Sweet Hearts Cupcakes

Posted in Baked Treats by cakecrumbs

It’s nearly that time of year again. Now, Cam and I don’t really celebrate Valentine’s, especially because our anniversary is 2 days later. But I do love the excuse to bake to a theme. Last year I made a set of cookie embossers in the style of Love Hearts, known elsewhere as Sweet Hearts or Conversation Hearts. The embossers are still available for purchase here.

Last year I made cookies with them. This year I decided to switch it up by using them to make little cupcake toppers instead!

[PHOTOS AND RECIPE AFTER THE JUMP]

5Feb2020

Marshmello Minecraft Rainbow Birthday Cake

Posted in Uncategorized by cakecrumbs

This week is a cake I made for a young boy celebrating his 8th birthday. The initial brief was for a replica of the cake on the cover of Marshmello’s Light It Up single. As we discussed it, though, their’s son’s love for Minecraft came up and I was asked to incorporate the TNT, and then some other Minecraft elements. It evolved into the original cake pixelated into the Minecraft style.

To compliment the cake I 3D modelled and printed a Minecraft cake topper. I’ve since made them available to purchase on my Etsy store. So if you need one customised for yourself or a loved one, pick it up here.

Inside the cake was a little different. It needed to be not only a rainbow banana cake, but dairy free and low sugar. It’s a request I get often enough when catering for young birthday parties due to an idea that all the sugary foods send the kids a little hyper. [A little science trivia for you: it’s the excitement of the event that sends the little ones so loopy. Both sugar and food colouring have no effect on hyperactive behaviour!] It’s also steeped in concern for maintaining a healthier diet at a young age, too.

The issue when it comes to baking is that sugar is an important part of the leavening process in dry flour mixes. Simply cutting out the sugar can make for one flat cake! Combining that with dairy-free is a challenge, but one I’m used to. So for this one I adjusted my favourite vegan cake recipe to get the right results.

[keep reading for step by step]

13Nov2019

Butterscotch Layer Cake

Posted in Baked Treats, Dessert by cakecrumbs

Butterscotch is one of my absolute favourite flavours. Drizzle a good butterscotch sauce on practically any pudding and I’m there. But outside of puddings, it’s almost unheard of in cake form here. In fact, the first time I heard of it was quite some years ago when an Indian family commissioned a cake from me and requested it for the flavour. They told me that back home it was quite the common flavour and fairly standard in most bakeries. I remember the sweet aroma that filled my kitchen as it baked. I was so jealous that I couldn’t taste this one and swore I’d make it again for myself soon.

Here we are quite some years later and I’m finally making one!

More after the jump

14Mar2019

Chocolate Sponge Drip Cake

Posted in Uncategorized by cakecrumbs

This next cake was a small cake order I received. Well, small was the operative word until a last minute change of heart moved it closer into regular cake territory. This customer had recently moved to Aus with her husband and was celebrating her husbands birthday for the first time here together. She said she wanted something special, a homemade ‘Aussie’ cake.

We went over a few ideas and settled on a simple naked sponge with a smattering of chocolate ganache.

Continue reading →

10Oct2018

Magnolia Sponge Cake

Posted in Decorating, Dessert by cakecrumbs

Spring is undoubtedly my favourite time of the year. It would be enough that the weather is generally just perfect so much of the time. But the way the entire landscape transforms into an array of colourful blooms is just the icing on the proverbial cake. Its all the motivation I need to get out into the garden and start working.

The house my partner and I recently moved into has two large magnolia trees in the garden. As someone who is pretty passionate about having a predominantly Australian native garden I had considered replacing them. But the first spring they bloomed was all the convincing I needed to let them stay. They couple of weeks of colour the bring is more than worth it. This year when it came time for them to bloom I was inspired to use it in a cake somehow.

Continue reading →

2Apr2014

Children’s Toy Birthday Cake

Posted in Decorating by cakecrumbs

This last month has been pretty cake crazy, and with a number of family events around the corner it’s about to get crazier. Every time I finish a cake project, another one appears. When I finished the owl cake I was relieved to have a break from impending deadlines, but then the next Link’s Blacklist Project round opened for sign ups. Oops. Maybe one day I’ll be able to return to my own giant list of fan art projects that’s steadily growing my the moment.

Last month I got the opportunity to step away from all that and make a birthday cake for an occasion, rather than an art project. This family had been at the birthday party of another family who commissioned a cake from me. They liked what they saw enough to want me to make a cake for their son’s birthday, too. That’s always an incredibly flattering way to receive a commission, knowing the person has seen and tasted your work and wants more of it.

The idea was as simple enough: they wanted a colourful, two tiered cake adorned with all their son’s favourite toys.

Continue reading →

28Nov2013

Second Birthday Train Cake

Posted in Decorating by cakecrumbs

This cake is another of the commissions I was working on last month. I was contacted by the family of a little boy for who I made his first birthday cake. I actually couldn’t believe an entire year has passed since then. I still think we’re in April most days.

After a bit of back and forth we worked out a design that would suit the occasion and I got to work.

Continue reading →

21Nov2013

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire Cupcakes

Posted in Decorating by cakecrumbs

Depending on which corner of the world you call home, Catching Fire is either out or about to be out. Here in Aus, it came out today. I have to wait until tomorrow night to see it. If you’re wondering if I am going moderately insane having to wait an extra day, then yes. Yes I am. I am so excited I am quite literally bouncing. A lot.

To celebrate, I decided to make some Catching Fire themed cupcakes. Not that I need more sugar in by vicinity right now, but I couldn’t resist.

Having only seen the trailer (more times than I am going to admit) I thought I’d go for cupcakes that were symbolic of certain characters, rather than trying to depict actual objects from the movies as I’ve done in the past. I also wanted to do it in the least spoiler-ey way possible for those of you who haven’t read the books. So all these cupcakes mostly depict things we’ve seen in the trailers already.

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29Oct2013

Ghostly Pumpkin Cupcakes

Posted in Baked Treats by cakecrumbs

I mentioned in my previous post that I’ve never tried pumpkin in a sweet dish before. With Halloween around the corner I decided it was a good change to change all that. I bought a stack of pumpkins on the weekend and started having some fun.

My first stop was incorporating pumpkin into cake. I absolutely love all the spices that make up pumpkin pie spice, so I just knew I was going to love these. But I also wanted to incorporate some of Halloween into them as well. Here’s where the ghosts come in.

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1Aug2013

Spherical Concentric Layer Cake Tutorial

Posted in Tutorials by cakecrumbs

This tutorial will show you the most basic and least equipment-heavy way of baking the concentric layer cake as seen in both the Earth cake and Jupiter cake. You can stop at half way and just make a hemisphere cake, or make two hemispheres and join them into one as in this video.

How big you make the cake is up to you. For the Earth cake I baked the largest layer in a 2 litre pudding basin. As the Jupiter cake one was for a tute and not for a group of people, I only baked it as big as a 1 litre pudding bowl. There’s no other reason why I baked the sphere smaller – you can make it as big or small as you like.

Let’s begin! Continue reading →