Pleased to meet you… yes I am ‘that cake lady’.

Yup, I got called ‘that cake lady’ in the weekend. Granted it was a kid who has seen a number of my cakes but never my face. And to be perfectly honest, he seemed kind of excited to meet me. A fancy cake is a mystical and fabulous thing to a child. Colourful and beautiful (hopefully) and filled with the promise of sugary goodness. It just makes me think of Willy Wonka and what a magical land I thought it was when I will little… albeit a little scary too.

I don’t think I mind being known as ‘that cake lady’… I think. Maybe if I started a business one day that’s what I would call it? Regardless, it was a first.

It was a fairly mammoth week of cakes actually. Even Stuart has agreed that I was remarkably calm and laid back about it all. It is quite possible it was the day off I had on Friday while our heat pump was installed and then the subsequent bliss of being completely cozy and warm that made it all the more manageable.

You may (or may not) have noticed that I have been rather absent lately. Its not just been from the lack of cakes to show off but the fact that our laptop has died and has not yet been revived. I have been doing some exciting cooking lately though…. And have even taken some pictures of the finished products…. Tarte Tatin, Homemade Ramen noodles and more breads to name a few

That’s another thing actually, I have become extremely remiss at taking ‘in progress’ photos of my cakes or any other food things. Either I just completely forget, or I do take pictures and then decide that they’re just not exciting looking enough or ‘blog-worthy’. But that’s what I said I was going to do…. Document the behind the scenes stuff, show the process… the good and the bad. I will do better…. I promise.

So the three cakes I made this week….

The first was a birthday cake for one of my workmates. It did turn out to be a much taller cake than I had expected…. A result of wanting to make sure it was a big cake without putting enough thought into it. It was an orange cake with a whiskey chocolate ganache and apparently it tasted good.

Next was a first for me…. Fruit cake! I have a much healthier respect for fruit cake than I ever used to. I have never exactly been a fan of the stuff, but I actually think I would enjoy it now after making one myself (with a fabulous recipe of course). So this one was for a friends mother (hence the fruit cake) and it was an interesting challenge to make something that would be a bit more traditional but still my style.

Last but not least was a baby shower cake. A lemon cake with white chocolate and vanilla bean butter cream icing. This was my first time making daisies and I’m stoked with how this one looked…. The bees are my favourite.

One big ass cake

To say I was a little apprehensive about making a five tier wedding cake in my very ordinary sized oven would definately be true. To say I was expecting drama, a little tearing of hair out, or even a mini disaster would also be true. The sheer volumes that I was working with meant odds were stacked against me with my track record. I was prepared for the worst. But what happened? Nothing. I had a very relaxed and calm three days at home, baking, icing, decorating and listening to too loud music of all shapes and sizes.

The quantities were quite impressive though. I was told this cake would be THE dessert.... eeekkk! I did convince them to maybe serve something else with it as well. So here is a few stats to wow your pants off:
- 10 x cakes baked (which equalled 16 x the original recipe in total)
- 7kg of fondant icing to cover the cake
- 36 eggs
- over 3kg of sugar
- 4kg yoghurt
- 36 lemons
- 4 litres of oil
- 3 dozen roses

You may guess by now, it was a lemon cake and it was covered in a white chocolate and vanilla bean butter icing (and then the fondant of course). This was the first time for me using fresh flowers and also the first time using a stencil with fondant and royal icing.... yes, like I said, I had reason to be nervous.

I was lucky enough to have my own personal photographer on hand while I was setting up and cutting the cake, so for once there are some decent pictures of the process:

Big chunks of fondant all ready for kneading... I think I know officially have OOS from doing this.

Cakes get the butter icing treatment before the fondant is put over top, not very exiciting looking but for anyone who is actually interested in what happens before it is made to look all pretty.

Stencilled and not stencilled cakes. You're thinking, whats with the plastic bags they're sitting on, weirdo? It makes it easier to move them, pick them up, slide them along the bench etc without damaging any of the icing.. ok?

The bottom layer of cake in its just-out-of-the-oven look. Good square (or round) cakes are all about perfect baking paper.... thanks Yvonne, I would have never known if it wasn't for you!

More stencilled cakes waiting to be put together.

The two base layers finally all put together. I just like the sun coming through the blinds onto them.

Three dozen red roses got delivered on the Friday, which made my house pretty at least for a short time and I couldn't help but take some pictures with them.

Construction time!!!! Getting the roses in place was like a puzzle, fix one bit, and the other bit goes wrong. But it all came together after a little back and forth.

