Sunday 9 December 2012

When vintage, pink 'n' pretty and a pirate meet ....

It's nearly Xmas .... can you tell???

The hint might have been back in November when they were playing christmas carols in Woolworths ..... I just don't get it ...

These sorts of songs should be saved for sitting round the telly on Xmas Eve with family and friends by watching either the National Lampoons Xmas Vacation for the 19th time or Ray Martin hosting the Carols by Candlelight from the Myer Music Bowl in Melbourne with one of my Cousin Matthews potent vodka punch in hand .... just watch the fruit pieces at the end ... crucial.

Anyway, for everyone its an extremely busy time of year especially in the world of cakes and television.

The following 87 vintage cupcakes + top tier I had booked in for a while and was really looking forward to making them. The Bride and Groom were a very relaxed easy going couple and let me play away with colours and ideas ... especially for the top tier .... you'll see, its a Fiona special ....

The cupcakes were half white choccie mud and half banana .... really nice combination.



Am sure you will all pleased to know that the below rolling pin is my favourite. In my own mind, I have settled the debate from aliminium to silicone to marble and wood.  






This Pink 'n' Pretty cake is named after my favourite barbie doll from when I was little. Melissa and Jarred were lovely to work with and the cake toppers were 2nd choice as their original one didn't arrive in time. The colours, lace and bedazzles on the cake matched the room perfectly with all the decorations.

Once again this is when the world of cakes and television combine. Suse and I are beyond busy at the moment with prep for the Tour Down Under and anything else you would like to throw at us so while I was waiting for the ganache to set for each tier, was also sending emails and picturing us all in Adelaide in 45 degree heat.


Gave up on using a smoother and gone back to the old fashioned way of just smoothing down with my hands .... just pardon the jewellery .... takes forever taking everything off .... was a white choc mud with passionfruit for flavour.


Step 1, 2, 3 + 4 for covering a HUGE tier ... (choc mud with raspberry)




See the difference in the sizes ... was a 4 inch, 7 inch, 10 inch + 13 inch




Just please take a moment and look at the view. This is my favourite at Taronga Zoo ... you just can't stop looking .... and you can hear all the animals too.


Once constant stability I have had in my life is the McDowell family. My brother Ben and I have grown up with Nick, Mike and Shelley our whole lives.

We grew up 1 min away in our neighbourhood and formed the One Way Street gang where we would hang out generally in the street from sunrise to sunset (usually causing some sort of trouble).

Mike and I started at Wyong Road pre-school together. He was the rebel even at the age of 4yrs old, either climbing the fence and escaping down the street or just simply pulling the thread of my favourite pink ribbon until it was a pile of satin on the ground. Yes, I am a forgiver but not a forgetter!!! 

Shelley and I have shared our lives for as long as I can remember. From sitting at the one way street sign for many hours contemplating life, to phone and skype conversations from all locations around the globe, there have been many laughs, tears, thoughts and just listening and giving advice. 

Shelley is just about to embark on another big adventure this week which is another story in itself and as my mum said earlier this week ...'Life is what it is' .... 'It just is' ....  

So ... when Shelley asked me to make a pirate cake for Mike's son Robbie's 5th b'day ... of course ... add to the list of stuff to do this week. There is always time for a cake.

I wanted him to look like a menacing pirate but got the complete opposite ... he got the right reaction though with Robbie very much liking him ... well worth it....





  



























Sunday 11 November 2012

Cakes that travel ....


‘You can’t carry you can’t bring’ Whom was the bright sparkle that said that?? Oh yes, that was me…..

The one thing my family, friends and work colleagues all have in common is they all question me about how much I tend to take onboard an aeroplane.

I do laugh. Each time we travel for work, the Producer from the Hood looks at me, shakes his head at the amount I take on board and pretends he doesn’t know me by either just simply walking away or stands in the front of the queue and reads the newspaper not acknowledging me. 

