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 ….

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.

Winter Party Cakes

To be honest its been a couple of months on a roller coaster with the big ups,  a few little downs but all smiling at the end dancing with hands in the air (that's for you Nimmo) .....

All the following cakes will tell their own stories by their pictures so just keep scrolling down and enjoy!!!

Combining Telly World and Cake World .....

Because sometimes there just arn't enough hours in the day. This is how you combine all worlds and get everything done ....This is behind the scenes in MCR at SBS.

The event was the GIRO which is the Italian version of the Tour De France but this time its boys on bikes racing around Italy trying to win a pink jersey unlike the TDF which is the race for the yellow jersey.

Still cant believe 7 years on that the boys on bikes are a big part of my life. Just like the offside rule which I still cant explain to you - I still cant work out the strategy of the peloton v breakaways v sprints but as long as everyone is there onsite and the pictures are coming through and there is not a producer yelling to 'move the sun' (like we have the power to do that) - all is well.

Gerb's 40th  B'day Cake

Happy 40th B'day James Bushy Gerbs .....whichever name that you would like to call him, he will answer to all. Was an absolute honour to make this cake for his special day. Was very funny when Richie, Cam and I got a personal escort into the venue at Manly to get the cake into position. Literally radio escort with the Venue Manager saying 'Excuse me please, the cake is on arrival'.

Gerbs LOVES sport and he is always on his way to touch footy or soccer so thought with his cake I would combine all his passions into the one .....

The cake was 2 x 12inch square choccie muds ... weighed a ton to carry too ....

Was a fabulous night - extra special for Gerbs to have his family and friends there to celebrate with him.

The 1.5m Wedding Cake (not for an actual wedding though)

I was asked by one of our kids production shows to make a 1.5m cake that they were going to fire a cannon ball into (as you do on a cold winters morning up at Terry Hills at half 7).

This would have been way too much time and money to actually bake the layers so I got foam tiers for the majority and covered with icing .... (2 x litres of whippin ice that got everywhere!!!) The budgie wasnt too please when I got some on his cage either ....

Cake Pops

Now one of the reason I love baking and decorating cakes its because it teaches me patience. And nothing teaches me more about patience are these cake pops. They are fiddly and messy but alot of fun at the same time.

Its a great pity with this blog that there is no audio at the same time as I bake as there were quite a few expletives coming out of my mouth. They look as though they should be easy but for some reason the little ones just didnt want to pop out of the tin.

 Before they are baked .... looking grand ....

Straight out of the oven .... still looking grand .... (Notice mum's art cushions too please that she paints!!!)

Just not wanting to come out of pan .... and what you don't see is that this 3 batches later (sorry Alan I know you hate it when I chuck them out but I was too cross) ....

Everyone loves 100 and 1000's .... a nice result for the end .... they actually looked quite cute. Covered in while chocolate and the fun part is putting the sprinkles all over them. These are only really basic ones that I made for a dinner party ... am working up the courage to get more complex.

GIBBO's 50th B'day

I don't know Gibbo - all I know that he is a Northern Beaches guy turning 50 years old and his wife requested a surfing looking van that Gibbo drove around back in the hey day.

Am not very good with vans so each time I saw on in the street I took a photo. Got a few random looks from people.... Never realised too with VW vans just how big the diameter of the logos are ... fascinating isnt it.... (you can all sleep now tonight ....)

Doesn't look it in the pictures but this cake was actually 40 cm in length and 20cm in height. That was a surfboard on top too that was too happy with the humidity of the day and yes I know surfboards don't come with sparkly blue glitter .... but you never know!!!

I am teaching classes now!!!

The show where I work in Willoughby on a Saturday - the cake decorating shop, we have now started teaching classes and I LOVE IT!!! The below are the 6 cupcakes that we do and its awesome. 

Was really nervous for the first class but you get over that pretty pronto once everyone starts walking in asking questions. There were high fives all round once we completed that first cupcake swirl.... everyone had their heads down in such concentration and I give the glass the words in my head to design the swirl ... and when I looked up to see everyone in such deep concentration mode - was brilliant!!!

I like to teach with the idea 'do not follow the rules', create your own ideas, hence the ladybug below with her tongue poking out .... I couldnt help it ...

So the plan is when I get my dream home with biggest dream kitchen and biggest ever kitchen table somewhere down at Freshwater or North Curl Curl, I am going to teach cake classes .... gotta aim for something!!!!