Let's catch up over cake...

January is now a distant memory and with the last few weeks being a blur of school starts, swim classes and house renovations, there's not been a lot of time for the kind of creativity that this blog documents!

But there have been two cakes.

First was for my friend's little girl who was coming to Sydney for a very special trip with her mum and who would be celebrating her 7th birthday while she was here.  I wanted to make something with a Sydney theme, showing some of the sights that she would be seeing on her trip.

The toppers were made from mexican paste and I hand-painted the pictures on to the pieces of hardened icing with Wilton gel colours mixed with vodka.  The outlines were done with a black edible pen.  I made all the toppers in advance and iced the cake and poked them in in a record fifteen minutes in the morning as with waffles for breakfast and a trip to Taronga Zoo, time was a bit tight!

Gwenda's monochrome cake...

Then yesterday I put the finishing touches on this cake that I have been making for a friend's mum who is turning 70 today.  There was a moment of high drama last night when I transferred the white fondant to the cake successfully, only to have it split around the top edge and fall off the cake!  That's when I muttered a few expletives under my breath and made a cup of tea to think about plan b.  That's when I decided to do the louvres on the cake (using what fondant I could salvage).

I'm glad I had that little disaster because I like the finished product so much more with the vertical louvres.  The bow, rose and tag I made in advance by using some fondant mixed with Tylose so they would harden.

And, in completely unrelated news, we just finished renovating our rental in New Zealand and I thought you might like a nice little "before and after" bathroom pic.

I have some other exciting news to share, but that will have to be in my next post...