A couple of Fridays ago I travelled down to Melbourne with 4 pieces of carry on luggage which did actually include 4 tiers of un-iced wedding cake. Everyone loves cake and its quite funny with the amount of people that state the obvious by saying  ...'Ohhh there's cake in there' .... and yes me being the eternal polite one just kept thinking  ...'well done Sherlock'!!!

The lovely cabin crew attendant did ask me if I realized that 2 pieces was the limit. I said ‘yes I do’ politely and kept walking to my seat. Bless.

This wedding cake was for Sarah and Adam’s wedding day.  I worked with the delightful Sarah in the Middle East and both hands in the air I can say that Sarah is one of those friends that you always need in your life. She had Adam are proof that a work romance can indeed evolve into a deep love for eachother. The both of them are a truly lovely couple and their friends and family that were guests at the wedding proved all of this.

The pictures tell the story for this blog ….the flavours were fruit cake, orange and poppy seed and dark choccie mud. Special mention does go out to Peta and Chris who very kindly leant me their kitchen ….said it before and will say it again .... a caesar stone bench is the bees knees!!!! And also thank you to Sarah who very patiently took me to a few cake decorating shops in Melbourne the day after her Hens so we could prep her cake!!! Told you my friends and family are a big part of my world of cakes. Thank you my lovelies!!!

This was alot to take on board - even for me .....


The cakes up above me ....there were nearly a few choice words when the guy sitting next to me 'chucked' his bag up there ....

10kg tub of icing .... huge trying to break that down ....


1st tier getting dressed ....


1st tier nice and ready ....


All tiers ready to go ... the 7 inch spare orange and poppy seed went straight to the kitchen to be cut up 


Wasn't happy with the cake board so we did the dash to the biggest Bunnings on earth and they cut a few boards up for me.









After an amusing taxi ride with me saying to the driver 'once again, please tell me when you are going to put the breaks on'. He was a bless though and did have to carry the cake for me while I got so elegantly in and out of the car in my dress.




So while the last 3 weekends have included 2 x trips to Melbourne, 1 x trip to Adelaide for work, being at the shop and teaching one class a week, getting time to give my gorgeous niece Thea a cuddle AND  having a life at the same time it was also time to prepare for the trip to Gundagai for Petrice and Mikes wedding.

Where do I start with Mike and Petrice. Frank our boss, introduced them to eachother at the work xmas party nearly three years ago. They had their first kiss that night and haven’t stopped kissing ever since…

Petrice has the pleasure of sitting next to me all day every day at work so in between working alot, talking alot, laughing alot and making lots of cups of tea we have spent many moments discussing their wedding cake.

Ideas, styles, colours came and went and we finally worked out a lovely vintage meets country meets classic type of looking cake.

Mike is from a country town called Gundagai (yes the one which has a song written about it and yes you do start singing it each time the sign goes past with the distance to go).

Gundagai is about a 4.5 hour drive south of Sydney, somewhere on the way to Melbourne .… the wedding was in a gorgeous country church in the the middle of nowhere WITH BOYS IN KILTS AND A BAGPIPE PLAYING!!! No more words need to be said. I was happy. Very happy indeed.

I drove down with the un-iced cakes with the plan to ice them at Mike’s family home on arrival. The frosting needs to need be whipped up for approx 12 mins, and when Mike’s mum presented me with a 35yr old only Kenwood Mixer, my life changed ….sorry to my beloved Kitchenaid but this was amazing.

It was magic and I have already been scouring over Ebay to find one which I have but it’s a pick up only in Adelaide. What a great coincedence that we are going to Adelaide for work next week … don't tell the Producer from the Hood yet though - he might have to pretend its his hand luggage, will surprise him at the airport with that small fact, its often easier….

The reception was a marquee set up on a property by the Murrumbidgee River – perfect setting for a  country wedding. It was the most loveliest day that Mike and Petrice had been planning for the last 12 months and every detail was perfectly thought of from the table settings, to many guests playing cricket to learning how to do the Scottish jig ….












Tuesday 25 September 2012

A few little stories to make one ...