Piping icing onto the pillars to help them stick to the layer I was about to place on top.

And now for the decontruction!!! With help from the fabulous Gina, Kylie and Stuart.... Kylie being the one behind the camera taking lovely photos.... thanks! First layer comes down.

Stuart and Gina being cheeky monkies

Finally allowed to touch something. tasting the 'glue' icing... so easy to please.

Pulling the wodden dowel out of the cake before cutting

Cutting.... cutting.... and more cutting

140 slices of cake (with turkish delight) ready for the eating. Not that I had any, for some reason I never eat the cakes I make. Don't ask me why, maybe I've just spent too much time with it already, and I figure its really there for everyone else to enjoy.

So.... there..... biggest cake yet. Happy how it went, happy its done and happy they liked it. Next cake isn't until next month, but I'm sure I'll find somethign at least mildly entertaining to write about before then.

When Kate comes to town....

I got to cook for two of my favorite people on Sunday... my sister and my husband. For some reason when Kate is here I can't help myself. I think its the level of appreciation I recieve from both of them - again, one of those self satisfying things. I think I have come to the conclusion that for me, cooking is a fairly selfish thing... even though one of my main motivators is that I like feeding people. And there it is again, its about the fact that I like feeding people.

So we had a Sunday feast, as people should on a Sunday. Go ahead and be productive or active or whatever makes you feel like you've achieved something in the morning, but Sunday afternoons should be all about doing nothing... or in our case, eating.

Anyhow, lets get to why we're all here... the pictures.

Please note: Food was consumed in small quantities and over a long period of time to avoid any abnormally large food babies.

Melon and proscuitto:



 Homemade ciabatta with oven dried tomatoes and pecorino

 Baked zucchini with homemade ranch (in a nusery ryhmes bowl!)

 Mushroom ravioli with tomato cream sauce

 Beet ravioli with olive oil and parmesan

 Beef carpaccio with rocket and parmesan

 Chilli prawn ravioli with pea and mint sauce

 Pork and fresh fennel ravioli with brown butter and sage sauce

Stranded and aimless

It sounds dramatic, but really it isn't. It is Easter Monday and we were booked to head back from Nelson to Wellington this morning. The fog that surrounded Nelson airport (and really nowhere else) had other ideas. It didn't take long for our flight to be cancelled and it took even less time to learn that there were no available seats until Wednesday afternoon. So this post comes to you from the South... plan free, care free and... exhausted. It has been a busy weekend up until now..... party preparation and secret squirrel cake making was the name of the game.

This party wasn't all about cake though and I find the following pictures equally as drool-worthy as any cake:

So what do I say about this cake? After it being suggested to me that I do a bunch of small cakes, I found this idea online and decided it was something different and fun for a birthday cake. I really liked it, and amazingly (with the help of the family), I managed to keep this cake a secret which for those that know my mother-in-law, is quite impressive. Suffice to say she was stoked and ended up sending some of the cakes off with people as little 'gifts'... very sweet:

Its time for a nap, and its Easter Monday - you all need to get back to your naps too. Happy Easter people!

Weekend cookfest

Without the responsibilities of having any cakes imminently due I have been prolific in the kitchen over the weekend. I guess this could been considered a little crazy, but to explain... for me, time spent in my kitchen when I have time to myself and the freedom to cook whatever I like is about as relaxing as it gets in my world. I also enjoy feeding people, so the cooking love gets shared to whoever might be nearby. This post is more pictures and less words, which for some is probably appealing.

I think I am most proud of my bread... actual ciabatta that looked and tasted like it came from a bakery. It just goes to show that if you follow a recipe good things happen - not something I do terribly often (except for my cakes of course).

Then there was the pasta... this was actually for a purpose though. Some friends have a wee one week old baby, and this is my way of helping out:

Oh and then came the hot cross buns... while I'm into this bread business I was curious whether I could pull off some hot cross buns (it is the season and all). I have to confess that I actually tried to make them a weekend or two ago and they could have been like little cricket balls. Who knows what happened... but second time lucky anyway:

So I've been thinking for some time that I really need to learn how to pipe designs on to cakes... I think its probably one of the toughest skills to learn in the whole cake thing and I need to start out slow. So I decided to decorate some cookies with royal icing as a first test run. Still a long way to go, for sure, but its a start:

Now its Sunday afternoon, exercising has been done, laundry has been done, nap time is approaching and.... there is a roast in the overn... aaahhhhhhhh.