Passionfruit Macarons
Posted on: February 11, 2013
- In: General
- 2 Comments
I’ve tried lots and lots and lots and lots (ok i think you get the point) of macaron recipes, and I must suck at it because every recipe I have tried, I have failed. There were a few times I got close, but I can’t say I have made the perfect batch of macarons. sigh.
So when Adriano Zumbo macaron box mixtures hit the supermarkets, I was rather excited.. so I bought a box of passion fruit flavoured macaron mix and made them that very night. I can say, this is the BEST box mix I have ever tried. The instructions are so easy, and all that is required is a bit of water! I have made these a few times since the first time, and each and every time, they were perfect!
This is after all the ingredients have been added.
The box mix also includes a piping bag that even indicates where to cut off before piping! smart cookies!
And set aside for 10 minutes and into the oven.
OMG! they have feet!!! 
And the end result 
Giant Cupcake Cake
Posted on: December 16, 2012
So apparently, I have a blog. A blog I’ve kind of been neglecting (yikes!) But hey, its been a crazy few months so apologies to all my readers. I’m hoping 2013 will be a more relaxed year so I can focus on my blog some more! There’s been quite a few cupcakes and cakes and tutorials I’ve been busy with for the last few months, so watch this space for upcoming posts.
This cake was an order for a birthday a few weekends ago and the colours were to match her cupcake decorating party. I used the Wilton cupcake tin (hired at Kitchenware plus) and used buttercream to ice before applying fondant and fondant stripes to the bottom of the cupcake. I then used the Ateco 846 to pipe pink rose swirls on top. I finished the cake with a fondant ribbon on the cake board and a bow.
I was lucky that even with the humid Brisbane weather, I was able to ice my cake and everything stayed intact. Woop! I enjoyed the challenge of this cake and was definitely happy with the end results
Enjoy and Happy Baking!
Phew! So this is the last post for my birthday Bash!
In this blog, ill cover the actual cake decorating aspect of the party! yay!
When I first decided on including cupcake decorating as part of my party, I wanted to make sure that I had a structured plan on how I was going to make the best use of my time to teach my guest as much about cupcake decorating as possible. I decided to give each guest 4 cupcakes to decorate – 2 with buttercream piping and the other two with fondant.
As part of the part favour for guest to take home, I also provided them with cupcake aprons!
We started off with buttercream piping and I did a little tutorial in the beginning using different tips and teaching them how to fill a piping bag. I used the Wilton 1M tip to create roses and swirls. I asked Maryam (from maryams kitchen) to make me some of her delicious buttercream which everyone was able to practice on baking paper with and to pipe on their cupcakes. I then showed them how to use the airbrush machine to give their cupcakes a little bit of colour. I have a feeling the airbrush machine was definitely the highlight of the party! thanks jaaved 
So here’s Part 2 of my birthday Bash. In Part 1, I talked about the unique invitations and for this post, I want to talk about the dessert table and the food served.
I had a vision in my head on what I wanted my dessert table to look like and I was fortunate enough to have people help me bring it all together and make my vision come to life. My colour scheme from the invitations to the party was yellow and pink and I decided to stick with it with everything that I did. It made it easier to have a colour scheme rather than a particular theme because its easier to coordinate colors! I found a lot of my supplies from Spotlight and from a party supply shop Pink Frosting.
The coloured plates, napkins, tablecloths, balloons, pink paper pom poms were all from Spotlight while the coloured lollipops, little cases for the fruits, striped straws, pink and yellow buckets and the pink and yellow lanterns were from Pink Frosting.
Here are some tips for making a dessert table stand out:
- Create an atmosphere. Use decorations to enhance the table and make it come to life. I added ”keep calm and eat a cupcake” canvas which picked up the entire table.
- Use different heights to place your items. I used boxes and stands and underneath the table-cloth and placed the lolly jars, vases and macarons on so that the table doesn’t look so “flat”.
