Wednesday, February 23, 2011




Where does the time go...? It's almost a week since I did 3 cakes for the same day! I had an underwater themed cake for a little one year old, a chocolate lovers cake for a 41st and a 2 tier gold and silver cake for a 45th wedding anniversary. This last one was my challenge. Here in South Africa you pay premium prices for any PME or Wilton products so the tins of gold and silver spray were out of the question. For the gold tier, I coloured the fondant with Gold gel and then rubbed gold dust all over with cottonwool. Doing it with cottonwool, I found, is the best way to achieve a smooth finish and no streaking. The silver was a bit more of a pain because there are bits of black in the silver dust and I have found that by mixing it with some pearlescent it gives a smoother finish.

This week I am prepping for a Fighter jet cake, I have two days to make 60 toppers for a last minute cupcake order and might have a princess cake to do as well, but will find out tonight if I have to add that to my list of to-do's or not.

Monday, February 14, 2011

I am in the black t-shirt looking a little windswept hence the really crazy hair!!


Another busy weekend is behind us! Friday was the school campout and what a great success it was! Being on the PTA meant I had to be at the school earlier to help set up, and start seling boerie rolls at 5pm. By 8pm we had sold out of 400 boerie rolls and 300 hotdogs! True to Cape Town, the wind blew like crazy and I was totally windswept and freezing by the time we had sold out. My "shift" ended at 11pm and I had to get up at 4.30am on Saturday morning to be back at the school to be ready to serve hot chocolate, coffee and muffins from 6am when the sleepyheads woke up. We had a fantsatic turnout with 140 campsites. Not only did I have the camp out on Friday night but I also had 30 mini wedding cakes to decorate for Saturday.


To make 30 of these beauties I made x8 8" vanilla sponge cakes, cut them to size, cored the centre out and filled it with white chocolate buttercream and then covered in fondant. Each cake was individually boxed in a clear box as a gift for the guests to take home. Congrats again to the lovely couple, Karen and Jo who only flew into Cape Town from the UK on Thursday. 

Oh, and before I forget, Happy Valentine's day to everyone!!

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Simply the best....the same fudgy chocolate cake that I use for all my orders, but cut into smaller blocks and piped with the fudgy chocolate icing. I am not a fan of ganache so I find this one is smoother and easier to pipe.

Friday, February 4, 2011

 The humble beginnings of a record player cake. Two layers of fudgy chocolate cake sandwiched together with chocolate ganache.


 Just adding the finishing touches
So, as you can see, today was only one cake.. but that's fine too!!

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Unlucky Luke

This week has been a fairly quiet one on the cake front with only a last minute order for 50 Star Wars toppers and two Luke Skywalker figures to be sent to Johannesburg. I have never had to send anything to any other city in SA so my nerves were shattered, especially with the way our postal service operates here! The parcel was packed with loads of batting and bubblewrap, and boxes within boxes within more boxes!! My darling brother works at a freight company at  CT International airport and told me that the courier crew have no regard for whether a parcel is decorated with big red fragile stickers or not, all the parcels are chucked around!! My client mailed me this morning to say the parcel had arrived but sadly one of the two Luke Skywalker figures had a cracked cape but it was not too serious! So, I suppose one out of 52 damaged is not too bad!!

Today is 40+ degrees celsius and having to bake this morning was no fun at all. Tomorrow I have an old fashioned recored player cake for a 40th. Today is one of those days I wish I worked in an airconditioned office!! Back to the grindstone to wilt now!