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Celebrating Jan’s Birthday

Feb5
Garden Birthday Cake

Garden Birthday Cake

It was a perfect start to our scrapbooking year that we were able to celebrate our friend, Jan’s birthday with her on Wednesday.  Jan was celebrating one of those quieter birthdays with a 1 on the end….the birthday that comes after the big exciting one with the 0 on the end!  I’m not going to give away your age Jan I promise but I do have to say that Jan is one of the better behaved scrappers in the Wednesday morning class.  She is quieter than some of us and gets down to her work quickly which is just as well as Jan is the only one of us who regularly loves to masterfully make one piece of scrapbooking paper out of 3 or more pieces of paper.  We all love this of course as we get to tease Jan about this and more importantly we get to see more of her beautiful collection of paper as she works.  Jan always pours herself into her scrapbook layouts and like her they are calmly colourful, neat, intricate and precisely balanced in their completion.  

If you look carefully at this collage of Jan’s gifts from the Wednesday girls you will see that they all were related to her passion for her garden.  How amazing that every gift was so appropriate for her and I promise we were not in cahoots when it came to choosing these gifts.  After deliberating on what cake to make Jan I decided on this one which is her special place in her garden.  Everything on this cake is edible except for the metal twirls of the back of the garden bench.  

Garden Birthday Cake

Garden Birthday Cake

The stepping stones leading up to the bench are peanut brittle (these were bought from Woolworths and they were already cut into perfect squares and were rich and shiny looking ideal for the stones.  The steps leading up to the garden are Woolworths chocolate brownies, once again perfectly sized in the packet and even sprinkled with nuts which gives the look and texture of garden steps. How can we not love our ‘Woolies’ for all these gorgeous goodies including the ‘wooden’ posts which are little snack treats with chocolate dipping meant for lunch boxes?  The sugarpaste molded wheelbarrow, spade, wellingtons and watering-can I made using a new mold I purchased from Chefs and Ices in Sandton City and although they are 2-D designs they are still effective on the cake.  The cake is a coffee cake with coffee, cream cheese icing which I sprinkled with Flake for the look of earth on the cake.  I mixed 3 different batches of green icing in my piping bag for the grass and then added fresh roses for the rose garden behind the bench.

Garden Birthday Cake

Garden Birthday Cake

We loved celebrating your birthday with you Jan and we love all the laughs, stories and memories you have shared with us all.  Here’s to many more magical Wednesday scrapping memories!

Butterfly Cupcakes

Feb4
Pastel Butterfly Cupcakes

Pastel Butterfly Cupcakes

These pretty pastel sugar pearls are every bakers dream to use as they just top a cupcake or cake so beautifully.  They can also be used for eyes and noses or for the centres of flowers.  I had extra time when making these butterfly cupcake toppers and experimented with using the sugar pearls as centres on my butterflies.  I nearly did a butterfly dance around my kitchen with joy as they came out looking even more dainty and pretty than my original butterflies…..and yes I have to admit I even said to myself, “way to go Lisa!”

Pastel Butterfly Cupcakes

Pastel Butterfly Cupcakes

Musical Cupcakes

Feb3

Musical Cupcakes

Wayne celebrated his 60th birthday at Back of the Moon, Gold Reef City.  The theme was music and the table decor was black and white with music notes and feathers.  I was delighted when Lisa asked me to do these cupcakes for Wayne’s birthday.  The cupcakes were apple cupcakes with a rich cream cheese  icing.  I added chuckles and music notes to some of the cupcakes and then made sugar paste records, titled ‘Hits of ’62’, to the others and finished off with a few black beads.  They turned out toe-tappingly tasty! In keeping with the theme Lisa made Wayne a brilliant photo album with records as the cover. Once again she gave a hand made and totally unique gift (you never cease to amaze me Lisa with your creativity and enthusiasm for surprising your family and friends).  Happy birthday Wayne and I hope these cupcakes added to all the fun you had celebrating with your family and friends.

