Walk on the Wild Side Cupcakes!

Aug29

Walk on the Wild Side Cupcakes

These 3 delightful characters and all their ‘Wild’ mates were hand crafted by Paige for this Walk on the Wild Side cupcake order.  Jenny had tasted the cupcakes I made for Tracy’s book club evening and she had seen Paige’s Naughty Monkeys on my blog and she wanted to have the same characters on the cupcakes for her daughter’s 21st birthday party.  I have to admit that I had a little giggle at her email request of monkeys, lions and zebras with a horse and a llama thrown in too as I thought where will I source these characters (especially a llama)?  Luckily Paige agreed to help me with the animals and these miniature sugar art marvels look so proud of themselves sitting on their cupcakes.

Walk on the Wild Side Cupcakes

I sourced the leopards, crocodiles and horses from Kadies in Fourways and I made a couple of giraffe heads popping out from their green embossed sugar paste leaves to complete the order and then photographed them on the beautiful wooden tray that Tanya gave me for my birthday.  Thanks again Paige for your care and attention to character in these gorgeous animals and thank you Jenny for such a fun and challenging order for your daughter’s special day.  I am so delighted that everyone enjoyed the cupcakes and had as much fun admiring these little creatures as I did.  Finally love the llama Paige!

Walk on the Wild Side Cupcakes

 

Shaunagh’s Birthday Cupcakes

Aug29

Orange & Yellow Flower Cupcakes

As I mentioned in my last post, Shaunagh and I shared a birthday 2 weeks ago, and our celebration at scrapbooking was a brilliant one with cake, presents, loads of laughter and of course a few cupcakes. Having recently fallen in love with a few new blogs including Sam Linsell’s blog http://drizzleanddip.com/ with her exciting recipes and mouthwateringly beautiful photography I decided to try out a new recipe for Shaunagh’s birthday cupcakes from Sam’s blog.  Her Best Ever Red Velvet Cupcakes looked really tempting  and true to her word these cupcakes not only looked red and chocolatey but also tasted delicious.  I added some pretty orange and yellow flowers with bright centres to some of the cupcakes and then combined the yellow and orange sugar paste to make some roses for the others. The result was cupcakes that are as bright and fun as Shaunagh herself is with a beautiful feminine finish.

Orange & Yellow Flower Cupcakes

Inspired by the beautiful flowers Shaunagh researches on the internet and then makes for gifts and for her beautiful layouts, these were my way of capturing her fun spirit.  Thanks again for sharing a wonderful birthday celebration and especially thanks for all the laughs every week!

My Giant Birthday Cupcake!

Aug27

Giant Birthday Cupcake

As we get older birthdays seem to approach more quickly each year and I know many people say that they would rather not make a fuss over their birthday and would rather try and keep a low  profile each year on the day that reminds them they have just turned another year older.  If you look at it logically you are really only a day older than the day before your birthday so it is not all that bad!  True to form another 2 birthdays, mine and Shaunagh’s held no hint of being low key as we arrived to scrapbook at The Memory Shed and each of our places held an assortment of beautifully wrapped presents and delicious food.  Lisa, our ever creative teacher, soon coaxed us into the delightful task of unwrapping our treasures so that we had space to actually scrapbook and both Shaunagh and I were incredibly spoiled by an amazing group of women whom we work and laugh with each week.  Thanks girls to you all for such beautiful and thoughtful gifts!  I had left home with many phone and facebook wishes from friends who said that hopefully someone else would bake for me on my special day and I am delighted to show you the  beautiful giant cupcake that Lisa Myburgh made for me and had ready with all my gifts as I arrived into her shop.

Ming Dynasty Cupcakes

Aug23

Ming Dynasty Cupcakes

Another unusual request from Gia resulted in these fluffy white iced cupcakes with their Ming vases.  I am not sure if anyone has had a request for a Ming Dynasty Cupcake before, but Gia had a Ming Dynasty function and asked me to do cupcakes with the same theme.  My research at first was way off track as I didn’t think that the pictures of the Ming vases that Gia sent me would be possible to make and I wanted to do ‘noodle’ cupcakes instead.  Left with no option but to try the vases I made 4 different shaped white sugar paste vases.  I used silicone stamps with small flower designs and painted the stamps with edible blue food colouring before stamping them onto the vases.  This was not as easy as stamping onto a flat smooth surface and I had to press the stamp to the shape of each vase and wait for that facet of the vase to dry before continuing around each vase.  The result was these fairly dainty Ming vases on each cupcake with their individual blue flower pattern.  To all the Ming Dynasty purists out their I apologize that the patterns do not follow the beautiful uniformity of the traditional Ming vases….but then the cupcakes were really tasty to make up for that!

Ming Dynasty Cupcakes

 

Light Blue & Lime Green Rose Cupcakes

Aug19

Light Blue & Lime Green Rose Cupcakes

 

 

Lisa (TQO) asked me to make cupcakes for a very special lady who was celebrating her birthday.  When asked to do cupcakes for someone I haven’t met before I have to draw inspiration from the person who places the order and so these cupcakes with their feminine pale blue combined with bright lime green roses came about.

Light Blue & Lime Green Rose Cupcakes

I used my easy-rose maker to make these roses and then iced the vanilla cupcakes with a creamy vanilla icing before setting a rose on some of the cupcakes and then completing them with the blue and green sugar pearls.  For the remaining cupcakes I made pale blue and lime green rolled roses and placed 3 in the centre of each cupcake, dotting them with sugar pearls to finish.  Happy birthday to a special lady and I am thrilled to hear that you had a wonderful birthday celebration.

Light Blue & Lime Green Rose Cupcakes

 

 

Olympic Cupcakes – 2012 Tribute

Aug13

Olympic Cupcakes

 

The world was introduced to London’s 2012 Olympic Games at an amazing opening ceremony in which performers and organisers welcomed athletes from all corners of the globe.  After the initial excitement of the lighting of the Olympic Flame, the athletes then treated us to 16 days of some of  the most outstanding and inspiring competition we have yet seen at an Olympic Games. I spent many hours watching perfectly trained athletes run, jump, ride, swim, dive and dance their way to the bronze, silver and gold medals and I was moved by their intense dedication to the individual sports they were competing in.

Olympic Cupcakes

A cupcake in itself cannot do justice to what was a spectacular Olympic Games but I was left with such a feeling of joy as the Olympics were rounded off with an energetic and musical closing ceremony last night that I felt I wanted to make these red, white and blue cupcakes as a personal sweet tribute to the 2012 London Olympics.  In keeping with the British colours I made Blueberry, Cranberry and White Chocolate Cupcakes iced with a yummy cream cheese icing and topped with red, white and blue sugar pearls.  For the medal cupcakes I simply baked them in silver and gold cupcake holders and decorated them with silver and gold sugar beads.

Olympic Cupcakes

London 2012 Olympic Games Cupcakes

A huge thank you to all the organisers, choreographers and performers in both the opening and closing ceremonies for all the fun, entertainment, emotion and drama you brought to these 2012 games – hats off to you all! Thank you London for inviting the world to your city and for making us welcome as we shared the spectacle of the Oympic Games with you.   And lastly training shoes off to all those brilliant athletes who inspired and enthralled us with their dedication, enthusiasm, power, agility and determination, you have shown us the beauty and greatness of the human spirit and the amazing potential that is in each one of us!