Cake, Decor and Cairns!

Happy Birthday Gabriella the biggest Kardashian Kollection fan I know! Naked Black Chocolate Ganache, with Edible Leopard print courtesy of The Cupcake Orchard. Kardashian Kollection inspired logo and accents handmade with fondant and lustre dust by me. In a last minute rush it was decided that my niece would be in town to celebrate her 21st birthday and I wanted to make something special. I was inspired by Gabriella's favourite Kardashian Kollection leopard print purse. I am not that confident with my chocolate painting skills so i thought it would be a great excuse to try an edible image from my local cake supplies shop. Alexi was a fantastic help and had printed out a custom image for me in no time. I was really impressed with the quality, and found it much easier to work with than wafer paper and it sure did save me a lot of time! No hand painting all those leopard spots! It was so easy to peel and trim to size. I brushed a little piping gel...

I'm really excited to be able to give Cake Decor in Cairns followers this special discount code for full professional cake decorating classes at The Cupcake Orchard! The amazingly awesome Alexi has again this year given us a $20 discount on all of Lauren Blong's whole cake covering classes including mastering the sharp edges of square cakes. Learn how to ganache a cake to smooth perfection and cover smoothly, complete with straight fondant edges! What a fabulous skill to learn! The prices are amazing! Take for example the square cake class - after our $20 discount, it only costs $105 which includes you being given a delicious naked cake, learn the correct techniques to ganache, cover and beautifully decorate perfectly.  But wait there's more! Yes it's unreal I know, but lunch is also included!! I am really excited about these classes as they are the cheapest you will ever get from a professional in Cairns. Hold on, you think I am just a little bit too excit...

Just made some quick non gingerbread cookies with the kids. They are not my favourite recipe but they are egg free so I let the kids go silly eating the raw dough as we go! :) (they are also not a fan of ginger so I left it out and put 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract instead.) I am not sure how we will decorate this batch, I like using meringue powder to make royal icing (again with the raw egg consciousness in mind, I only use pasteurisrd powdered egg whites ) or maybe something a little bit easier and kid friendly like melted chocolate to glue on m&m's and currants, or even easier (because I have no lollies in my pantry today!) Cut out bits of coloured fondant. My plan is, over the next few days to test out a couple of different recipes for you and then have one blog post devoted to the icing methods I used. So here we go, Gingerbread Recipe #1 Preheat oven to 180°C Ingredients: 2/3 cup soft brown sugar 60g butter 4 tablespoons golden syrup 2 cups plain flou...

I was asked 2 days before the Wedding to make some cupcakes for the dessert table at a family wedding.  Eeek 2 days didn't leave me much time to get too detailed so I had to come up with something that was simple, easy to mass produce and still look elegant. I made 150 of these lovlies and they were a hit! The visual of all 150 out on the table was really special and worked out as planned!  Now it wasn't all easy, I must admit, I made a huge mistake in the morning and baked 80 of these sad sunken cupcakes! To my horror I realised all too late that the 6th cup of flour to be folded in was in fact still waiting and sitting on the bench all the while the cupcakes were almost finished baking!! Eeeeek! What a disaster!  But what's a girl to do? Feed the rejects to her husband and kids and keep on baking!! Luckily I had enough ingredients on hand to make another batch! The topper designs I chose were simple cutters a heart and flower. But to dress them ...

If you live in the  tropics or have warm summers,  you've probably experienced Buttercream fail!  You pipe these beautiful cupcakes with your large star tip, they look awesome... fast forward a couple of hours, you might be having a bbq or a party of some sort,  that is either outdoors or not in air conditioning... Buttercream Fail occurs!! Melted, lop sided and just doesn't look right anym ore!    What's the secret? So how do my cupcakes still look perfectly piped even after 2 hours sitting on the dessert table?  How do I make buttercream covered cakes that keep their shape and colours don't run at outdoor summer birthday parties? The secret is a type of vegetable shortening available in Australian supermarkets called "Copha" Now this stuff is awesome but you just need to learn a few tips to make it work as a substitute to American vegetable shortening known as "Crisco" in their recipes. What is Copha? It's basically p...

Living in a regional town there's not much competition in pricing for cake decorating tools and consumables.  When there is a special it usually sells out super fast or there is a catch like the expiry dates are too soon. So that's why I shop online often. I use Australian businesses so the money is still going back into our economy.  And postage still means local Cairns Postal Service workers are benefiting. I only use suppliers that offer flat rate postage of $8.95 and goods arrive within a week. That usually narrows it down to businesses on the East Coast as Western Australia postage times can feel like forever even when paying extra for express post. I shop from about 3 different favourite sites at the moment.  They all offer different benefits so depending on what I need, how much I am ordering,  and item price I will choose one over the other. Each store has their own tips and hints, and some even have video instructions on how to use their prod...

One of the very first mysteries I like to unlock in my beginners workshops is Fondant. It's known in various parts of the world by many names depending on additives, including Gumpaste, Sugar paste, and Petal Paste. But over here in Far North Queensland Australia, I like to use the general name Fondant. I believe knowing what fondant is, where to buy it, and what to do with it are the 3 biggest mysteries to the average home baker and why it is my most popular workshop. There are several options from making your own, to supermarket  and baking supply stores and of course online. I usually cover the most common brands seen locally but if you have different brands in your local area feel free to add your comments below. After explaining where to buy fondant, I move on to Gel colours (brands names Wilton and Americolor) and what CMC/Tylose is used for. I will create another post on the different brands in the near future, but today we'll get back to reviewing that fondant. ...