Oh.My.Yum.

Ice-Cream Explosion Cake

This cake...

This cake was one of those cakes.

You know the ones.

You have the perfect picture in your mind, you invision exactly how it will look. Each tiny detail...

Then you put it all into action and it looks like something a 2 year old slapped together between naps. You cry. You scrape it all off. You call your girlfriend and have a mini breakdown. You start again.

Okay so I'm being a touch melodramatic in my recount, but suffice to say it was not as smooth an operation as I had hoped, and yes i truly did scrape an entirely decorated cake off into the bin and start again. At 9pm.

You know what was lucky though? In doing so, I actually discovered this cakes secret little party trick: the exploding cone.

Had I not topped this cake with 5 sherbet sprinkle filled mini waffle cones then picked them off one-by-one in a fluster, I would not have known that doing so breaks the buttercream seal causing the sherbet sprinkles to scatter across the top of the cake. The very party trick that blew the mind of the lovely boy for whom this cake was made.

Et voila!

Haylz x

 

Pineapple Birthday Cake

It sure has been a while my fine friends!

It's been such a very long time since I decorated a cake that I thought it absolute best that I shared my first re-venture (yesitsawordbecauseisaidso) into the art of buttercream.

What you see both above and below is a hummingbird cake, filled and decorated with a white chocolate buttercream, and ratehr delightfully topped with a head made of tape and cellophane.

Yes it was fun.

Yes they did love it.

Yes I want to do it again.

Haylz x

Sins Ocean Birthday Cake

Oh yes, another glorious cake!

This delightful little thing was for one of my favourite people in the world, Sin, ordered by her gorgous lady, Stef.

Sin is what I like to call a jack of all trades. The woman is one of the most passionate and energetic ladies whom I've had the pleasure of knowing, I've never seen her give less than 100% to any of her many endeavours so it was a privelege to be able to present this to the birthday girl on her day of days. This cake was to represent her undying love of the ocean and surfing. Isn't it pretty?

It's a true buttercream beauty, topped with a wafer surfboard covered in royal icing and sprinkles, a gumpaste seagull and a gumpaste sun coated with yellow coconut.

Delish!

Oh and you should definitely check out Sins blog, Yes Ma'am.

Haylz x

Lavender Neapolitan Shortbreads

Also on my week off this week, I visited the Fiji Mart in Newtown and went to town on their spices. I managed to grab myself a huge bag of culinary lavender for a sweet $7. Hooray!

I've actually been looking for lavendar for ages, so couldn't believe my luck when I happened upon it, and golly that's a cheap price.

So somehoe for some reason the idea of Lavender Neapolitan shortbread popped into my head. I grabbed a good looking shortbread recipe from FoodGawker, made a couple of changes, split it in three, added dutch processed cocoa to one section, added lavendar and a little food dye to another, and vanilla to the third. I then used a log tin as a mould, lining it with baking paper and squishing the dough in layers into the tin, popped it in the freezer for a bit then sliced and baked. Holy crap wow that was a long sentence.

*exhale*

They were super short, really crubling and light and hardly buttery at all.

I think when I make them again I'll add a touch more lavendar, but otherwise they were bloody perfect, I only wish I hadn't left them all at m'ladys house!

Oh and they're gluten free. Hooray for coeliacs!

Haylz x