Cupcakes for KMad – Decade Show

Red, Yellow, Orange & Black Cupcakes

Red, Yellow, Orange & Black Cupcakes

It was a real honour when Kelsey asked me to do the cupcakes for the Saturday evening of her KMad – Decade show.  It has been so exciting to follow the shows that Kelsey has produced in the last few years and I have spent many an evening marvelling at the talent of her young dancers who energetically and beautifully bring to life her awesome and powerful choreography.  When you watch any one of her dances you are no longer a member of the audience but you are drawn into the passion and story-telling of each dance as the dancers enthrall and the music captivates you.

How then do you do justice to Kelsey and the KMad dancers?  The Cake Boss did a cake for a dance production in America a while ago and I was intrigued how he took pictures of the dancers and placed them around the cake.  He then added two dancing figurines on the top tier and he made the sugar paste material of their costumes drape seductively down the remaining tiers.  I don’t think all of this would have managed to translate onto a cupcake so I chose firstly a brightly coloured theme of red, orange, yellow and black as Kelsey has to be one of the most colourful and interesting people I have met.  I decorated some of the chocolate cupcakes with creamy white chocolate icing and then added orange and black music notes and colourful flowers to these cupcakes.  The music notes symbolise the interesting pieces of music that Kelsey uses in her choreography.  The Decade Show reminded us of the brilliance of our local South African artists.

Red, orange, yellow & black flower cupcakes

10 years of passion and extremely hard work on her part meant I could add this to Kelsey’s cupcakes and most importantly without the beautiful and agile dancers and their musical feet there would not be such phenomenal entertainment for the dance audience, so I added embossed feet and bright flowers to the dark chocolate iced cupcakes.  I hope these cupcakes portrayed the excitement and joy that Kelsey and her dancers have given us all over the past 10 years and I hope that her talent and these dancers continue to enthrall many an audience.

KMad - Decade Cupcakes

Cream & Red Cupcakes

Cream & Red Cupcakes

Cream & Red Cupcakes

Alison spotted the cupcake order I had delivered for Glyn’s birthday at the Memory Shed last Saturday and she asked if I could do cupcakes for her group of scrapbooking ladies yesterday.  She requested cappuccino flavoured cupcakes and left the decorations up to me which I love as it gives me carte blanche to play with new colour combinations.  I decided on rich cream sugar paste roses, rolled roses, butterflies and of course tiny tags to go with the scrapbooking theme for the day.  I added the red miniature sugar paste blossoms to add a contrast to the butterflies and tags and dotted sugar beads on the rich creamy coffee icing.  The result was a gentle but elegantly appealing cupcake with an awesome coffee aroma. Thank you for this order Alison and I hope the ladies had fun scrapping and eating their cupcakes.

Star Wars & Naruto Cupcakes for Andrew

Star Wars Cupcakes

It has been a few years since I last watched my son and daughter race around the garden with their light-sabers and Star Wars look alike outfits as our garden became a far away galaxy and their moments as their heroes were magical and adventurous.  When the garden and costumes lost their allure they turned to the Star Wars movies and games and fought many a Star Wars battle with their friends.  When Shayna asked me to do Star Wars cupcakes for Andrew, I had to revisit those magical times and remember the names of all the characters.  I visited the etsy website and was intrigued and fascinated by the 6 Star Wars clay characters beautifully crafted by the artists at Papercrane Flint.  The delightful characters were the perfect inspiration I needed for these sugar paste characters of Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia and Yoda above and the 2 dark lords, Darth Maul and Darth Vader below.  Sugar paste light-sabers in different colours were perfect for the rest of the chocolate cupcakes.

Star Wars Cupcakes

Your faith in me to do these cupcakes for Andrew was great Shayna and I loved that you put so much thought into the detail of your order to make these a brilliant birthday gift for the special guy in your life.  The Naruto characters were more challenging so maybe I will have a bash at doing them next time but it was great fun doing these red velvet cupcakes with the ‘noodle’ icing and Naruto weapons.  I do hope that they were fairly accurate.  I am really chuffed that Andrew was pleased with this awesome gift from you – I bet he would never have guessed what you were going to get for him.  Happy birthday Andrew and have a fantastic celebration!

Naruto Weapons Cupcakes

Lime Green & Pink Birthday Cake

Lime Green & Pink Birthday Cake

I seldom bake cakes as cupcakes are my passion and I have so much fun doing them.  Each cupcake I know will be picked up, admired and then eaten with relish.  Cakes have to be overall pleasing to the eye and then they have to be shared piece by piece.  Julie asked me if I could make a cake to celebrate her mom’s birthday and I agreed as she is always an excited customer of mine and I have  a bit of a soft spot for moms in general.  Julie said her mom loves flowers and that pink and green would be perfect colours for her. I iced a vanilla cake with creamy butter and cream cheese icing and then topped the cake with a pretty variety of pink and lime green sugarpaste flowers, roses and butterflies.  I dotted the top of the cake with pink sugar pearls and placed a row of sugar pearls at the base of the cake before adding the soft green and white polka dot ribbon around the cake.  Of course the cake looked perfect photographed here on one of Russell’s wrought iron beaded stands and Julie was delighted with her mom’s cake and she said her mom loved it and  everybody raved about how beautiful the cake was. Thanks for another fun order Julie.

 Lime Green & Pink Birthday Cake

Cupcakes for Bikers

Teigh & Mike, April 2012

Teigh & Mike, April 2012

Mike flies back to Australia today and it has been brilliant to see Teigh and him so excited to see each other again after 7 months.  They were able to catch up as if they had never been apart, play the fool as they used to and of course go riding together again.  Once again I left my apron behind and took the boys off to Dirt Bronco with their KTMs and all their gear and they had an awesome time at the track.  Even standing in clouds of dust to take photos of them riding was great fun for me as it was a pleasure to watch these 2 friends having the time of their lives on their bikes.

Mike loves to eat with our family and again it was a pleasure to have him at our dinner table as his antics and stories are something we have really missed since he left for Australia.  We won’t forget your joy Mike at eating the creme-caramel and the crazy cake pop you popped on top of it and you now officially hold the record for the fastest cupcake eater I have ever seen – witnessed when you devoured these bike cupcakes I made for you and Teigh.  Have a safe trip home and see you on your next visit!

Bike Cupcakes

Bike Cupcakes

Pink & Black Birthday Cupcakes

Pink & Black Cupcakes

Lisa Nadene at the Memory Shed http://www.memoryshed.blogspot.com/ does not only have a brilliant Wednesday morning scrapbooking class – a rather noisy one of course because that is the morning I scrap with the Wednesday girls, but she also has very loyal group of scrapbookers on a Saturday morning.  Today they are celebrating Glyn’s birthday at the Memory Shed and Lisa asked me to do cupcakes for Glyn in pink and black.  I topped these delicious vanilla cupcakes with a decacent swirl of vanilla cream cheese icing and then pink and black sugar paste flowers and roses.  The edible glitter and black and pink sugar beads complete these pink and black gourmet cupcakes for a special scrapbooker in Lisa’s class.  I couldn’t resist these delightful dotty cupcake holders and they make a cute contrast in shape and colour to the cupcakes.  I photographed the cupcakes with a backdrop of 2 of many irresistable papers that Lisa has available in her shop.  Happy scrapping girls and enjoy your cupcakes Glyn, your birthday celebration can only but be perfect with fantastic friends and celebrated in such a gorgeous setting.