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Happy Birthday Tracy!

Dec13
Lime Green & Chocolate Cupcakes

Lime Green & Chocolate Cupcakes

I have a page in my gallery for quick reference so that visitors to my site can look up cupcakes for women, It is – For the Beautiful Women in Your Life.  These cupcakes I made for Tracy who is one of the beautiful women in my life.  She is an awesome mother, wife and friend and it has been a privilege to have met her this year when Teigh and Paige introduced us to each other.  Thank you Tracy again for welcoming Teigh into your family and your home so easily and a huge thank you for welcoming him into your kitchen and grocery budget as you know how much he loves to eat and he is always so excited to share a meal with your family.

Tracy loves chocolate so to celebrate her birthday I baked chocolate cupcakes with a chocolate icing laced with Beacon’s smooth and creamy Midnight Velvet Chocolate.  Tracy is a bright and colourful person so to top these velvety chocolate cupcakes I made lime green and pearl flowers.  Thanks to the latest cake decorating magazine – party cakes-  I found at CNA, I was inspired to try out a few different designs for Tracy’s cupcakes.  While being inspired by gorgeous designs I came up with 2 of my own, the large flower with the multi-pearl centre and the layered green and white flower.  These are really easy and quick to do.  For the large flower I cut out 2 of the same shaped flower and then cut away the centre of one of the flowers.  I layered the cut one over the first one and made a ball for the centre of the flower and filled the gaps with pearls.  For the layered flower I cut 3 flowers of the same shape layering them one on top of the other and cut a small daisy for the final layer.  What would I do without these gorgeous pearls to complete my designs?

Lime Green & Chocolate Cupcakes

Lime Green & Chocolate Cupcakes

Thank you Tracy for being a beautiful and colourful pearl in our lives and the lives of those around you and for being  the inspiration for these gorgeous cupcakes!

May the Wings of the Butterfly …….

Dec6
Butterfly Cake

Cascades of Butterflies

Everyone has something that they go dilly over and those who know me well know that yes I go dilly over anything to do with cupcakes but my real love is for butterflies.  I have now made countless butterfly cupcakes in every colour and on Sunday I was delighted to be able to make my first butterfly cake. This cake was ordered by Jean, a very excited granny, for her granddaughter’s birthday party.  Ashleigh was turning 6 and she wanted butterflies and flowers on her cake and cupcakes and they had to be pink and lavender.  I had a picture in my head of flowers and butterflies cascading gently over the top of the cake and down the side.  It was brilliant when I saw the cake translate from the image in my head to this really pretty pastel birthday cake.  I finished off the edge of the cake with pastel pink and lavender sugar paste balls, an idea that is seen in so many baking magazines now but one I hadn’t tried out before.  Hats off to the sugar art crafter who started this trend as it completes a cake beautifully and just gives the cake a more contemporary feel as opposed to the piped icing edging I had been using to complete my cakes.

Butterfly Cake

Butterfly Cake

I have started embossing the flowers and layering the colours as this adds texture and interest to the sugar art flowers.  It doesn’t get any easier than finishing off the centre of the flowers with a small ball of sugar paste in a contrasting colour or a few sugared pearls.  This is now of course a great excuse for me to collect bottles of these different coloured pearls – I have a weakness for collecting beautifully coloured articles from paper to flowers to butterflies and sugared pearls.  What a delight to have such amazing colour choices in our lives!

Butterfly Cake

Wings of the butterfly.....

“May the wings of the butterfly kiss the sun, And find your shoulder to light upon. To bring you luck, happiness and riches, Today, tomorrow and beyond.”  – Irish Blessing 

Dora The Explorer Cupcakes!

Dec4

I was asked to do cupcakes for a little girl’s birthday party this week.  An easy task, I thought, as I know all the little girl themes, Barbie, Hello Kitty etc but when the mom asked me to do Dora the Explorer for her little girl I said Dora the who……?  After recovering from the shock of having aged so much that I have lost track of all the new kids shows I had a look at pictures on google of this little Dora character.  I am pleased to say that I have obviously not aged too drastically as I found her to be quite a delightful and fun character and I will definitely be catching up on some of her shows once my baking for the silly season is over.  Dora herself was not easy to recreate in sugar paste at short notice but I noticed she had some friends who are stars so I decided to make these for the cupcakes.

Dora the Explorer Cupcakes

Dora the Explorer Cupcakes

I made different coloured stars with little eyes and drew a smile on each one with my edible pen.  I put the stars on the cupcakes with coloured sprinkles and glitter and then added a ‘snowglobe’ over each cupcake.  These were simple to do as I painted the inside of each dome with tylose and then sprinkled them with white hundreds and thousands.  They looked really cute and I hope I was able to do this delightful character justice with these cupcakes.  Right what number is Disney channel again…..?