Golden Wedding Anniversary Cupcakes

Feb2
Golden Wedding Anniversary Cupcakes

Golden Wedding Anniversary Cupcakes

A huge congratulations to Jerry and Averil who celebrated their 50th Wedding Anniversary this weekend. Their daughter Tracy and her husband Malcolm hosted the family celebration at their home and Tracy decorated the tables in gold and yellow and she asked me to do gold and yellow cupcakes to match her decor. I made gold hearts to represent the love that this couple have shared for each other for the past 50 years and then yellow flowers and roses to complete the colour theme. May you share many more wonderful anniversary celebrations with your amazing daughter and family.

Romance is the glamour which turns the dust of everyday life into a golden haze.  ~Elinor Glyn

Staying with Lime Green for a Bit!

Jan30
Lime Green & Pink Cupcakes

Lime Green & Pink Cupcakes

Jeanine is a new cupcake client I met while scrapbooking at the Memory Shed http://www.memoryshed.blogspot.com/ towards the end of last year.  Jeanine had seen cupcakes I had brought in for another order and I was so pleased when she called me and ordered these cupcakes for a friend of hers who was celebrating her 50th birthday this past weekend.   The pink butterflies, lime green and pink flowers and pink roses were a perfect choice  as the variety made for a perfectly pretty display.  They are displayed here on another stand that Russell Gibson made for me.  A must have cupcake stand in any bakers collection: http://www.cmwi.co.za/

Lime Green & Pink Cupcakes

Lime Green & Pink Cupcakes

I loved that Jeanine went for a different flavoured cupcake and these Pistachio and Rosewater Cupcakes are delicious and I am sure the guests were surprised by these fragrantly flavoured cupcakes.  Thanks Jeanine for your thank you message saying you couldn’t stop looking at the cupcakes that was an awesome compliment.

Cupcakes for my Blogging Guru!

Jan30

I know Wendy won’t mind me calling her my blogging guru because firstly blogging is one of her many passions and secondly my blog would not exist if it was not for her extreme patience in introducing me to the wonderful world of blogging and teaching me how to use the themes and tools on Word Press.  One of my aims this year is not only to keep baking gorgeous cupcakes but also to become more adept at my blogging skills. Thanks Wendy for always being at the other end of the phone for all my questions and for all your time and ideas in setting up my blog.  

Wendy celebrated her birthday in January and I wanted to make her some cupcakes she hadn’t seen me bake or blog yet.  It was great when she let me know about the Cupcake Tower challenge on Foodnetwork, and when she said she rather fancied the key lime and mango cupcakes of one of the competitors, it gave me the idea to try them.  With no recipe available I experimented with these cupcakes for Wendy.  My vanilla cupcake recipe has proved the most successful so far and I have adapted this single recipe into so many different flavour recipes so I started with the basic vanilla cupcake recipe to which I added small gooey pieced of chopped mango.  Be prepared when working with mangoes to get sticky fingers and work surfaces as they are rich, gooey and juicy when you cut into them and they are not as well behaved as apples and pears on a cutting board.  The mango pieces need to be folded really gently into the cupcake batter so as to hold their shape while baking.  I added lime juice and zest to taste and baked them in dinky lime green and white polka dot cupcake holders.

Key Lime & Mango

Key Lime & Mango

As you can see this baking took a lot longer as I was so excited by the beautiful contrast of the lime and mango colours I had to photograph my ingredients before they even made it into the cupcakes.  My Joseph Joseph cutting board and measuring bowls provided the perfect backdrop to these colourful fruits in my photos and of course my new camera (soon to be blogged too) took the perfect photos for me to blog.

For a fruity frosting on the cupcake I made a mango and lime syrup which I reduced until thick and added this to my cream cheese icing.  I used a little of the remaining syrup and lime zest to decorate the cupcakes. 

Key Lime & Mango Cupcakes

Key Lime & Mango Cupcakes

Thanks Wendy for going the extra mile to help me in my new business and hope you enjoyed your Key Lime and Mango cupcakes.