Every year we host a dinner to help raise money for the Ronald McDonald House Charity, which runs a house that allows families with sick kids to have a holiday in Rotorua….A fabulous Charity that alot of restaurants get involved with we provide a 3 course dinner for 8 people & all proceeds go to the Charity…Our Meals are rather large @Ciccio so I always make them a cake to take home with them as they cannot fit in Dessert…

This year I recreated the Ronald McDonald House logo…all edible the cakes were 3”x 3” & 5” high…and the hardest shape I have ever had to cover in fondant…I made 12 cakes as the couple who own the McDonalds in Rotorua are so lovely so I make cake for them & their 2 sons also…The Table we were randomly chosen for ended up being McDonald franchise owners from around the country & they loved their cakes

Made for a Truck Driver’s Birthday, he is passionate about Kenworth trucks, cake is dusted with silver & the red has been dusted with Firecracker, board is covered to look like tarseal

Chocolate Devils food cake with Dark Chocolate Ganache

Birthday Cake for a beautiful little girl named Sarah-Rose
9” Red Velvet with Cream Cheese IMBC
Blocks were from an Elaine Thomas tutorial on YouTube & the 1 was from a Royal Bakery Tutorial

This cake was a monster stood 60cm (24”) high and consisted of 17.5KG Butterscotch Baileys Mud Cake, 8.5KG of Dark Chocolate & Whiskey Ganache, 5.5KG of Fondant & .5KG of Modelling Chocolate, as shown my new cake stand is a table LOL
This cake was for a friend’s son for his 21st Birthday….and he loves Jim Beam, all hand painted & the Jim Beam logo on the side I cut out of cardboard then used the cardboard to press into the fondant so it would make a deep impression to then paint, the wood grain is hand carved using a dresden tool, The wax seal on the top is all modelling chocolate as is the banner on the bottom

Made for a friend Daughter turning 13 who loves the movie Legends of the Guardians, so I made this American barn owl sitting on a tree stump the owl in made from rkt covered in sugarpaste & hand painted I hade a photo of Calli form Callicious Cakes owl cookie in front of me to try & learn how to paint feather….lol….not even close to Calli’s perfection but it helped alot, the tree stump is a double barrel 12”-10”...oh and I got to finally use my Pear bark impression mat from “Decorate the Cake”...Love the effect of real bark it gave

I was awoken from my Nana nap on Tueday by the phone ringing it was Sarah from The Cake Tin…trying to help Rachael from Operation Suagar (NZ version of Icing Smiles) find someone to make an urgent cake for Saturday the original baker had to pull out as had a death in her family so Op sugar was trying to find a replacement to make a birthday cake for a 3 year old little girl with Cancer
So Challenge accepted I started baking flat out Tuesday night, 9”, 6” & 4” Mud Cakes….. thank goodness for Royal bakeries tutorial on Castles I based this cake on her design but also tried to make it unique (but I totally recommend buying that tutorial it’s awesome) needed a little something else so enter stage left Krazy Cools My little pony tutorial mixed with ChokoLates My little pony tutorail with a dash of my own style to create a unicorn to go with the castle made out of modelling chocolate

Alot of late nights and thank goodness I found my oven has a defost function which by the way all check your ovens incase you have this function as it mimics a dehydrator fan goes and temp between 35-50C AWESOME for drying gumpaste fast especially when we have had so much humidity here

Tip Alert
This cake I flavoured the fondant using Lor-Ann flavour Oils – Bubblegum flavour tasted & smelled amazing…this is not my tip I’m only on sharing it originally comes from Nina of Make Pretty Cakes …she’s the genius behind that one

Butterscotch & Baileys Mud cake handbag all edible covered in black fondant & using my latest impression mat, with matching Stilletto (non edible bling)

Giant Hot Dog on a Stick (Kiwi Favourite) board was about 65” long so Hot would have been about 60” or 1.5m long, made for a friend who has hot dog truck, who also used to be a real estate agent in Wellington hence the board covering being the property section of the Dominion post covered using Mayen method of covering boards such a neat trick
My husband is the hand model showing size comparison between cake & a little hot dog

Made for a friend’s Under the Sea themed Baby shower “It’s a Turtle” comes from the fact at her first scan her baby looked like a turtle so was thus nicknamed by all Turtle since

I used Laura from Krazy Kool Cakes Design tutorial for the turtle hers was in polymer clay, but I made it in modelling chocolate & altered it slightly but link to her tutorial can be found here(it’s awesome) https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.436262786433260.101526.174592105933664&type=3

cake is covered with a 1:3 ratio of fondant & modelling chocolate as I was playing to see what it came out like on a cake is amazing to use & much better in humid conditions…also tastes much better, i wish I had textured it more but cake was done in a hurry at midnight so my eyes were a bit tired after a 17 hour day & didn’t think straight

Driftwood, seahorse, coral, flowers, starfish(blue & green for a boy) & shells are all sugarpaste & brown sugar added for sand effect

Made for a friends 3 year old boy who loves Spiderman cake is an airbrushed 8” Sticky Date Cake with Butterscotch Italian Meringue Buttercream, City skyline is black modelling chocolate, on sides are matching cupcakes that have painted webs

