Birthday cakes and no candles please...and not pink!

Sometimes a birthday can sneak up on you, and I sort of feel that way about my last one. Life is so hectic these days that when Christmas came around I couldn't wait to just lie down and stop for a minute.

But then I remembed, I have two little ones who wanted to celebrate my birthday, and no birthday is complete without cake (that is one lesson my girls already know)! So when I asked my girls what sort of cake to make they screamed 'chocolate!!!!' Of course it's chocolate I thought and my dreams of a strawberry cake went out the window.

Now I have 2 go-to chocolate cakes that I love but I thought since I am on holidays I would take some time to try one of the other books in my library. Miette. I have wanted to bake something from this book since I got it. I love Miette. Now you probably think that is crazy coming from an aussie, but I did go to the store many years ago in the Ferry building in San Fran. My eyes lit up when I saw the store, the pretty delicacies, the chocolate, oh the chocolate (okay watching the weight does not factor in here).

Well don' recall seeing the tomboy cake when I was there but It has been high on my list of 'want to make'. It's the one on the front cover. Unfortunately, it had pink icing....so I thought I would make it a mint green or sky blue, but, noooooo said my two little people. We want pink! So pink it was too!

The chocolate cake behind this is amazing. I could eat it on it's own. Everyone loved trying the little cupcakes I made with the extra batter. The cake is rich, moist and just smells heavenly. I almost considered putting a simple fudge on top but decided to make the meringue buttercream listed in the recipe.

I have to say I am not a fan of meringue buttercreams. I know...blasphemy! I just find them too butter rich. So whilst this cake combination didn't rank that highly for me, I am sure it did and would for many others. And I would still devour this chocolate cake anytime.

So, do you like meringue buttercreams reader?

So, I wanted to tell you about my pinterest account too. I place all my photos on my pinterest account and also some other things I am interested in. You might also notice I finally put my pinterest button on the blog, so you can pin stuff too.

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Pudgy Princesses

Pudgy Princesses

It's funny how birthdays of your own children always come around so quick and take you by surprise. It doesn't matter that I had been thinking and prepping this birthday for a month or two before, it still crept up on me.

Now fortunately/unfortunately...depending on how you want to look at it, I have two birthdays to celebrate - 3 days apart..yes that is right, you heard me. And yes how lucky are we...both girls. Because the birthdays are so close together we decided to celebrate them with one party. But there was also the 'school' cakes too. 

But lets get to the party cake first. 

We decided to use a party venue this year and I am so glad we did! We chose Carnival Parties at Bulimba. What a fantastic place it is. I cannot recommend it enough. The children were entertained from the moment we stepped in and the place was decorated so beautifully. And the best thing of all..I got to relax and concentrate on the parts I love to do for parties, the cake and the goody bags (although they can help you out in that area too).

 

For the party we went with a pink/purple theme which is of course very 'girly'. I think our girls liked it as much as we did.

 

So for the cake we went with a castle theme which I also used on the invitations with two little girls, one in purple and one in pink, so I carried that theme through on the cake as well. 

The cake was a chocolate cake with a beautiful raspberry buttercream. I used real raspberries to make the puree for the buttercream and I love the tartness that comes through as it helps balance the sweetness of the buttercream.

The cake also had a banana cake tier with maple buttercream..yumm! The top tier of the cake and the towers and turrets are fake...I thought we had too much cake already.

 

I took the idea for this cake from a Debbie Brown book called Baby Cakes. I love this book, the designs are beautiful and I wanted to make the castle cake the first moment I saw it.

I was working in the lab late one night..

When my eyes beheld an eerie sight....actually it was more likely that I was shopping when I beheld the eerie sight, but it sounds better this way. What am I talking about....Halloween cookie cutters.

So as my husband is starting to work out, I have a thing for cookie cutters. It has not reached epic proportions yet, but I could get there given time. I love them. And there are some great ones out there - like this one below. I loved it. It is a Fred brand one and my eldest and I had some fun playing around with it.

 

As Halloween fast approaches there are blogs and websites that are overloaded with festive cookie designs. I love them. I was never into halloween to tell the truth but this year I am. And we are planning to dress up too. If I can find a funky hat before then.

This is a shortbread vanilla cookie with white royal icing.

Wedding cake - traditions and elegance

Okay, so I have been busy making a friends wedding cake and cookies...ohh now you know. That is where I have been lurking..but I am not ready to show you that yet. In the midst of all the decorating I have been doing I was thinking about my own wedding and the cake we had. No, I didn't make my own and I think any bride who does is very brave and very organised. We had lots of family travel to us for our wedding so even if I could have, I don't think I would have had the sanity to do it. So getting back to it. Our cake...was very small - only two tiers and was made by the wonderfully talented JudyC in Brisbane. It was a fruit cake (see I told you there was tradition) and there was some orchids to match my bouquet (elegant).

And we loved it. I told my hubby I wanted a big party all over again (one day) for our wedding, so that we could celebrate all over again - and this time I might make the cake ;)  So, did you love your wedding cake? Would you celebrate the same way all over again?