An army cake

Today my boy turned 8...although he quite often acts older than his brother, it was an exciting day in our house! He is the first to have a birthday in the family, so the countdown pretty much began soon after Christmas.
He has a very keen interest in the army, and this year wanted "an army cake". While I know I should be very involved and take a huge interest in this particular cake, he wasn't having a party, so the idea of me spending hours making some magnificent army creation seemed like a bit of over kill; and therefore very little preparation was put in, and it was all left until Monday night when I had a browse on flickr (my favourite source of inspiration), and where I found a cake. I don't think I have ever 'copied' a cake before, but this time I did...so whoever made the cake originally - thank you!!!!

Cupcakes for school

These 24 cupcakes were made to take to school for the classmates. They are a very simple design decorated using Broncos colours, but I don't think you need to go too overboard for school cakes, just good old fashioned chocolate cakes with chocolate icing.

Bow cake

This weekend's cake was for my wonderful Mum-in-law (and I am not being sarcastic), I have been wanting to try making fondant bows for a while, and as I have been sick with some kind of flu and didn't have the time or energy to think or make anything else, I decided now was the time to give it a go...after all, it's just one giant bow to cover and decorate an entire cake!
Anyway, it was very easy to make (although my fondant did crack a little) and I can't wait to have a go at making some other variations on this in the future.

The cake itself was an 8" chocolate mudcake, covered with ganache, then (as I need practice putting on fondant) covered in chocolate fondant. I was quite happy with how it turned out, considering how little work went into it...a great cake for those busy weeks! You will definitely be seeing more of these in the future :-)

Muesli Bars

These simple muesli bars are a favourite in my boys lunchboxes and as they are so quick and easy to make I thought I would share the recipe. It is based on a Donna Hay recipe, published in her 6th annual kids magazine, and it's the best thing to cook if it's Sunday night and you realise you have nothing for the kids lunches in the morning...which happens to me more than I would like to admit :-)

Ingredients
3 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup plain flour, sifted
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup golden syrup
1/2 cup vegetable oil
Chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 160 degrees. Place the oats, flour and sugar in a bowl and mix to combine. Place the honey, golden syrup and oil in a microwave safe jug and heat on high for 30 seconds or until very runny, then give them a whisk until the vegetable oil is combined. Pour the honey mixture into the oats and mix well. Spoon into a 20cm x 30cm tin lined with baking paper and spread evenly. Sprinkle over some chocolate chips then flatten the mixture. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until golden. Allow to cool in the tin, then remove and cut into muesli bars.

Princess Cakes

I had so much fun making these beautiful princess cakes. I must admit I had to do a bit of googling to find out who exactly princess Aurora and Jasmine were (having 3 boys I don't have a lot of experience with Disney princesses), but once I decided on the overall themes of the cakes I loved every minute of making these beautifully 'girly' cakes!

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.

Wedding Cake

Here is the finished photo of the wedding cake!