My Little Pony Castle Cake

The Muffin has turned three!

And, as she is currently completely obsessed with ponies in general, and My Little Pony in particular, this year we had a Pony party, which of course meant a My Little Pony cake.

Other things were also made for this party - there were decorated cookies (ponies, of course), sparkly unicorn horns, Twinklewish Jellies (jelly jigglers set in heart shaped moulds, with pink edible glitter sprinkled on afterward), etc. I actually didn't get photos of everything, but my mum did, so I'll put some up when I get them (and if they turn out well).
But, as usual, the cake was the big deal, and that I do have photos of.

Now, I will just say that I've done something here that I don't normally do. Some time ago, I received the Wilton Romantic Castle kit as a gift, and have been itching for a chance to use it. A Pony party was the perfect excuse! The thing is, this kit involves applying icing to plastic, and I also decided early on in the design stage that my daughter would rather have plastic ponies she could keep and play with, rather than icing ones that would be eaten or thrown out. So for the first time ever on this blog, what you are seeing here is a cake that contains significant non-edible components. Even so, I am still pretty proud of this cake, and after all not everything is plastic. Apart from the towers, door, windows and ponies, everything is edible (my daughter was very pleased with the teapot, which she devoured complete with cups. And table).

One interesting thing about this cake: it is my first ever attempt at ganaching a cake (using the Planet Cake method). In the past I've always worked with buttercream, but I wanted as much stability as possible with the castle kit, so that the towers didn't just fall over. And when it's summer in Western Australia, buttercream doesn't stay terribly solid for long. The night I ganached the cakes it was 30 degrees Celsius at 9pm (yes, in our airconditioned house - we have evaporative), so even the ganache was fairly soft. Luckily the weather was a bit more reasonable the following day, so I was able to ice over the ganache with no problems.

Anyway, I've been wanting to try this method out for a while now (ever since my darling husband bought me the Planet Cake book - big kisses for him!). And wow. Don't get me wrong - I still love my buttercream, and I'll still be using it. But not under sugarpaste. Ever again. The ganache was actually easier to work with (which I was not expecting), and did indeed enable me to get slightly sharper corners than usual. I didn't make a huge effort with the edges on the bottom tier, as I wanted that to look a bit softer, as the green is obviously supposed to represent a grassy hill. But I was quite pleased with the edges on my round cake. I mean okay, they're not super-sharp, but it was my first attempt, and it was fairly warm.

So the cake itself? The bottom tier was lemon madeira cake, layered with lemon curd and white chocolate ganache, iced with the same ganache and then covered with green sugarpaste (or rolled fondant). The castle was dark chocolate mud cake, iced with the white chocolate ganache, and covered with white sugarpaste. The path is made of "Fizzers" lollies. The icing on the turrets and around the windows was royal icing coated with coloured sanding sugar, the leaves/plants were piped in royal icing, and all the other edibles (balloons, flowers, presents, ponies' hats, etc) were modelled in sugarpaste.

As for attaching the towers, I took the excellent advice of someone on a forum somewhere, and used a hot glue gun to attach a flower nail to the bottom of each tower. The kit suggests "gluing" plastic dowels onto them with chocolate, but I just felt that was not going to work here in February... Anyway, the flower nails worked a treat, and I actually found this whole kit very easy to use. Also fun. And it was worth the time it took to see the big eyes and delighted smile on my little girl's face.

Three Months of Cake

Wow, I am really bad at this blogging thing...

Yes, it's been almost three months since last I posted, and I guess you're wondering "gee, did the wedding cake turn out THAT bad?!" Well no, it didn't - actually the bride was very happy, so I have not had to go into witness protection or anything of that nature. I've just been lazy. The trouble is, I promised you photos, and like an idiot I forgot to take my camera when I went to set the cake up. Luckily however, I did have my phone, so whilst these may not be the best quality photos ever, at least they're here.

The top cake and most of the individual cakelets were dark chocolate mudcake, the rest of the cakelets were white mudcake. There was also a white mudcake sheet cake, which was cut in the kitchen for the wedding guests to enjoy with their coffee.

Each cake and cakelet was crumb-coated with vanilla buttercream and then covered with white sugarpaste (rolled fondant). The bow and monograms were also made from sugarpaste, dusted with silver lustre.

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So that was my second ever wedding cake - it was a lot of work, but in the end I was happy with it, and more importantly, so were the bride and groom!

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On to Hallowe'en!

As you may recall, our next-door neighbour and I had decided to co-host a Hallowe'en party, and we had lots of fun making all sorts of delicious spooky treats for it! Here are a few samples:-

Cupcakes with fabulous spiderweb wrappers... shortbread fingers... cream cheese mummy...

spidery jellies... and our piece de resistance - the pannacotta brain with gory cranberry glaze! It might have looked kinda revolting, but damn, it was yummy!

A good time was had by all the witches and ghouls in attendance - including the two-year-old Muffin in her pink fairy costume, who was a bit freaked out by the other costumes until she realised how many lollies were in the house. Then she decided she liked Hallowe'en. A lot.

I know, I know...

...I haven't posted for ages. Again. But the truth is, I just haven't really baked anything much recently. Nothing new, anyway.

But fear not, because you will be hearing significantly more from me over the next few weeks. Yes, that's right, Wedding Cake Number Two looms in my immediate future!! And it's a doozy... In the interest of secrecy on behalf of the bride, I won't post any details until after the wedding, but there's not long to wait...