Think back to exactly this time 2 years ago and what were you all doing? I was literally leaving on a jetplane heading for 2 weeks in Chicago for a cake decorating course that I had wanted to do for a few years..... I wrote a blog while I was over there and was reading through it tonight and just comparing what I knew then to what I know now ... look at Mike and Judy Sue .... very happy to admit my figurines have stepped  up a couple of notches. 

Big high five goes out to the very special group that did the course with me. We all literally came from different pockets of the world and it didn't matter if English wasn't your first language. We all still keep in touch and encourage eachother along with our lives and our cakes of course .... 





Like many of you out there, I was on ebay the other week looking at stuff I really don’t need and came across Tina from Washington State in the USA selling vintage unique cake decorating items. Everything arrived last week and I have been absolutely bowled over literally by what was in the package.



There is a cake decorating book dated back to 1929 … tools made decades ago and boxes which are an artwork in themselves. Its actually amazing to see that alot of the equipment pieces over the years are still the same now in what we use. 



I personally wrote a message to Tina asking her to tell me the history of where she collected everything from which has been a lot of antique stores over the years. Imagine all the cakes that these items have been used on by the Betty’s and Mabel’s of the world . The only reason Tina was selling everything was because she and her husband are downsizing to a Winnebago and its time to de-clutter …. Well they have found a good home across the other side of the world …



Baking a cake should take you back to how simple some aspects of life should really be….

Wouldnt you think that by adding flour, choc, eggs, oil, water etc into a mixing bowl and then putting the batter into the oven, this should be fail proof … well dear readers I must not have been listening in science class that day, (actually my close school besties can vouch that there were many school classes I was not listening in … hence the popular sentence .. ‘Quick Idette, give me your Italian homework to copy before Miss Del Sal comes in’

The pics below are my 3rd TIME LUCKY ATTEMPT at what should be easy an choccie mud cake … I was not going to give up and was very happy Al is safely up North in Qld so he wouldn get cross with the cakes that didn’t make the cut.



Anyway just like the Hungry Little Catepillar changing into a butterly, the batter did what is was supposed to do .. it evolved into a cake …



I took the cake to work for everyone to eat. I was quite proud of the taste (and I very rarely eat my cakes), however my boss walked past, picked up a slice, shoveled in his mouth and said ‘Not one of your best Fi’. I very nearly picked up a slice and threw it at him, but comments like that make me more determined that the perfect cake is out there to be baked …..

The last few weeks have bought 3 very precious babies into my life. Brand new Liam to Jen and Simon, very early Cooper to Emmies and Brad and the most divine little Rosebud named Thea Daphne who came along when she was good and ready for my Cousin Kylie and Dave.

These cupcakes were my very first effort a few years ago for Jen's first baby boy Toby ..... 



All babies are uniquely precious and there is nothing more lovely than rocking a little one after they have been fed and just watching them sleep. Mind you I have been told by Cousin Kylie a couple times to stop poking Thea when she is asleep. DON’T WAKE A SLEEPING BABY!!!  I take my role as Auntie very seriously and have already whispered in Thea’s ear that she can never have enough pink clothes in her tiny wardrobe and a little bit of glitter goes along way!!! 

The cupcakes below were for Ky’s baby shower which we had on a really lovely day in July. My other 2 gorgeous superb nieces, Abi and Eva supervised the day and made sure all the cupcakes were shared out evenly … (with themselves eating a sneaky few).




These next ones are for the delightful Mrs Emma Kate Hughes McDonald. The challenge here was making the teddy bear which for my first attempt, he turned out OK.









The high heeled shoe was a funny memory of the good old party days. This particular pair of shoes got us chucked out of the Megahole many years ago cause Ems took them off and somehow they went flying across the bar and dancefloor. To this day I still maintain that we were all fine, just a few champagnes, but we did give the bouncer a task though as he had to chase us around the actual bar to throw us out. We thought we outsmarted him and went to a different part of the pub but then we got the tap on the shoulder and it was time to go  ….

The footy is for Brad as he is a big Kiwi sports fan and wanted him to feel apart of the baby shower too.