Highlight of our weekend baking projects... Homer's favourite donut in The Simpsons with Bart, Millhouse and Ralph hanging around.

 

Sometimes I am still amazed at what sugar and more sugar i.e., fondant can do. Amazing stuff when you think about it. And to turn it into different textures like fondant sprinkles. This cake it 20 times the sized of a regular donut so it should feed just as many mouths! ;)

 

(It's chocolate mud on the inside... delish!)

 



Happy Birthday Ari. Enjoy your last single digit year! xx 

 

We said no baking last weekend. It was a bit of a white lie.

We had a special one (and overdue as it was) for Cherry & Johnson on their 1st Wedding Anniversary. Some of you might know that I was on holidays last year in February and their Sydney Wedding was smack bang in the middle of my USA travels so unfortunately, we weren't there to celebrate with them (we were there at the reception in HK though, and made up for it by drinking bottles of wine!!!). So I had made them a cutting cake for photos and there were numerous mishaps on the way. Cake-sitting issues, emergency surgery on the cake by Ms. D, forgetting the cake toppers on the actual day, etc etc. Nightmarish I was told.

Recap here... The 2013 Ombre Cake for the HoHo Wedding

And it became, the 2014 Sunset Ombre for the HoHo Anniverary

Thanks Cherry for this photo. I know you tried very hard.

So it was only appropriate that they got to enjoy an edible anniversary cake this year! Even if it is about 6 weeks late!

I wasn't actually planning on posting it but Ms. D did such a great job on instagram that Vera Wang liked her photo/my cake. VERA WANG. THE REAL VERA WANG!!! Amazing!!!

Thanks Donna for your amazing camera skills and photos!

It made my night and these little bits of motivation makes what I do so very worth it. And the appreciation from those around me. Thank you for believing in me even when I didn't believe in myself. So truly humbled.

Instead we spent it at the Cake & Bake Show in Homebush and we had an absolutely fantastic time watching demonstrations, getting tips and hints and looking for new suppliers.

There is nothing better than picking your own apples from a tree and turning them into these delectable pies. And the best part is that everything is made from scratch. We made over 40 mini pies and they are all gone. Not to mention the huge batch of apple crumble we made last night. So yummy.

Second time going to Bilpin for Apple Picking. Our group had such an enjoyable day that we're thinking of making this an annual event. And even better, there are stone fruits such as peaches, nectarines and plums in Summer. Yippee!! The drive up and down the winding road is pretty cool too ;)

And this Apple Pie recipe is so good that I'll even share it with you all! This makes one pie in a flan tin or about 18 mini pies.

Apple Pie
1 x Flan pie/ 18 mini pies

Ingredients
1 3/4 C flour
1/2 C S.R. flour
185g butter, cubed
1/3 C sugar
1 egg
Demerara or caster sugar, to sprinkle
5 Granny Smith apples
Juice of 1 lemon
45g butter
1/2 C caster sugar
1 t cinnamon
1/4 t ground cloves

Method
1. Sift flours, pinch of salt and a pinch of salt into a large mixing bowl. Rub butter with your fingertips until mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs, then stir through sugar.
2. Lightly beat 1 egg with 1 tablespoon chilled water, then drizzle over flour mixture. Bring the dough together with cold hands and knead until smooth. Divide the dough into two pieces, one bigger than the other. Cling wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
3. Peel and slice apples to about 5mm thick and toss immediately in lemon juice.
4. Melt butter over low heat, add sugar, apples and spices and coat well. Cook for about 10 minutes until apples have softened. Allow to cool.
5. Roll out the larger pastry ball on a floured workbench to a 30cm circle (about 2mm thick). Gently presh into a 22 cm pie dish allowing the excess to overhang. Trim off excess.
6. Layer apples over pastry. Roll remaining pastry to 2mm thickness and cut into strips. Criss-cross over the pie. Brush top with milk and sprinkle with sugar. Chill pie for 30 minutes.
7. Preheat oven to 180°C, place pie dish on a baking tray and bake for 45 minutes or until golden brown.

And with every wedding comes the need for small gifts to each of the Bride and Groom's guests. What better way to remember it than more delicious food. Love is sweet, so why not gift a treat?

Vanilla bean cookies with fondant. My favourite is the bride's dress!

100 red velvet cupcakes with sour cream ganache & chocolate cupcakes with dark chocolate ganache plus a top tier black on white cutting cake. Decorated with the bride and groom's hand folded paper cranes, it looked so good the groom wanted to start without the bride and their guests! 

Loved the feel on this wedding @ Callan Park, Rozelle. It was a beautiful day. Laid back, easy going, low key yet tasteful...

The books are actually a lovely backdrop for the cake set up!

YES WE CAN!

Berries, the not-so-new wonder fruit. Low in sugar content and therefore perfect for the diabetic.

We made this baked cheesecake through some tweaking of our recipes and with Splenda. Sugar substitutes do not bake well in cakes. Ever. But looks like there may be some exceptions to those rules. More or less, the texture was like a normal baked cheesecake (dense, smooth and creamy and in this case, loaded with fruit) and 4 out of 5 people would say that the flavour is all there and if you hadn't told them it was sugarfree, they wouldn't have given it a second thought. Good news there!

So if you've got a friend of a family member who can't have too much sugar and a special occasion coming up, give this sugarfree cheesecake a thought or two!

Look forward to hearing from you :-)

Hope you're all thinking the quietness here was worth it. The anticipation /excitement / challenge was for me!

Since then, we said good bye to Summer and hello to a whole lot of rain and humidity. Not exactly a baker's friend. However, you bake what you gotta cake.

So this week, we had to be super duper prepared and efficient and precise. We got a bit of a head start with all our fondant pieces for our Thomas cake. Left them out to dry for at least a few days so that they were easy to pick up. Even in this weather though, it would have been better had the pieces had another 3 or so days. Some of it was still quite soft in the centre but workable.

About 4 days before the party, we had our cookie party treats finished. We made 60 and a few spares in total. Thomas, Edward and James. And bringing back pieces from our childhood, Thomas is #1, Edward #2, Henry #3, Gordon #4, James #5, Percy #6, Toby #7 and Emily, the only girl engine!

2 days before the party and this cake business is beginning to get real. 2.5 quantities of vanilla cake and 1.5 quantities of vanilla buttercream makes this strange looking dirty iced cake. Don't let it fool you. It is so heavy and pretty fragile at this stage. If you were in a hurry, then I'd say stick it in the fridge for an hour or two to set. But leaving it out overnight was our preferred method. The cake is iced and therefore sealed so all the moisture of the cake stays right there!

Night before the party, moment of truth...

Fondant the board, cut out your letters and assemble that cake! This is where we would have benefited from a kitchen that had air conditioning. I guess an open kitchen with ample air flow is the next best thing. However, we could definitely feel the humidity and it took a few goes to get the fondant right without too much pulling and tearing. (Note to all you other bakers out there, go with the good fondant, cheap fondant just doesn't work as well).

And ... 3 hours later... Ta da!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Birthday Justin! Love you loads munchkin xx

Thank you to Ann from howtocookthat. Her tips are amazing as are all her other posts and tidbits.