Salted Caramel Cheesecake

On an unrelated note, can I just say that I don’t understand “Red Velvet”.  It seems the trend at the moment is to have either red velvet cakes or cupcakes & after attempting my third different recipe.....I....am....done!!  All three attempts were tasteless and the texture of the cake wasn’t even nice.  No more red velvet for me!

Something that is successful and very, very yummy is Donna Hay’s Salted Caramel Cheesecake.  I do hope to add the recipe to this post at some point.  It is so rich that it would easily serve a crowd.  I am a cheesecake lover from way back & I have to say this one is right up at the top of the list.

Easter Cake Pops

Here are some easter samplers, I think the easter eggs need a little more work!

Easter Cake Pops

I also made some brownies this week which were fantastic!  Double Chocolate & Raspberry Brownies which are featured on page 55 of the Women’s Weekly book “Little Squares & Slices”.  They were so yummy that you’ll notice there is no photo to be seen!  I also want to try these again but as Triple Chocolate Brownies......mmmmm!!!

My boy turned 7 and decided on Spiderman for his birthday cake.  There are some really cool layered Spiderman/Batman/Superman cakes but he only wanted Spiderman.  I had a busy week with two other cakes to make for the same day so I used the freezer.  I baked the cakes and wrapped them in cling film and froze them – it worked really well; I even coated one with buttercream first and I also shaped and coated the Spiderman one!

Spiderman Cupcakes

Cupcakes

These were for school and because I already had so much to do I decided to push the limits a little by freezing them fully decorated.  I had done some successful testing and it seemed to work fantastically.  Unfortunately between me freezing them and defrosting them NSW got hit by the worst weather it has seen in a very long time – my decorated cupcakes went soggy L  I tried a couple of different things to bring them back (a fan, icing sugar, tylose powder) but nothing really worked.  Next time I will freeze the undecorated cupcakes as it’s not worth the risk!

Spiderman / Web Cookies

Cookies

I checked with my cookie decorating guru about whether it is possible to freeze these decorated and she had previously done them individually wrapped with success.  Mine were for the party table so I wrapped them in single layers with cling film and put them into an airtight container.  I transferred them to the fridge first and then put them (unwrapped) onto a cooling rack to defrost completely before returning them to an airtight container.  Worked – hooray!!

Spiderman Cake Pops

Cake Pops

I was going to do these ahead and freeze them too but given the state of the weather I decided that wasn’t a good idea.  They were rushed (as you can tell) but the kids devoured them in a matter of seconds!

Spiderman Cake

Spiderman Cake
I used two 20x30cm white chocolate mud cakes with buttercream in the middle.  I cut the oval Spiderman shape for his head from this.  As I was so short on time (or I would be by the time party day rolled around) I froze the cake once it was cut and fully buttercreamed.  I just wrapped it in cling film & I had no problems defrosting it when the time came to cover it with fondant.  It was a pretty easy cake to decorate as I only needed to cover it and then pipe the web detail on top.  I had, what I thought was, a really good idea to write the “Happy Birthday” greeting on the cake board – because we weren’t going to be eating it I decided to use scrapbooking rub-on letters.  It sounded like a great idea and I thought it would save me the time of piping it on.  Note to self:  Rub-ons do NOT stick to fondant!!!!  It was a complete disaster which is why there is a little cardboard printout stuck on top instead!

Turf Cake

I created this turf cake for my Uncle who is a turf farmer.  I’m pleased with the way it turned out as it actually looks the way that I pictured it in my head.  It was a mud cake underneath all that fondant.  “Cobar” is his nickname, not his actual name, just in case you were wondering!

Turf Cake

La-La Bird Cake

La-La Bird Cake

I really like the way this one turned out.  It was for a friend’s little girl who was turning two.  We’d found inspiration from Elite Cake Designs and I was able to cut out the shapes early and leave them to dry.  This was also a white chocolate mud cake, baked in a 22cm round tin (well, two tins actually as the first attempt to bake the cake was a bit of a disaster!).  I really liked the fact that I didn’t have to spend time colouring the fondant for the cake, I could just use it straight out of the packet.  I was lucky that there wasn’t too much piping on it though, that red royal icing tasted horrible!!

Drill Cake

Drill Cake

I had a lot of fun making this one.  I wasn’t sure about the height to begin with, I thought a single layer would be too thin but a double layer would be too thick – in the end I went with the double layer.  This was a chocolate mud cake baked in two 20x30cm tins.  I managed to cut the drill out in three pieces and used the majority of the cake up, which means less leftovers that I feel obligated to eat!  The only problem with it was using all that black and grey buttercream, the kids didn’t seem to mind their black mouths though.  Oh and I forgot to take an actual photo of this one – I can’t believe I did it – the only photo I have is from my mobile phone which explains why it looks so bad!!

Community Markets - Attempt Number Two

We had success!!  Hooray!!  I only came home with two cake pops this time, sooooo much better than my first attempt.

I went armed with very specific signage this time to spell out the fact that they were CAKE pops!!

I made pigs and chickens and then did some Elmo too.  There was supposed to be Cookie Monster to go with him, but circumstances just didn’t allow for him to be done in time.  I am happy with the pigs and chickens but I think next time I will make the mouth and nose for Elmo rather than using pre-made things.

I finished Cookie Monster off on the Monday after the markets & used him for a test postage run out to Cobar to see how he would travel.  It was quite warm and he survived the trip perfectly.  Australia Post managed to get him there the very next day (even though it usually takes two days).  Reports from the recipient were very positive!  I now plan on doing a couple more tests before advertising for postal orders.

Pigs

Chickens

Elmo

Cookie Monster

Christening Cake

I had a call from a friend who wanted to know if I could do a christening cake for the weekend – giving me a total of three days to work with.  I declined as I did not think I could do a reasonable job in that timeframe.  Somehow, after another phone call, I ended up saying that I would give it a shot.  It was a pretty simple cake and, even though it was my first time baking this particular chocolate mud cake recipe in a tin that size, it worked out quite well.  I had trouble with the blocks for the top – why is it that the simplest things always end up being the hardest to actually achieve?  The cake topper and the ribbon were given to me by the customer.

This was my first time using ganache to coat the cake instead of buttercream – I still hoped the finished look would be a lot smoother than it ended up.  I’m hoping more practice will help with that!