Hey! I never posted my finished Christmas cakes!!!

Wow, I'm scatty. I can't believe I never got around to posting my finished Christmas cakes... Sorry about that. Ok, well here they are!



This is my Christmas Penguins cake!
I used a mixture of white and blue Wilton Sparkle Gels to create the water effect in the swimming pool :)

Have a look at the rest of them after the jump!

Sprinkle Bakes by Heather Baird

My office very generously gave me this book as a going away pressie. It's beautiful! Sprinkle Bakes, by Heather Baird.

Getting there...

I'm slowly making some decent progress with the Christmas cake decorations. Last night I tackled "Santa's workshop" and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer-Dog. Ever had one idea in your head, but when you put it into practice it looked like something else? Well, that's kind of what happened with my Rudolph. Ag well, I guess he's Santa's best friend, so it's not sooooo bad if he looks like a reindeer-dog :P

I also (took the easy way out) made Santa, plonked in the snow. This cake I am naming "the after-party"

When the cakes are done I will post proper photos, but here's the progress for now :)

Santa's bag (still needs a bow and other bits, and a toy for the production line... little bit of a scary toy, but I figure it could be a new kind of anime nunu :P)

Presents and ribbon in Santa's workshop

Rudolph the red nosed reindeer-dog!

Santa with his feet in the air - I'll make him some shoes later. I love how fat his little legs came out

Christmas at the Korsman's...

... is coming along nicely!

I'm still in the process of making little icing decorations for the cakes that my mom is baking. Two nights ago I tackled little Christmas trees and snowmen, to go around a cake. I didn't have the energy to tackle any today, but from tomorrow I best get cracking or they're not going to dry in time!

More after the jump :)

My first attempt at a Christmas elf...

... I'd say was pretty successful :)

I shall call him Mr. Bobbles... Mr. Bobbles the Elf.

Mr Bobbles - Freshly made

 

Mr Bobbles has shrunk overnight, but still think he looks awesome :)

 

Mr Bobbles - the morning after :)

 

Cappuccino Muffin Cake Pops

Happy little balls of muffin mix sitting in their baking tray home

You have to love cake pops. They're a bizarre baking fad that has moms and bake-a-holics the world over going googly-eyed over little balls of cake.

Gone are the days of mixing cake with frosting to get a dough sticky enough to mould into balls... nope, these days we have cake pop makers. They come in all forms from stand-alone machines to cake pop baking trays. I was lucky enough to get a cake pop baking tray, as a birthday present, from my mom.

This weekend I gave the baking a whirl... The cake pops baked spectacularly well, the decorating needs MUCH work. That said, they were delicious, even if they didn't look beautiful. Wayne, mom and I had many happy mouthfuls of my cappuccino muffin mix cake pops.

The recipe couldn't be easier...

Crusty Onion and Cheese Muffins

Australian Women's Weekly - Muffins, Scones and Breads

I'm not the biggest fan of savoury muffins, however, my husband and mom are so this is what I made for lunch yesterday. These savoury muffins are delicious and dense and will easily feed six people for lunch. I suggest serving them with Simonsberg Spring Onion and Chives flavoured cream cheese.

Oh, yes... I couldn't get chives, which the recipe calls for at Pick n Pay yesterday, so I ended up using fresh coriander (dania to us South African's). I also used about three tablespoons of fresh dania instead of the one tablespoon of fresh chives.

Anyways, here's the recipe >>

Who knew???

There is a Disney Cake Blog! How awesome!
Check it out here :)

Granny's Perfect Popovers

My Gran used to make popovers for me after school as a treat. She'd fill them with apricot or strawberry jam, which to this day, is still my favourite way of eating them. You can also turn them into additions to High Tea by filling them with smoked salmon and cream cheese, with an assortment of micro-greens.

They're a take on the Yorkshire pudding, but without the oil. I don't know about you, but I've had a Yorkshire pudding disaster and as a result have shied away from them. This is the perfect alternative :)

Granny's Perfect Popovers

Recipe after the jump >>

Clover’s Flourless Chocolate Cake

I originally found this recipe on the http://www.clover.co.za/ website.
This beautiful, rich, mousse-like chocolate cake is one of my all time favourites to make. With only a handful of ingredients it’s an easy and relatively quick cake to make.

The thing about this cake is that during the cooking process it rises beautifully, then sinks to almost a quarter of the size, so if you’re looking to impress with a large cake for afternoon tea, best give this one a miss. However, it can’t be beaten when it comes to lightness and taste.

Recipe after the jump :)

Cupcakes!

Decorating cupcakes is somewhat time consuming, rather messy and copious amounts of fun. Wayne even got involved and made his own creation which I termed the "carnival cupcake". Much fun was had by all :)



The right cupcake is Wayne's carnival cupcake :)

 More photos after the jump:)

The Australian Women’s Weekly: Easy Cupcakes by Colour

This has got to be my favourite book this year. It’s not really an A to Z recipe book, but rather a book of inspiration. Each page is filled with beautiful and exceptionally clever ideas on decorating cupcakes. Of course, it does have the practical stuff in the back, like the recipes for various cakes and icings (or frosting as the American’s like to call it).

