Monogram cakes

Cute little monogram cakes for a couple of cute girls.


These cakes were inspired by the Cameo cakes I made. As gorgeous as they were, they were not suitable for everyday eating. Just a bit too much fondant.

.....and I do need to eat cake everyday, so this is something I can easily manage.



These cakes are ovals cut from a large slab of Whimsical Bakehouse chocolate cake.

Cover the cakes with a thin layer of Italian Butter cream as a crumb coat and refrigerate until firm. Cover with a second layer ensuring that it is as smooth as possible. An offset spatula is good to use.

Cut out a fondant oval and place on the cake.

Decorate with royal icing. Now if I am decorating something small like this I don't want to mix up a big batch of icing. So I use the powdered premix and just mix up a small quantity, you just mix it with water - so easy! You can pick it up from cake decorating supply shops and sometimes my local spotlight has it in stock.

Pop into a piping bag and decorate with small dots around the fondant oval and write the name onto the oval (eeek how awful is that writing - must practice more)

Finally I used a little Donna Hay cake bling (white dots) around the edge and finished with a black satin ribbon.


There you have it cute monogram cakes just the right size to share.

Cookies and Cream cheesecakes from Martha Stewart Cupcakes

I promised to share my triumphs and disasters here and although not quite a disaster this one has been a bit of a lesson in paying better attention to the recipe.

Ok first mistake, not writing a shopping list resulting in me buying cream instead of sour cream. Come on, the recipe is for cookies and cream it's an easy mistake to make. I decided to risk using the cream rather than return to the shop and the result was good, although I think that the original sour cream recipe would be less sweet and have a firmer texture.

Mistake number 2. Fill the cakes almost to the top the recipe states. I make a lot of cupcakes. Cupcakes need room to rise so you only fill them about 1/2 to 3/4 full. I got a bit confused.

Cheesecake cupcake reality - they do not rise - so listen to the recipe and fill them nearly to the top.

So what was the verdict with these cheesecake cupcakes...........

Yum - and yum again. Would make them again for sure making sure next time I followed the recipe a little better.

Recipe adapted from Martha Stewart's Cupcake cake book

Cookies and Cream Cheesecakes
makes 30

Ingredients
42 cream-filled chocolate sandwich cookies such as Oreos or Delta Cream. 30 whole and 12 coarsely chopped.
910 g (2 pounds) cream cheese room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
4 large eggs room temperature lightly beaten
1 cup sour cream
pinch salt

1. Preheat oven to C (275 F). Line standard muffin tins with cupcake papers. Place 1 whole cookie in the bottom of each liner.

2. With an electric mixer on medium high beat cream cheese until smooth, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Gradually add sugar and beat until combined. Beat in vanilla.
3. Add eggs one at a time, beating to combine and scraping down sides of bowl after each addition. Beat in sour cream and salt. Fold in chopped cookies by hand gently.

4. Divide batter evenly among cookie-filled cups filling each almost to the top. Bake until filling is set, approx 22 mins. Transfer tins to wire racks to cool completely. Refrigerate in tins at least 4 hours (or overnight). Remove from tins just before serving.

I've gone Cameo Crazy - April decorated cake

I've gone Cameo crazy.

All of a sudden it seems everywhere I look there are cute cameo things just begging me to take them or make them and I can't resist.

For Christmas I got myself the gorgeous Peggy Porschen's Cake Chic "stylish cookies and cakes for all occasions" with instructions on these amazing cakes (well hers are a little bit more polished than mine). I got myself the cameo moulds required and yesterday made the cakes and covered them with fondant.

......then today I was having a quick shop at Appletree Grove in Springwood and I came across Robert Gordon's cameo spoon set. Serendipitous shopping or what.

It was a no brainer, those spoons were mine. Although I do feel a bit sorry for the set of bluebird spoons I left behind, those poor little birdies looked like they needed a nice warm home.

Anyway back to the cakes, I am trying to make at least one decorated cake a month whether I need to or not to improve my skills.

This is Whimsical Bakehouse chocolate cake recipe baked in a 30cm X 22cm rectangle tin then cut with oval cutters to make the necessary shapes.

The cutter in this pic is round. just pretend its an oval one for this tutorial

Cover the ovals in buttercream, then rolled fondant (can you believe it I made my own from scratch it actually tastes really good) and then decorate with a black oval and the cameo which is made with a mould and gumpaste.


Now I had trouble finding the moulds in Australia so I had them sent from England from the following site http://www.design-a-cake.co.uk/


Finally a bit of royal icing, some Donna Hay cake bling and a black ribbon.

Viola cameo cakes, just the thing for your next afternoon tea.

Now I just need an excuse to get those darn cute bluebird spoons.