Cakes, Cupcakes and Cookies Market Stall

Last weekend was a very big first for me...my first ever stall at the local markets. A lovely lady has started a market called Mammas Fair, which is a market solely aimed at products for Mum's and their Bubs. Having never even attended one, I was very nervous, and unsure what to expect.
In preparation, I baked a toblerone mud cake for display, and decorated two fake cakes. I had seen some beautiful little car cookies here http://www.flickr.com/photos/42134065@N04/6019914446/in/faves-56138306@N07/ and decided to bake some similar to this, and sell them by the bag, and for the girls I baked daisies. I'm a bit cranky I didn't get a chance to photograph them...I think they looked great. For those wanting to have a go yourselves, here is the recipe I used from fellow blogger Glorious Treats http://glorioustreats.blogspot.com/2010/03/making-sugar-cookies-recipe-and-tips.html
Then came the cupcakes....Choc Choc, Choc Vanilla, Vanilla Choc, Vanilla Vanilla and Red Velvet - over 200 in total and they all sold well before the finishing time.
Overall I had an amazing morning, it all went like a bit of a blur but it was so much fun and I am filled with ideas for the next one!

Dinosaur Cupcakes

Tyrannosaurus Rex, Triceratops, Stegosauruses, Pterodactyl and Brontosaurus...yes I had heard of all of these dinosaurs before, but ask me what they looked like, and I wouldn't have had a clue...until I embarked on these of course! I made these cupcakes for a little boy's 3rd birthday, and he is absolutely dinosaur mad, and although he is only just turning 3, he knows each dinosaur by name, what they eat etc etc etc. I had alot of fun making all the dinosaur figurines, little dinosaur bones, and eggs to decorate the 54 cupcakes pictured, but the best bit was seeing little Lachlan's face as I pulled each cupcake from the box and have him tell me all about them as I set up the tiered display. The cupcakes are chocolate with a vanilla buttercream icing.

Horse Cupcakes

1 dozen cupcakes for a little girl who is horse mad! The horse was a lot of fun to make...again - I am loving the figurine modelling. The other decorations included some daisies, blooms, horse shoes and lady bugs - all pretty pink.

21st Purple Cupcakes

These vanilla cupcakes are iced with two shades of purple buttercream and decorated with some simple purple and yellow blossoms. The design is based on some I had made earlier this year...I love the purple foil cases of these though.

Hot Pink Disco Cupcakes

These cupcakes were made for a beautiful little girl's 7th disco birthday party. They are vanilla cupcakes with vanilla bean buttercream icing and were a big hit at the party. The fondant stars and mirrored balls were modelled from grey fondant and covered in edible glitter.

18th Birthday Cupcakes

I made an assortment of cupcakes to celebrate an 18th birthday on Friday. I made a dozen chocolate with chocolate ganache decorated with butterflies, 6 caramel with caramel buttercream and 6 vanilla with vanilla bean buttercream both decorated with fondant blossoms and flowers.

1 dozen chocolate cupcakes with chocolate ganache

21st Birthday Cupcakes

I have been playing around with various buttercream recipes, and yesterday I decided to do a bit of them all, and made up my own variation. Here it is pictured on chocolate cupcakes, it's a softer, smoother buttercream which is great for this style of swirl...and oh so yummy! Here is a picture of the cupcakes after they were topped with a fondant plaque.

Farm cupcakes

First day back to Kindy from the June/July school holidays, and as Jack's birthday was on the weekend, I have made these cupcakes for him to take and celebrate with his friends and teachers. This is the first time I have used this grass icing tip and it was so much fun! The fondant animals were leftover from my Rocky show entry, so it's nice to see them on a cake to be eaten! The flowers were also leftovers from my recent flower garden cake, although I did make some red lady bugs and flowers, and I think the hints of red really brighten the display.

Hot Pink Cupcakes

This bloom assortment was my favourite!

These cupcakes were part of a 90th birthday celebration....I wish I had taken my camera, the table was set beautifully with various other treats and chocolates. It all looked lovely! There were 2 dozen vanilla cupcakes with vanilla bean buttercream. The decorations were a combination of daisies, blooms and assorted mini flowers.

Dainty little cupcakes

I had 9 cupcakes leftover, so I decided to have a little play. Vanilla cupcakes iced with fondant, and decorated with little white sugar blossoms with a pink pearl centre...very pretty!

Another show entry

These cupcakes were for an entry at the Yeppoon show. After decorating the cakes I read the entry requirements and realised that there wasn't a section for 'decorated cupcakes' it was just 'cupcakes' and therefore they would be judged for their taste etc not just their looks. It wasn't a concern, but I would have taken a bit more care in the baking of the cakes had I known. The judging criteria is 3 points appearance, 5 points taste, 3 points texture and 3 points for originality. According to hubby, they are a great tasting cupcake, so fingers crossed. I am actually quite excited to be judged on how good they taste - not just what they look like.