Then, following close upon the heels of the wedding, Hallowe'en is almost upon us - huzzah! I know most Australians (particularly Generation X and older) tend to feel that Hallowe'en is terribly commercial and American, and Not Relevant To Our Lifestyle. However, to them I say COOKIES AND CUPCAKES AND EXCUSES TO DRESS UP!!!! And have parties. Which we are. Or at any rate, our next-door-neighbours and dear friends are, and I'm kind of co-hosting. Which essentially means poking my nose into the decorating, baking spooky treats, and generally having a lovely time. Yay! Some of the things we're planning should look awesome, so I'll be sure to post lots of pics. I'm very excited today as I have bitten the bullet and bought some of those gorgeous spiderweb cupcake wrappers by Paper Orchid which I have been eyeing off for months...

Bring on the bright orange buttercream! (Oh yeah - but not until after the wedding....)

Aarrr!

Ahoy there me hearties! Aye, I know, I be a couple o' days late wi' me Talk Like A Pirate Day post, but it's only because I were too busy talkin' - and bakin' - like a buccaneer on the day itself!

We aboard The Pale Horse partied like pirates on t'evenin' o' the 19th - there was grub, wenches, rum and o' course plenty o' buried treasure! In honour o' the occasion, me little deckie an' I rustled up some pirattical treats...

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There were little sandy island cupcakes, each with a teeny starfish, and either an X to mark the spot, or a Jolly Roger (made from sugarpaste). The cakes were chocolate, with rum-flavoured buttercream.

And o' course no pirate party would be complete aboard this ship without me decorated cookies!

The scurvy dogs looted an' pillaged 'em all quicker'n a pirate schooner after a well-laden Spanish galleon...and we can't wait until next year! : )

RSPCA Cupcake Day

Last Monday was RSPCA Cupcake Day - an annual fundraiser in which everyone in Australia is encouraged to bake cupcakes and sell them to friends, colleagues, etc, with all proceeds going to help our furry and feathered friends. Naturally since there was cake involved, I had to be too.

Having done dog and cat faces last year, I fancied a farm animal theme this year, and in the end I decided on sheep and ducks. There was, in the end, some contention about whether my sheep looked like sheep or poodles, but I figured either way they were still animals.

I handmade my little duckies out of sugarpaste, and they sat happily on top of a swirl of blue buttercream, one for each cupcake.

For the sheep, I wanted the actual cupcake to be the sheep. So....

How to Build A Sheep (or possibly Poodle):












Make yummy cupcakes......... Pipe buttercream all over them using a star nozzle.....











Add marshmallows for the head and ears.... Pipe extra buttercream on top of the head....


And finally add eyes and nose with black icing - voila! A cute little sheep (or, indeed, poodle). (And his army of clone sheepoodles who do not as yet have faces...)

Anyway, I took my little menagerie to the Muffin's playgroup, and sold almost three dozen of them, raising over $90 for the RSPCA. :o)

My little apprentice

Okay, so a completely self-indulgent-mummy post this week, just to show that this baking thing really is contagious - my little girl and I have been baking cookies!

The Muffin has loved helping Mummy cook for ages, but this is the first time she's had a controlling hand in the decorating side of things... Obviously the cookies were, shall we say, rather abstract in their design (some of the teddybear ones were declared "finished" with nothing more than a tiny belly-button), and the sprinkles went absolutely everywhere, but we had lots of fun.

The Muffin was so proud of herself - she was allowed to use Mummy's piping bag. I thought I'd help her hold it, but: "No Mummy, I want to do it my own." Very cute. But when asked what the best part of making the cookies was, there was no doubt at all in her mind - it was the sprinkles!

To boldly go...

...where yes, okay, lots and lots of cake decorators have gone before. But it's all good fun nevertheless.

Some weeks ago, I said to my husband, "So what would you like for your birthday cake, honey? Keeping in mind I'm going to have just finished a wedding cake, and I am so not going to be in the mood to do anything too full-on?" He said, "How about the Starship Enterprise?" I think he was joking. At any rate, my answer was "ha ha". But it got me thinking... Then my husband (who, by the way, thinks he is not a geek) announced that it had to be the original model, not the 1701-E or anything (because they are just soooo last week...) I started to wonder if it was possible to do sort of a half-hearted attempt without it just looking rubbish.

Then he said "Hey, what about a croquembouche?" I gave him the evil eye, and a choice: he could have a "normal" cake and churros at his party, or he could have a croquembouche. And no churros. He chose Option A. And "normal" for me meant, you guessed it, the USS Enterprise.

Anyway, here's the result - judge for yourselves! I'm sure that if I had devoted weeks of painstaking sculpting to this project, I could have made something a little more true to the original, but that just wasn't going to happen this time I'm afraid. So one evening and one Saturday morning later, this baby was ready to be beamed up. And everyone knew what it was. And my husband got to have his cake, and eat churros too - smiles all round.

(by the way, sorry for the dodgy pics - I forgot to take a photo of the finished cake before the party. You can't really see it at all in the photos, but the bridge section (ie the big round bit) was actually elevated a bit, to a) create a "floating" or "flying" effect, and b) because it's supposed to be higher up than the bottom section of the ship. The board was covered in black sugarpaste, dusted with silver lustre dust to look like distant stars.)