Dora the Explorer Cupcakes

Dora the Explorer Cupcakes

Jazzy Cupcakes for Julia

Nov27
Blue, Lime green, Purple Flower Cupcakes

Blue, Lime green, Purple Flower Cupcakes

Julia had her 15th birthday party in a delightful Christmas garden setting on Friday night.  I made these cupcakes a little different and jazzy to suit her personality.  I cut out flowers using 3 different size cutters of the same shape flower.  I embossed all the flowers with a spiral embossing sheet just for some added funky texture and then placed a smaller flower onto a larger one completing them with a centre of pearl beads and a sparkle of glitter.

Blue, Lime green, Purple Flower Cupcakes

Blue, Lime green, Purple Flower Cupcakes

I iced the chocolate cupcakes with a lime green icing to match the green of some of the flowers and pearls and the vanilla I iced with a white vanilla icing so there was a contrast of colours in the cupcake display.  Congratulations Julia and thank you for trusting me to do these cupcakes for your party.

Teaching is an Art!

Nov24

As my daughter, Ceire, nears the end of her primary school years I was thinking of the best way to acknowledge the teachers who have been such a vital and integral part of her life for the last 7 years.  The word primary has so many different meanings but I have looked at it as usual in the context of colour.  An artist takes 3 primary colours and mixes them in different ways to create a palette of colours with which to create his masterpiece.  A primary school teacher takes 3 primary ingredients, their students, their knowledge and the school setting and combines these to create the unique child who is ready to say goodbye to their primary school years and move readily into their high school years.

At Trinityhouse School 7 years ago the teachers met a new colour called Ceire and managed to allow her colourful and vibrant, often mischievous personality to develop and flourish. She was a canvas that was not a quiet one, a canvas they probably tore their hair out over often and at the same time a canvas that brought a smile to their faces.  They all persevered and with their energy, dedication and enthusiasm in teaching Ceire and her class mates they have completed their works of art for 2011.  As these children move forward into the next episode of their lives they will take the artistic spirit inherited from their teachers and hopefully create gorgeous splashes of colour and creativity in their respective High Schools.  Thank you to all the Trinityhouse Primary School teachers, you know who you are who cared and made a difference in the lives of your students.  

Now you are saying that is great but where are the cupcakes?  Here are the thank you boxes of cupcakes I made for the teachers.  Half vanilla and half chocolate in case any of them are fussy, and decorated with Christmas coloured decorations!  

Christmas Cupcakes for Teachers

Christmas Cupcakes for Teachers

“What a teacher writes on the blackboard of life can never be erased”- Author Unknown.

Christmas Cupcakes for Teachers

Christmas Cupcakes for Teachers

Snowglobe Christmas Cupcakes

Nov23

The Cake Boss is nearly a household name after having been aired on South African Television for a while now and I am sure I am not the only baker to have been inspired by his creations and to have picked up  a few ideas from his programmes.  One episode in particular grabbed my attention when he was designing a cake with a polar bear theme. He used crushed mint humbugs in his icing to compliment the theme of the icy polar bear cake and I thought this was pure genius.  Of course then I hunted for mint humbugs which I found had become extinct here in SA.  The idea was filed to the back of my brain until recently when Woolworths brought out yes you guessed it, Mint Humbugs, in the most delightful Christmas packaging.

Snowglobe Cupcakes (Humbugs
Snowglobe Cupcakes (Humbugs

I thought that using the crushed humbugs in the icing would be a perfect idea for a snowglobe Christmas cupcake.  I wanted to make these cupcakes after being inspired by  a cupcake post on Bakerella.  Take time to click on this post as these cupcakes are the essence of Christmas Delight!  Immediately after reading the post I searched our supermarket shelves for a plastic bottle with a similar shape to the Coca Cola one for the dome for these cupcakes.  I found 2 which I planned to cut to shape but they were quickly recycled once empty  – good to know my recycling drive is working so well in the house – but for once I wouldn’t have minded if the bottle had been around a bit longer!  Again it was by chance that I found the most delightful red polka dot cupcake cases with their own domed lid, (Kadees, Fourways).  Perfect for my snowglobe cupcakes.

I made vanilla cupcakes and iced them with my new found humbugs crushed into vanilla icing.  I did add a drop of peppermint essence for an extra kick.  I made a small teddy with a bow and placed him on the iced cupcake.  To complete the snowglobe look, I painted tylose onto the inside of the dome and then sprinkled white sprinkles into the dome.  They stuck quite easily and the loose ones dropped out onto the cupcake as I placed the dome over the teddy and cupcake. (You could also use glitter on the inside of the dome for a non Christmas theme).  These cupcakes are quite small as I haven’t found the dome in a bigger size yet but they look really cute.

Snowglobe Cupcake - Red Teddy

Snowglobe Cupcake - Red Teddy

I tried the snowglobe cupcakes out using a pink and white striped cupcake holder and pink and white teddies too!

Snowglobe Pink Teddies Cupcakes

Snowglobe Pink Teddies Cupcakes