I do love the design of these cakes... very pretty, yet simple and elegant! I think they would be lovely for a wedding, but also a ladies morning tea or baby shower. They remind me of my Grandma - I would have loved to have given her a set of these for her birthday.

Farm cupcake set

This is my other show entry; the category is for a set of cupcakes suitable for a birthday. I decided to go with a farm theme, mainly because I have been dying to make some of these adorable fondant figurines, and I wasn't disappointed. They were really simple to make, however they were extremely time consuming, especially the sheep - but they are so incredibly cute which makes it all worth while! I love these cakes, and I don't care whether I win with these, because as far as I am concerned they are the cutest cupcakes of all time!

Happy Mother's Day

This year two of my sister's that live in Brisbane were home visiting for a wedding, so I decided to host a Mother's Day lunch for our Mum. It was such a lovely day, and it was so nice to spend the day with my Mum and all of us girls. I cooked some lovely roast pork, a roast pumpkin and spinach salad and various other sides. For desert I baked lemon meringue cupcakes...I have been wanting to try these for a while, and they didn't disappoint - they were delicious!!!!! I gave half of the batch to my beautiful Mum-in-law, who is enjoying them while away in their caravan. I can't wait to try them again :-)

A bunch of flowers cupcakes

Today I spent the whole day baking (in other words - a great day) I baked a batch of chocolate biscuits with my little man, which we will decorate with royal icing tomorrow, and as I had an early Mother's Day gift box of cupcakes, made a batch of those too... They are vanilla cupcakes with vanilla swiss meringue buttercream icing decorated with "a bunch of flowers" all hand made from fondant.

Flower Cupcakes

I have been playing around with various buttercream recipes, and recently tried Swiss Meringue Buttercream. While it was lovely and smooth, I found the taste a little too buttery, so seeing these cupcakes were just for us, I thought I would play around with the recipe and reduced the quantity of butter and I think it tasted much better. Next time I think I will add a little more sugar, and perhaps use vanilla beans rather than extract. I am determined to get the perfect buttercream... one that pipes beautiful swirls but tastes fantastic! Here they are decorated with daisies, ribbon roses, five petal flowers and a large fantasy flower.

Hot Pink Cupcakes

These cupcakes were just for fun... using the leftover elmo icing, I added some more butter, milk and icing sugar to tone down the red turning it into a beautiful hot pink which looked great with the hot pink cake cases.

Beach Theme Cupcakes

This week I have been creating beach themed decorations for a cupcake order for 42 cakes for two little girl's birthday party. I really enjoyed this order, the fun colours and getting to be a little creative. The starfish were made by using a normal star cutter, then squishing and squeezing the fondant until it resembled a starfish shape, then adding the finer details like the dimples and lines. It was also a great chance to make some more frangipani, and use my new flower cutters. I tweaked my butter cream recipe and the result was a beautiful creamy icing that tasted just like vanilla ice cream - and the appearance of the little vanilla seeds made it look like sand. I was really happy with how they turned out, and I am enjoying one of the leftovers now with my coffee..... yummy!!!

Baby cakes

My Mum is attending a ladies coffee morning tomorrow and needs to bring a plate, so she asked me to put together a plate of tiny bite sized cakes for the ladies. Thankfully, some new cutters that I had ordered online arrived yesterday, so I whiped up these little daisies to top off the cakes. I ended up with another cupcake order for Saturday, so I didn't have alot of time to spend, but they looked very pretty and tasted delicious! Have a lovely morning Mum!!!

12th Birthday cupcakes

This morning's order was for 20 cupcakes for a girl's 12th birthday party. She loved the purple blossoms used on my niece's 6th birthday cupcakes (on 23 March), so I used the same blossoms, but made a few changes to make them a little more elegant and more suitable for a 12 year old. They were caramel cupcakes, with swiss meringue butter cream (with a hint of caramel) decorated with purple and yellow blossoms. I also used my patchwork cutters to create the birthday girl's 12, and I was really happy with the result.

Pretty in Purple

 

These cupcakes were also for my niece... yes I have two with the same birthday - and they are in the same family too!!! She is 6 and wanted her cupcakes to be more "pretty and girly", rather than the tween style of her big sister. Anyway, these were also chocolate cupcakes with lavender icing, decorated with pink, yellow and pearl sprinkles and topped with a variety of purple blossoms (all finished with shimmer of course)