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 3^rd 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.