The one where our 'Kiels' gets married ....

Rightio ... Happy Easter to everyone. Not matter what your religious beliefs are for this weekend, its just nice that we can all agree to eat chocolate. No more needs to be said.

When Petrice and I at work are not discussing my distaste for black biro pens (irrational I know), we are usually playing the Big Brother game and working out who in our working environment would be up for eviction. And please, we are quite fair as we have nominated ourselves some weeks too ....

One person that would never be up for nomination and I know everyone agrees with me, is one of our Producers called Kiels. Unbeknown to us we have been pronouncing his surname incorrect for the last few years but he's OK with that. We have it right at the moment.

Anyway. Kiels and his lovely new wife Viv are over here in Australia all the way from London UK. They have settled here and I hope its for a long while. I first worked with Kiels back at SBS and now we are fortunate enough to have him sometimes working with us on the 'boys on bikes'.

When we work on one of big events we have an incredible mix of personalities that need to get on in an intense time of our lives. We work long hours over many days under stressful conditions but hey we do it because we love it at the some time. You need Kiels on your production team, he just makes the atmosphere lighter and he's had the joy of sitting next to me on a couple of flights and is nice and calm when the plane wobbles a bit.

Kiels and Viv had their wedding day last week up at the Hunter Valley. The plans all sounded lovely, nice and intimate with just them and people close to them both. Its very difficult when you are across the other side of the world away from everyone you grew up with (I lived overseas for 7 years), but it sounds like they had fabulous beautiful day.

Kiels and Viv asked me to make their wedding cake, cupcakes, cookies and gingerbreads people (see pics below) a couple of months ago and typical me said of course why not, anything to help make their day super special. I just didn't realise how hectic March was going to be.....

We have had another busy time at work and in the space of 9 x nights I had slept in 5 x different places.
13 March - Margaret River in the boys house
14-16 March - Margaret River in the Morrison family house
17 March - Row 12A on the foulness Red Eye Virgin flight from Perth to Sydney
18 March - My beloved bed
19-24 March - Hotel in Penrith. Yes lovelies, you did read that correct ... was Chiefly Towers in Penrith.

Was all more thanfine though and there was plenty of time for the cake prep once we had finished on the International Rowing Regatta.

This was our daily view at Margaret River for the surfing ... you never got tired of watching ...

Sun saying goodnight over the ocean not the city as we are used to in Sydney.

View outside my window at Penrith.... was a culture shock to go from beach to carpark ... and just accross from there is the original Krispy Kreme which I had to go through the drive thru for our German clients ... it was 0630am on a Sunday morning so thank god no one witnessed this ... and little did those cars know that in a few hours they will be completely covered in bird crap!!! It was quite amazing how much birds can crap out there ....

Now to the fun photos ....

Gingerbread people with an 'I' and a 'V" (Ian and Viv)

Vanilla cookies with patterned pink and white fondant. 

Orange and Poppyseed cupcakes with white fondant or frosting with pink roses ..

Was one of their friend's b'day on the actual wedding cake ... so an extra cake was made as a suprise

The wedding cake - this was a 2 x tier red velvet with lemon cream cheese ganache as the filling.

2013 Royal Easter Show - The Very Hungry Caterpillar

It's that time of year again ... The Sydney Royal Easter Show. Time to enter my cake into the annual competition and to try not to get disqualified this year .... Again thank you Lorraine hyphen hyphen.

Anyway have a sneaky peak .... see how many of the items you can pick out from the story.

Its a 360 degree cake as he does get through quite a bit of food ...

Think back to your pre-school days .... when life was so easy and all you had to worry about was what colour play-doh you were going to eat that day or if you wanted to do finger painting or instead of learning how to cut out shapes ....

In my family I am known for my memory. I can actually tell each of you where we first met and what you first said to me and if you are lucky, what you were wearing .... I still look back through my pre-school yearly photo and can name the majority of my friends. Would still like to question my mum though on why she thought it was acceptable to dress me in a pink skivy .... please!!!!

Anyway each day when it came around to book time, without a doubt I would always go for 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar'. It was my favouite. I never had it at home and the cousins didn't either so I took the opportunity whenever possible to just sit quietly (rare occurance) and turn the pages slowly and each time when the double page of all the food appeared ... I was a happy girl.