What really stood out for me was that they have moved, not entirely mind you, away from the traditional sugar-paste flowers as decorations; opting instead to use a variety of sweets, sugars and other paraphernalia to create patterns, flowers and assorted cupcake jewels.

If you are a lover of baking and cupcake decorating you absolutely must buy this inspirational book with its wonderful works of art on each page.

I’ve posted a couple of photos after the jump :)

My very first attempt at sugar paste flowers was NOT a disaster!

I'm really please with my first set (ever) of sugar paste flowers. Granted, they are all cut outs, but for the one, but that really doesn't bother me. I'm still very pleased with the result. I'm especially pleased with the way the pink has come out. I was worried that I was going to end up with horrid neon-pink flowers. The secret to getting just the right amount of colour into the sugar paste (or plastic icing) is by dipping a toothpick into the food colouring and then wiping that onto the piece of icing and then working it in until you get the right colour.

I did get a little fancy with the spices with one of the flowers. I'm hoping that when it's dry it will look beautiful. If not, oh well... back to the drawing board :P

My painted flower :)

Yes, I know, they're pretty much "template" flowers... but hey, I did mix and match the colours!

Books!

I love recipe books… Love them! My order from Kalahari.com arrived today and I can’t wait to get home and have a proper read through them.

The new additions (or editions rather) to my bookshelf are (all published by The Australian Women’s Weekly):

• Easy cupcakes by colour
• Christmas
• Kids’ birthday cakes
• Just for two

I’m going to tackle a couple of the easy cupcakes by colour recipes this weekend and will get back to you with a review at some point next week :)
Happy cooking all!

I love discovering new little shops and one very special little shop has popped up in the town that I live in. It’s called The Book Boutique, and is filled with wonderful little treasures from exquisite books to over-sized meringues. I picked up two books during my visit to the store on Saturday which consisted of The Australian Woman’s Weekly – the 12 days of Christmas recipe book and The Australian Woman’s Weekly – macaroons & biscuits recipe book. Both were R80 each, which by South African standards isn’t a bad price to pay for a decent recipe book.

Of the two my favourite is definitely the biscuit book; however that really is because I’m on a bit of a baking mission at the moment.

The Macaroons & Biscuits book is filled with wonderful recipes like honey jumbles, chocolate chunk and raspberry cookies, peanut praline cookies, melting moments and a wide variety of biscotti. However, the gems of the book are most definitely the macaroons which come in all sorts of flavours including (but not limited to) raspberry, honey almond, caramel pecan and orange almond.

I’m quite excited about my purchases and hopefully will be putting up a “They’re a Success” post in the very near future.

Happy baking all!

How to Make : Stuffed Savoury Pancakes

I don't know about you, but I love pancakes. They're one of those delicious things that just make you happy from the inside out. Savoury pancakes are just as fantastic as sweet ones and the recipe below is one of my favourite to make on a weekend for brunch or take as a snack at parties and get togethers with friends. My boyfriend creates a production line when filling the pancakes, instead of doing them individually. This is a great one for getting boyfriends, husbands and children involved.

Makes about 12, depending on size
Recipe after the jump :)

How To Make : Cake Pops

Cake Pops by Zolita

Baking and, well, food in general really, often goes through trends. We've seen black and white wedding cakes, decorative cake wrappers, iced biscuits and now cake pops.

At first glance these sweet little morsels look like they are just a disaster waiting to happen, but they're actually really simple to put together. I found a beautiful step-by-step recipe for making cake pops which I've posted below.

Zolita's Butter Icing Recipe

Butter icing is one of those things that can be truly wonderful, or truly awful, depending on how much effort you are willing to put into it. Here's Zolita's recipe for her beautifully creamy butter icing. Remember, it's called BUTTER icing, which means it must be made with butter, not margarine.

Zolita's Vanilla Cupcake Recipe

The secret to this recipe (or so I'm told) is BUTTER. Do not use margarine, not even the Stork margarine, you must use BUTTER.

Here's the recipe for this delicious vanilla cupcake :)

Cupcakes - Too cute to eat!

My first attempt at decorating cupcakes with something other than a smear of butter icing was, in my opinion, something of a success. The Bug (my mom) and I went to a cupcake decorating workshop in Everton, run by Zolita and her mother Zola. Zolita prepared the faces and flowers for us to use the night before, and taught us various techniques for piping butter icing. She also explained how best to make and use the butter icing for cupcake decorating. I will definitely go to another of her workshops again.

Here are the cupcakes that my mother and I made:

The Bug putting together her dog in the grass

Zolita's Studio

The Bug's decorated cupcakes