{Bake} Valentines Day: Vanilla Cake for two and Carnation Petit Fours

Ok l know this post comes a little too late but hey better than never!  Sorry l have had a most exhausting week and have failed to write this early as l had planned!!  So this will be the quickest post l have ever written l think!!!

Last week l had a bit of fun in the kitchen and made vanilla cake and rose water macarons with a Turkish delight infused white chocolate ganache!!  Yes a complete mouthful!!!  Don't think that will appear in recipe books anytime soon! hahahaha! Finally my French Macarons worked!!  I followed the basic macaron recipe created by Steph from Raspberri Cupcakes and finally l have found a method that actually works!!  So here is her recipe for some delicious Strawberry Balsamic Macarons! http://www.raspberricupcakes.com/2011/10/balsamic-strawberry-butter-cake.html

I also transformed my Vanilla Cake into a cupcake cake for two with cute white chocolate spoons and a fondant heart and finally white chocolate coated vanilla cake with vanilla butter cream!  I had lots of fun testing out a new piping method where you paint food colour on inner of piping bag and then press together and then put in your butter cream and start to pipe until the colours blend!!  It was so fun to do and created the prettiest icing ever!  I will definitely be using this method more often!  So much fun!

Hope you all have a wonderful Valentines Evening!

Kisses and Hugs

Larissa
XOXO

{Bake} Conquering the Giant Cupcake!

I have been a bit MIA the last 2 weeks as l have been busy busy with getting the kids off to school and kindergarten but during this time l did manage to conquer the giant cupcake!!  I was uncertain at first if l could do it but l pleasantly surprised myself! 

Giant Cup cake made by me!

Inspiration for Giant Cupcake from client

A neighbour of mine approached me to make her grand daughters birthday cake as she had tried to make it several times with no success!  Her Daughter had an image of how she wanted the cake to look which included the chocolate casing! (think mine came pretty darn close!!) Now my neighbour is a great baker so l thought oh no if she can't do it l wonder if l can??  

I was a little scared...to say the least so l decided to do a test cake for Australia Day as we were having guests over for a BBQ!!  I decided to make it into a HUGE Lamington Cupcake which looked rather good and tasted mmmmm DELICIOUS!!

Giant Lamington Cupcake

My giant cupcake worked out perfectly thanks to a wonderful tutorial l came across on Cake Central which l wanted to share with you all!  Of course l didn't have candy melts but used about 1 tablespoon of copha in 300g of chocolate but go take a look at this tutorial as it is quite comprehensive!  Don't you just love her gorgeous giant cupcake??  I do!  https://cakecentral.com/tutorial/giant-cupcake-candy-melt-base  

Another great resource l came across was on you tube through Cupcake Addiction where she put in a whole heap of chocolate into the base and swirled it around the pan to cover all the grooves and l have to say that this worked best leaving a nice smooth finish!  Here is the link to the video by cupcake addiction who also provide a tutorial for making the whole cake in several parts 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QG3n1OHwMYk

Well l hope this has helped any of you wanting to attempt a giant cupcake and l wanted to also thank the Gorgeous Apsi from Dream House Cakes who made all of the Gorgeous Butterflies for me!  She is so very talented and you should go check out her wonderful cakes on her facebook page!! https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dream-House-Cakes/168070723263553?ref=ts   A true talent wouldn't you agree??

I will be back soon with a Valentines Day post of cake for two and a pretty flower petit four!

Take Care

Larissa

XOXO