- Balloons aren’t just for kids parties! They are for all ages! Just be careful of “over doing” it as balloons can easily make an area look too crowded. I went for to simple floor bases with 5 balloons on each. I placed these on either side of the dessert table.
- Keep it simple. It’s easy to go overboard with lolly jars and lots of little treats, but keep to the basics! If you have a colour scheme, make sure that theres a balance of both colour and one colour isn’t overpowering the other.
- If you can, try and set up your table the night before so that you have time to re-organise things if you’re not happy with the layout. Its better to have time the night before rather than on the day! It took me almost 2 hours to get it exactly the way I wanted! :S
The macarons (made by Faaiza from Modest Munchies) were flavoured Lemon lime cheesecake and white chocolate and raspberry. Yummy!
The cookies were made by myself as a little take away favor for my guests.
The beautiful cupcake bouquet and the cake were made by Maryam (from Maryams Kitchen) Vanilla flavoured cupcakes with vanilla buttercream and the cake was red velvet with cream cheese frosting. Yum!
I filled these little cute cases with rockmelon, watermelon and honeydew, scooped out with a melon ball scooper. The mini coloured forks I found at the bargain shop. The cookies were made myself and using white chocolate and a cupcake topper mould, I was able to get a beautiful design and stick it on to each cookie and colour it with luster dust.
Chocolate! Yumy! with marshmallows and strawberries!
Strawberries and cream dessert!
For lunch, I kept it light with some mini beef burgers, chicken spring rolls and the rest was catered out to nandos (chicken skewers, BBQ bites and chicken wraps.
The beverage table had tea, ice tea and bottles of water (labels courtesy of dear husband ).
Happy Reading
- In: General
- 2 Comments
So I turned 25 today and I decided to have a big 25th Bash as part of my list of 25 things to do before turning 25. Of course, I had to add some sort of cupcake element to the party so made it a “cupcake decorating” party and held it the day before (3rd November) my birthday just so I could spend my actual birthday with dear husband. and to recover from the party!
This blog post it Part 1 of 3 because there’s a lot of different bits and pieces of the party that I want to highlight and talk about starting from invitations to decorations, food and of course, the cupcake decorating!
Lets start with the invitations. When I decided to have a cupcake decorating party, a small group of family and friends were ideal so that everyone could really get some personal one on one time to learn different skills and techniques. I kept the numbers to 17 people which meant I could add more details and personal each and every invitation that went out.
The invitations were an idea that I came up with and dear husband helped me put it all together.
Each one of these cupcake boxes had a matching cupcake in them. Vanilla cupcakes with vanilla buttercream airbrushed to give them the two tone yellow and pink colour combo finished off with flower.
Stay tuned for Part 2
Happy Baking everyone!
Piping on Cake Pops
Posted on: October 28, 2012
A few weeks ago I got asked to make some cake pops and it’s been a while since I last made them and I decided to keep them relatively simply designed. I made my all time favourite oreo and cream cheese mixture and rolled them out into small balls. I left them in the fridge for 2 hours before dipping them into white chocolate and letting them dry out before piping with pink and green. Piping on cake pops is quite easy, make sure that the consistency of the chocolate is not too runny so that you can achieve the designs that you want. To finish off, I dusted it with some silver shimer.
Happy Baking!
Gift Box Cake
Posted on: October 15, 2012
Its been a while since I made some cakes. I’ve been pretty busy trying to juggle work, studies and everything else all into a few months before we are off on holidays. So when I got asked to make a mini gift box cake for a colleague, it was the perfect opportunity to take a break from everything around me and work on something that I love doing. And I did. For those that don’t know, dear husband gifted me an airbrushing machine a few months ago and I am hooked! I pretty much air brush anything and everything I can when it comes to cupcakes and cakes.
The gift box is airbrushed using a light blue color and the bow was made using fondant. The bows on the cupcakes are actually made using a mold i purchased awhile ago! For the cupcakes, I piped the buttercream using the Wilton 1M tip and airbrushed it with a bit of blue! I thought it turned out pretty nice
Happy Baking everyone!
