Funky 16th Birthday

Funky 16th, a photo by Coco Jo Cakes on Flickr.

My second last cake for 2011, was this triple layer vanilla butter cake, filled and iced with vanilla buttercream and decorated with fun and funky fondant flowers. The cake was finished off with some royal icing detailing. I think the flowers have a bit of a 1970's style...very funky!

40th Birthday Party

This week my best friend, and husband turned the big 40. While he didn't want a big party, he did want to have a small get together with our closest and dearest friends. Now this sounded like a great idea to me (as now I didn't need to plan a huge party), we catch up with these friends once a month, so I was faced with the challenge of trying to make this particular one stand out from the rest. I decided to set up a beautiful table of finger food with a blue white and brown colour theme. Behind the table hung beautiful paper pom poms, with a couple scattered on the table. I also used by gorgeous glass candy jars to hold marshmallows, macadamia nuts and chocolate wafers.

Vege shots
(Carrot, Yellow Green and Red Capsicum in French Onion Dip)
Beside were some Kabana wraps
(Cream Cheese, Tomato Relish, Lettuce & Kabana in a Lavish Bread)

Mini Quiches are always a hit with the kids...
Quiche Lorraine
Tomato Salsa
Corn & Capsicum
Beside is a cheese and cracker platter

Good old fashioned Chocolate Spiders
(made by my eldest son)

And the cake!!!

A four layer chocolate cake, filled with chocolate ganache, iced with meringue icing

How to make Candy Cane cupcake toppers

Candy Cane, a photo by Coco Jo Cakes on Flickr.

I recently made 30 gift boxes of Christmas cupcakes, with 6 cupcakes in each, all with their own decoration....Candy cane, Snowflake, Christmas tree, Christmas wreath, Holly and Stars. Here is a quick "how to" make the Candy canes.

You will need:
50g red fondant
50g white fondant
a little CMC

A hint to make red fondant, colour your fondant as red as you can, then leave it overnight for the colour to darken.

Mix your cmc into your red and white fondant, this will help it dry.

Roll out half of your white fondant into a long sausage, then do the same with the red.

Pinch the red and white sausages together at one end, then twist them together until they look like a candy cane, and the two colours are stuck together.

Cut your stripy sausage into equal lengths (how long depends on how big you would like your candy cane) Mine were approx 6cm, then shape into the candy cane and place on a baking tray lined with baking paper to dry.

I like to leave my toppers for at least a week to dry completely which will help them to keep their shape after being placed on wet buttercream icing.

Happy Christmas baking :-)