’t cost a large amount to do your own dessert table.  I always buy noodle boxes, or paper bags from the discount stores and then decorate them myself.  It is the same with the backdrops and other decorations, I always buy from discount stores and make what I can to keep the costs down.