Incidental cakes... October 2011

Two lemon and poppy seed loaves and some vanilla cupcakes topped with figs!

Cupcake party...

I did a cupcake class for a Girl Guide unit a while ago - I took the cupcakes and all of the icing and the decorations and helped the girls to decorate some cupcakes that they then got to take home.  This had gone down very well and it just so happened that the daughter of one of my friends was part of this group.  So, when my the birthday of my friends daughter was approaching she had said to my friend 'maybe you could make some cakes just like Mrs Cupcake and we could do that for the activity at my party!' - my friend was not so keen! and so asked me if I would do it - I said I would be delighted and it would save me having to think about what to do for a gift!
So - I was prepared for a session at their house with a group of 13 year old girls, plus the siblings of the birthday girl - I went armed with cakes and icing and things to sprinkle and decorate with.  I decorated a couple to show the sort of thing that could be done, but everyone had a very creative time and made some fabulous cakes!

Girly first birthday cake!

This is the cake that I made for the first birthday of little cupcake!  I would like to state now that it is an homage to the very similar one produced by the very very talented lady at Small Things Iced, but in no way reflects the skill and creativity that went into her original! but I wanted to try it...
I made the chocolate cake to our favourite family recipe and then filled and crumb iced the cake with chocolate butter icing.

Then I covered the cake in pink fondant icing and started adding the details...

I was very pleased with the result!

Goodie trees!

This is entirely someone else's idea and someone else's work! I spotted it at a community fete and it was being used as a fundraiser for the local women's refuge and I thought it was fab...
It consisted of a ball of oasis (dry foamy stuff that you arrange flowers in) on the end of a pole secured in a plant pot - you then poke lollipop sticks into some form of treat (marshmallows and strawberries in the case of these) and poke them into the foam.  These were then wrapped in clingfilm and ribboned up and I think they look fab!

Stocking up for winter and a little baking...

I'm still catching up with the blog from things I did last year - I guess this is the perils of having little cupcakes of my own and working... So, this was me making the most of the bountiful fruits of autumn and laying a little in store for gifting and enjoying over the festive season.
We had some lovely apples from next door and some tomatoes from our garden...

We also made the most of what was in natural abundance and collected blackberries, sloes and elderberries - most of which were added to gin to make a range of liqueurs to give as gifts for Christmas, although I did make some into some very lovely elderberry and clove jelly to go with cooked meats.  The lemons weren't local or season, but I LOVE preserved lemons and often make them to keep in to add to things!

The bread was our usual running as we endeavour to make all of the bread that we eat, and the cakes were part of the basis of the birthday cake for my daughter which is coming up in another post!

Indian Summer - part two

So... I offered to make wedding cupcakes as a present for my friend having the utterly fabulous anglo-indian wedding.  After much consultation we decided to go with 5 flavours with some influences from the wedding.

The flavours were: Rose (bright pink to go with the flowers), Lime (bright green to go with the flowers), Vanilla, Masala Chai (Indian), and Chocolate (everyone's favourite!!).

Bagged up and ready to go!

      

 

 

On the tables with me re-arranging a couple to get the balance of colours right!