Goodbye 2011 Part 4 - baby shower

Commissioned I was, to bake some baby shower cakes for my oh so lovely colleague. I enlisted the help of my best friend and proceeded to make little baby animals and a mummy animal to go with each. As usual, we laughed the whole time, raged at the non conforming fondant parts and had a ton of fun. Here is a lil baby giraffe all on its own:

Animals drying on toothpicks - that other styrofoam sphere came in handy! Although she watched me toil on the lions - yes 2 lions!! Once I had finished, she told me that baby lions do not have manes. Well you could've told me that whilst I was making them!!!!

Baked chocolate cake... bit thin ay?!

I cut the cake in half, stuck the pieces together with some chocolate butter cream, iced the edges and stuck on chocolate shards and iced the cake! Then added the animals and voila!

Check out mumma zebra's toupee! We laughed for like an hour about that one!!! Yes, there is only one elephant. Don't ask!

Goodbye 2011 Part 3

I LOVE DC Cupcakes! Did I mention that already?!!! Well I found a recipe for their Strawberry Champagne cupcakes featured on the Oprah show, changed it a little and added my lil special touch to them! I gave some to my newly wedded friend who had returned from her honeymoon in Hawaii and some to my mother who WAS going to share them at her meeting but opened the box and "they were too pretty to share so I took them home." Too funny! So here are the pics! Cakes ready to go... look at them strawberries!

Fondant butterflies to top them pretty cakes (never mind the fork, I was drying them on a lunchbox lid);

Cakes finished - soooo pretty and scrumptious!

Good bye 2011 Part 2

My best friend and I decided to enrol in a cake decorating 101 course. In a nutshell, we bought a lot of equipment, laughed all throughout one class - we were making animals, I a hippo (shown below) and my friend a pig with a top hat that I sadly do not have a picture of.

We also toiled and toiled to bake a fruit cake each, they weighed like 2 tonne!!! We then learnt to cover and decorate it. I used this opportunity to gift my parents the cake for their 30th wedding anniversary. As you can see, it lacks imagination - I'm so proud of making my pet dog Dooley. Cute ain't he?!!

Excited about all the skills learnt, I made a plane for my colleague's bon voyage party. It took awhile to dry and was peppered with little holes from the toothpicks I used to keep the wings of the plane in place whilst they dried. My exasperated hubby who watched me confuse myself for about 10 minutes as to how to attach the tail of the plane kindly did it for me :)

Goodbye 2011 Part 1

Lots of baking happened in 2011. I just didn't blog about it. A real shame. So here I am writing my bake offs whilst watching Baghdatis play his first round match at the Brisbane International. From the comfort of my home that is. So... I am completely OBSESSED with DC Cupcakes. If you haven't or don't know what I am talking about, check it out on www.tlc.com it is so so so exceptionally brilliant. For my friend Katz's birthday, I was inspired by the Kallinis sisters (owners of Georgetown Cupcake) to create a cupcake bouquet. I trolled all around my home suburb and surrounds for a styrofoam sphere. Luckily I had my hubby with me who helped with the dimensions without the actual plant pot. You know what I mean, right?! After like visiting the eleventh or so store, I found some! Yay for RIOT!!! I bought 3, one for a trial then the real deal for Katz. I baked vanilla cupcakes and frosted them with violet buttercream, which surprisingly did not want to cooperate that day. Serious pain in the arse. Seriously. I generously gave my parents the trial bouquet to which my ever so grateful mother replied "oh no, not again!". I immediately wanted to take them back :p I added a lady bug to Katz's and the finished product looked like this:

Antica Gelateria Crows Nest

On my way to my haircut at Franck Provost in Crows Nest, I spotted a gelato place next door to it on Holterman street.
It was a one woman show that morning with the lady looking extremely frazzled.
The flavours are those you would normally find, ferrero rocher, vanilla, cookies and cream, hazelnut, coffee and so on.
$4 for one scoop, $6 for 2.
I chose ferrero and cookies and cream. I was quite disappointed with the ferrero as it didn't have the nuttiness or the crunch that the ferrero flavour usually has but the cookies and cream OMG was absolutely to die for! It had the right balance of crunch, chocolate, biscuit folded through the vanilla gelato base. The scoops were generous for the price you pay.
Also,they serve food too...

I am addicted to....

TOP CHEF!!!! Top Chef Masters, Top Chef and the grandest of them all ....
TOP CHEF JUST DESSERTS.

My therapy after a whole day with 27 children. Top Chef Just Desserts, was just the right mix of skill, bitchiness, backstabbing, and jaw dropping moments. So naturally, I tried to recreate it at home. A choc chip cookie that is.

I researched all the conversions, the recipe and watched very closely the mannerisms of the sole baker on Top Chef Just Dessert's sole baker. However... all good things must come to an end at some time, right??

Well it did. I cut my thumb. On a Tupperware julienne system. It could not have cut a worse spot. Right on the side. So the days leading to Christmas, my thumb was bandaged. Bandaged heavily.
Also, somehow my conversions must have been a little well... off... my kitchenaid, whilst mixing all the ingredients the head bit started lifting. I was so scared that the whole thing my crash, I turned it off thinking I'll just use my hands to mix the dough. Well I forgot about the thumb. I transferred the crumbly dough into a bowl, glad wrapped it and fridged it. I was bitterly disappointed.

Miss 'Eck to the rescue!!! My best friend and I decided to bake red velvet cupcakes for Chrissy. After baking cupcakes, I explained my dire situation and lucky for me, Miss 'Eck mixed and fixed my dough!! Yippeee!!!

These cookies are just to die for. A true cookie indeed.

You can find the recipe by clicking or copy pasting the address below.
http://www.bravotv.com/foodies/recipes/chocolate-chip-cookie

P.S. good luck with the conversions.

No pics for this one... next time!
xox

SO I've been M.I.A.

I've noticed my followers have grown from 1 to 4! Yippeeee!!!

Real life took over unfortunately.... I was offered a job at the beginning of school year, yes in 2010.. yes I realise that was ONE YEAR AGO!! But don't you all worry. Not a moment went by where I did not think of my blog. So I am back. Back with a vengeance. Armed with a whole lot of new artillery. So here goes. 2011 year of the WalkingCake blog.

Keep following peepz
xox