Tutorial for the Mask* *
http://cakesdecor.com/Ciccio/blog/618

Made for a family friends Wedding Vintage theme colour is actually Ivory/oyseter but it was hard to take the photos with the sun rising behind the cake

Flowers are suager paste using my large romantic rose tutorial with small sugarpaste pulled blossoms

Bottom Tier 12” : Butterscotch Bailey Mud with dark Chocolate Ganache
Middle Tier 9” : Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Italian Meringue buttercream
Top Tier 6” : Cappuccino Mud with dark chocolate Ganache

TOP TIP
When using the lace presses if you don’t want to use gumpaste 50/50 fondant mix to make lace as this goes hard & horrible…I use a 50/50 blend of fondant & modelling Chocolate makes the fondant really easy to work with put in freezer for 2 mins then you can easily pick up these 10” long sheets of thin lace very easily, once set on your cake stays a nice consistency when cutting the cake too

Chris organised this wedding cake totally himself as a surprise to his Fiancee
we used the design of his tattoo the meaning of the tattoo is himself & his fiancee as the top piece & their beautiful daughter as the bottom piece…a beautiful Maori Tattoo which such lovely sentiment, the fern wrap around the cake like a Koru which symbolizes new life, growth, strength and peace
Cake was to be finished with White Gerberas on top
Heavily inspired by “The Cake Tin’s amazing Maori tattoo cake”

Made for a Deer farmer who gets stamps made with their deer on them, the doe is made from Modelling Chocolate the painted & dusted, the stamp is heavily inspired by Royal Bakery’s aeroplane stamp but made to match the NZ post stamp as shown(Cloud made using tutorial bought from Royal Bakery), a huge thanks to Sarah from “The Cake Tin” who lent me her cutter to make the grass , great to have such an awesome cake buddy in the same town <3

Cake Flavour: Devils food Chocolate with Dark chocolate ganache

with Modelling Chocolate Cookie Monster tutorial : http://cakesdecor.com/Ciccio/blog/591
Modelling Chocolate C
I love watermelon green & pink together one of my favourite colour combos so I made this for a friend of mine, flavour is double chocolate devils food cake with dark chocolate ganache

The figurine is made pretty much the same in my elmo cake just alter the colour & a few details to change to elmo

another short notice cake so I made Elmo using modelling chocolate, holding a cupcake, all edible,
only a 6” Butterscotch mudd cake so a little cake for a change as most of mine get rather large

another cake made at short notice as the client hasd been let down by another baker so only 5 days notice, little girl loves barbie so wanted a blond Barbie princess, doll is made from sugarpaste

TIP ALERT* the under skirt I found a great trick my sugarveil mat also doubles as a texture mat (I only just figured this one out so thought I would share) so underskirt is just pale pink fondant rolled out on the rose mantilla mat & dusted with silk white

My latest favourite colour Wedgewood Blue teamed with edible lace , frame & rose, a big thanks to Sarah from “The Cake Tin” who’s idea I stole ;-) to hide the seams in the edible lace with pearls pure genius

My husband asked me the other day if I could make his sister a birthday cake, what he failed to tell me is that I had 24 hours to do it in, so armed with the inspiration of “Cakes by Raewyn”s 24 hour Shoe Cake, I thought I will give it a go
So I had to bake the cake & get the flower drying that night, neede something quick so came up with this flower inspired by my friend sarah from “The Cake Tin”s latest gorgeous fushia Rose cake, LOVE that colour so came up with this flower, also stolen was the bling center idea…thanks Lisa from LM Cake Design (Lisa Templeton From Denheath) as it needed to dry quickly
Next morning was a quick Ganache & cover with a taupe coloured fondant, brushed with silver & border to match flower stuck on & a car trip of an hour….phew I made it…...and my Sister-in Law loved it

Flower Tutorial : http://cakesdecor.com/Ciccio/blog/568

The Wedding couple have the Initials M&M so Mark & Milly decided to have an M&M wedding, we decided to not only have the bride & groom toppers but each of the bridal party as well with each of their professions all M&M characters are made out of modelling chocolate, everything is edible except bride’s veil & fishing line
1tier down :
Yellow M He works for Lockwood in construction so has a 4×2 plank of wood with Lockwoods logo
Red M she is a nurse
2 tiers down:
Yellow M is a fisherman so has old school rishing pole with fish
Red M is a Qantas airline hostess so is holding a miniature Qantas aeroplane
Bottom tier:
Orange M is a schoolgirl but is into fashion that’s why she has red shoes & matching Chanel Handbag
Brown M is an accountant, so he is hold an old school calculator

Flavours
Top Tier: Jaffa Mud with Jaffa ganache
Middle Tier: Double chocolate Mud with dark chocolate ganache
Bottom Tier: Butterscotch Baileys Mud with dark chocolate ganache

And the first time I have ever received a text from the wedding reception from the groom telling me that he & his new bride love their cake…was so sweet of them

Size 7 Stiletto
9” Double Chocolate Devils food cake with rich dark chocolate ganache everything is edible except the 2 bling buckles on the shoes