The other reason I decided on this cake was because one of my colleagues from SBS named Vitor, we nicknamed him The Hungry Caterpillar as we needed to make sure he had food around him every few hours or otherwise not much was going to get done.

Picture this. It was 2009 and Vitor the Journo, Ryan the Cameraman and me the Production Manager were travelling around South Africa for The Confederations Cup which is the comp in the lead up to the World Cup.

We were in a town called Rustenburg which is about 3 hours north of Johannesburg by car. We had a few hairy scary drives back and forth but we were getting prepped for an evening game with South Africa v Spain. We went to the supermarket to buy some food as there were not very many safe places to stop and have a snack in the towns on the way up there.

The weather was cold. Very cold. About 2 degrees literally cold. I was even wearing a beanie which I never ever do. That's how cold it was. Just quietly too, I thought I was safe and no one would catch me wearing a beanie but little did I know that when I was testing the IFB for Vitor with the SBS Sydney Studio ... the feed was actually going around the world. My friends at SNTV in London had more than great delight in telling me!!!

Anyway I gave my game ticket to Ike our driver because as mentioned, it was very cold and those bloody horn things that make the most hideous sound were driving me bananas.

Was settled in the media centre and it was about halfway through the game and I felt a tap on my shoulder. A girl about 18yrs old who was one of the cleaners asked if she could sit down and watch the game with me. Sure why not ... she was only wearing flip flops too and no winter jacket so she must have been numb. I was snacking on my usual sandwich and crisps and as I was about to take my last bite ... she asked if she could have some food too.

I didn't even think twice. I handed over Vitor's food. All of it. I thought that if she had the courage to ask me for food cause she was hungry, then who was I not share out Vitors food. Must have looked like a good site with the two of us sitting together from completely different walks of life and watching the football.

The look on Vitors face too when he asked me where his food was and I had to explain ..... it was priceless!!! Don't worry though ... as it was a Saturday, just like the very hungry caterpillar, we got Vitor a hamburger, hot chips, nuggets and even a sweet to go with it .... and he was happy!!! Peace was restored.

My poor lounge room being taken over over my the world of cakes.

All the pieces set to go ...

Settled in at the Show ... they are very particular about the photos you take out there and not supposed to get anyone elses int eh back ground ... which is a shame cause the Taj Mahal behind mine, was incredible!!!

When an expo and an elephant meet in the one week ...

One of my friends Teresa turned to me on Thursday when we had a short lull in the cake expo and said ... so what made you get into cakes?

I have often thought about that because like most things in my life, cake decorating just sort of fell into my lap.

I was working at SBS Sport sitting in the pod and Lyddies, Zorby, Nico and I were having one of our many discussions on life. Was taking a breath and looked at one of our 57 tellys and saw a feature story on cake decorating. From that moment on I was quiet (well for at least 3.2 mins).

You gotta understand, everyone in my family has a talent and I have grown up wondering what mine was ... Mum and Auntie with their Shop were and still are very arty and crafty (they can sew, knit, paint, cook etc), our fathers were the financially ones, Matthew was the smart one, Ben was the practical one, Cousin Kylie was the all rounder and then there was me who I suppose was very good at making noise as I was always being told to be quiet from my jewellery jingling, to talking too loudly on the phone or most of all distracting people in the classroom.

So for me to discover cake decorating in 2007 was a blessing. I loved the look of the kneading of the fondant, the smoothing of the ganache, the painting of the colours, the bedazzles, ribbons etc etc.

Working on the 2007 Tour De France, I devoured hours of 'you tube' watching video after video of anything to do with cake decorating and then in Sept 2007 I booked into my first Planet Cake course and the rest as they say is history.

So last Thursday I did my annual cake expo on the Northern Beaches. We have just come off a (very successful) hugely majorly busy time in Telly World and I knew I was being too optimistic with the date of the expo and how much time I would be able to put into the cakes. I was aiming for at least 3 days prep but due to a few bumps in the road last week, I got 6.5 hours to prepare 4 cakes + cupcakes.

Suse, Darren and the whole Beyond Action Production team (you know who you all are) have just come back from 16.5 days (yes I was counting) in Adelaide for the Santos Tour Down Under cycling. What we achieved this year was incredible being LIVE for all Stages. There was alot of laughter, few tears, few dummy spits, but overall very AWESOME!! Some of the situations that Suse and I handled on a daily basis I think back now and wonder how the flip we did it but we did.

