A pretty pink practice cake. I had been wanting to try the Maggie Austin ruffles, and I made some “water droplet” cookies a few weeks ago and liked the idea of trying a similar design all over a cake. Thanks for looking.

This is my son’s birthday cake and matching cookies. He loves all things “kings, princes, knights, castles, swords and dragons” so what else could I do?

Inside is rich dark chocolate cake – not too rich for a 5 year old apparently.

Here is a cake for Elspeth and Miles, sister and brother, whose birthdays are close together and who love Minnie and Mickey Mouse. I wanted the cake to represent the theme without being too OTT and suit a girl and a boy. It’s a bit of a departure for me being in bold colours, but I like the contrast and it looked really striking on my cakestand before it was collected.

Inside are three layers of vanilla buttermilk cake with whole raspberries, filled and covered in white chocolate ganache.

Thanks for looking!

A pretty garden cake for Scarlett for her 4th birthday. She has lots of pets and we wanted to incorporate them into the design, so there’s something to see all the way around the cake.

Inside was vanilla buttermilk cake with raspberries, and white chocolate ganache.

Hello – this was a short notice wedding cake with a request for lace and blue and yellow flowers. The bride was having white lilies and yellow and blue roses. I decided to go with roses and “forget-me-nots” and some lace stenciling. Initially the cake was going to be ivory, but after I’d made all the flowers, I just thought it would be one colour too many, and clash with the yellow.

Inside were two tiers of rich dark chocolate cake with chocolate ganache – my favourite!

Although I wouldn’t have chosen this colour scheme, I actually really like how it came out and it’s a good reason (and reminder) to push into areas I wouldn’t normally go.

Thanks for looking!

A first birthday cake for a little girl named Beatrix. This is a vanilla buttermilk cake with fresh raspberries and white chocolate ganache. Didn’t want to focus on one character, so included a few bits and pieces from various books, but mostly around Peter Rabbit and Benjamin Bunny and their exploits in Mr McGregor’s garden.

This was an “extra” cake to go with a first birthday cake for a little girl. It’s a simple rich dark chocolate cake with chocolate ganache. (No fondant = yay!) I had a stash of pretty pink and yellow sugar flowers and I smothered these all over it and was really pleased with the pretty effect.

First birthday cake and matching cookies for a little man who is turning 1. Based on the book “Dear Zoo”.
The animals are all the way around the cake, so I couldn’t decide which was is the front. I made a number “1” to be stuck in as well – but decided to let “Mum” choose which would be the front once she had the cake home, so it’s not on the pictures here.

Easter egg sugar cookies decorated in lace, gingham and flowers.

This wedding cake was inspired by the bride’s dress which was made from two different kinds of lace with some ruching and a sparkly brooch. I used a stencil to represent one of the laces, and piping for the other. Rich dark chocolate cake with lashings of chocolate ganache underneath. The weather has been terribly wet here in NSW so getting the ganache dry and covering the cake was a challenge, but it came off in the end. I just hope they liked it!

A few little sugar cookies for St Valentine’s Day on Thursday. I hope you all have a good one :-)

Cupcakes for a lady whose friend has her birthday on Australia Day, so the brief was for “pretty” and “red, white and blue”. So I’ve used flowers for stars on the flag, a pretty flip flop and a ruffle flower. Vanilla cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. (And there were some left over for my children to decorate and eat for afternoon tea).

This was a Christening cake for a friend, with a theme of white hydrangeas, pale pink and some touches of green. I loved making all of this and I was thrilled with how it turned out.

The cake was rich dark chocolate cake in the bottom tier and raspberry buttermilk cake with white chocolate ganache in the top.

The hydrangea cookies were the result of playing around, but look lovely all massed together. The hydrangea cupcakes were possibly my favourite part – apart from the sharp edges on the cake – I finally mastered how to do them!

I hope you like it!

A little cake I made for no reason other than having some of my daughter’s friends over for a playdate. I was craving cake-making and had been playing with sugar flowers over the Christmas holiday so here was an excuse to use some. It was a whisked sponge with whipped vanilla buttercream (originally a Donna Hay recipe that was adapted by Sweetapolita blog). My husband polished the left overs off the next evening!

This cake was for a surprise birthday party for a lady whose dad is turning 70. She wanted him to be pushing a lawnmower on top, with an English country garden setting. I loved making this although it was a lot of work and hairy at the end because of the humdity. More useful lessons learned…

Inside was orange cake with passionfruit buttercream. Perfect with a glass of dessert wine. I know – because I ate some of the scraps :-)

An engagement cake made as a surprise for Juliana and Nigel. Juliana’s mum asked for a girl, a sailor boy and a pink bicycle in a garden setting…. So that tested my construction skills, but was good fun to make. Inside was rich dark chocolate cake and chocolate ganache.

I had “fun” finishing the cake on the morning of collection because I left the cake in the fridge overnight and when I put the fondant on the cold cake it sweated… oops…. so it took me about 6 hours to complete when it should have been a case of covering, placing everything on it quickly and being done in an hour or so. Lesson learned :-)

Oh – the cake was green, but my pictures were rushed and are a bit washed out because the couple came to collect just as I was applying the ribbon to the board.

This is my first wedding cake, and it’s for a friend’s niece. Inside is pink and purple rainbow cake – it will make quite a statement when they cut it :-)

I’m a great admirer of Faye Cahill and I love how she makes different tiers that coordinate and I decided to go down that track. A while ago I saw a cake by Pastrychik with those ruffle roses, which I thought was completely amazing and I tried to make a dummy cake using those. The bride saw this and said she loved it, so we decided to use those. She wanted three tiers, so I thought I’d try out my stencil on a shimmering background for the top, and a plain middle tier with a little sparkling and shimmery border.

I had some help from my friend’s mum – the grandmother of the bride. We used her kitchen, and she spent about four hours cutting ribbons of fondant on the pasta machine for those ruffles. I’m so grateful she did, or it really would have taken until about midnight to get finished!

I have been wanting to make a birdcage cake for ages, and this one is a gift for my next door neighbour for her birthday party. I had some fun with this one – but not really in a good way.

I followed a method I had seen for wrapping a cake, and I put the fondant in the freezer for a few minutes to chill once I’d cut it to the correct size. That was a mistake. Then I touched it once it was on the cake – another mistake – it was so sticky. Had to leave it overnight and it was okay, but I had damaged it. So thank goodness for sugar flowers – they are hiding a multitude of cracks and smudges!

Used the tagliatelle setting on the pasta machine for the bird cage. Could have done that better – probably should have waited until the kids were in bed although they did leave me alone, but still distracting.

So overall, a bit of a beat up on myself. It looks okay from a distance and I know my neighbour will love it. But I think I might have to have another go at this, and make sure I take note of the lessons I learned.

A colourful (rather than spooky) Scooby cake for a 7-year old. I decided to try to make a standing Shaggy, holding Scooby. It’s really heavy and I didn’t know if it would work, but it did and I’m very happy with them. (It’s a good job Shaggy has big feet!)

The cake was vanilla sponge, white chocolate ganache and raspberry jam. Mystery machine was provided by the little boy’s Mum.

A little halloween fun… I made a ghostly gateau last year, and that was probably the last time I made meringues, so thought I’d do it again, and this time the ghosts are floating all over the place. This cake was delicious rich dark chocolate cake (Peggy Porschen recipe – my favourite!) with rich chocolate ganache. The little ones loved it!