So I laugh when there is a cake I just can't get right. Seems like such a small dilemma compared to the last few weeks but I think it was my built up emotions ..... so one of the cakes didn't make it up to the bench and the whole 4 tiers went straight to the bin. Was a bit disappointed as this new design was going to be the cake of the year!!!

Anyway here are the cakes that made the selection ...

The following cake as been of my favourite to date. Kristen and Andrew asked me to make their wedding cake back in September 2011 and then their newphews bday cupcakes a few months later. Little re-cap for you below:

Now it was time for their new baby boy Boston's christening - so when Kristen asked me to design and bake a cake ... of course I was going to. I love the designing and planning aspect and took my time with this one. 

Kristen had the thought of an elephant so was going to plan with that in mind. 

Enjoy the pics ... just for something different this time .. like the Cold Play music video The Scientist when the clip goes from the finish to beginning ... so are these pics ....  

Just a side note: one of my favourite movie quotes from The Castle .... ''That'll go straight to the pool room''. This cake came very close as its final resting place was the pool table. Very proud!!

And so now its that time of year again for the planning of the 2013 Royal Easter Show cake. Have got my idea in mind ... its going to be brilliant and I cant wait to show you the progress and the end result!!!

Lets just hope the cake judge Mrs hyphen hyphen has a kinder heart with her critics this year. .....

And on the 13th Day of Xmas ....

And on the 13th Day of Xmas, my true love said to me ... take that bloody Xmas tree down .. they were the famous words of my Uncle Bruce .... always made Ben my brother laugh.

Happy New Year everyone!!!! Bit behind but it has been a touch busy of late.

We all know the song ... The Twelve Days of Xmas ... well as my family are unique, when the Cousins and I were little we made up different words to The Twelve Days of Xmas which ended like this ...
5 Nellie Dogs (sung really loudly so we got yelled at to be quiet)
4 Kylie Birds
3 Matthews
2 Silly Bens
And Fiona stuck up the gum tree (only cause I was the youngest I got tarnished) ....

Anyway for this Xmas we were introducing my 3 most gorgeous nieces, Abi, Eva and Thea to the song and we were trying for the new generation version, however, we all got bored and lego making took over.

I was one dessert duty so I made a trifle and my new little mini choc pav inventions (well Woolworths invented and I changed it around).

Abi and Eva loved the desserts and the photos below show Abi's hand launching in for a sneaky taster. The first photo was 3 years ago when I made a Little Mermaid cake for Abi and she was launching in for that too (don't worry, the knife was a blunt one).

Look same hand but 3 years on ....

The cupcakes below were for Mark and Natasha's engagement - or as I call them ... Team Tomo.

Team Tomo and I have been through some busy times together when we all worked on the Tour De France. Natasha and Mark are a really lovely couple and a few years ago I did Tash's 21st b'day cupcakes so it made my day when they asked me to make their engagement cupcakes.

For these ones there were 100 cupcakes .. pink, white, silver and sparkly. What more could anyone ask for hey???

This next gorgeous wedding cake was done last Friday. The Bride's name is Rebecca and we haven't met - all communications have been over email. Rebecca was a pure delight to deal with and very cool and calm.

As we are soo busy in the land of Television at the moment with prep for the Tour Down Under, the wedding cake was baked and decorated within 24 hours and which included icing at 11pm and 6am and then racing back to Mosman between meetings to pick up flowers and take the cake down to the venue.

Once again this show's none of us are super heroes as much as we think we are. Couldn't have done this cake without my mum and Coops who was head of Transport Co-ordination (and cake testing) ....

This was a whopping big 12 inch mississippi choc mud cake ... weighs a few tonnes and tastes awesome (if I can say so myself).

6 inch and 9 inch round foam cakes. As the Bride and Groom still wanted the look of a tiered wedding cake but not so much the actual cake ... very handy the foams ...

There is a few missing pics in between these steps ... what you are not seeing is the cake settling in my bedroom with a fan on it while I was work during the day .... and then Coops and I bolting back to my house, dressing the cake with ribbon and flowers and then bolting down to the venue ....

At the end of a week of a ferally hot Sydney Summer with no air con in our office (just dreadful) - I followed the sun at the end of the day and just sat by the water to take a moment ....