Hopping and popping fun these school holidays!

Can't believe it's now Week 2, so the second term of school has well and truly started. Once again, as I sit here and reflect on the past school holiday program, I feel blessed to be doing what I do. What a wonderful school holiday program it really had been.  

Personally, it was a tough fortnight as we farewelled our beloved family pet of sixteen years, but coming to class and seeing all of the smiling faces, the enthusiasm, excitement, anticipation and cheekiness, it really was a lovely distraction! I love teaching the kids to sugar sculpt and create something beautiful and yummy. It truly made me feel all warm and fuzzy knowing that I have made all these kids so happy.  

Over sixty kids attended the school holiday program these holidays. As the Term One school holiday this year commenced with Easter, we decided to have an "Easter theme" for three of the four classes. The first session saw us creating a bird's nest. We created a rabbit in a hole for the second class, and in the final class, a gorgeous lop-eared bunny. By popular request, in one of the classes, we recreated the popcorn cupcake I taught at a recent Cake Me! kids birthday party.  

There were so many highlights these holidays. It was so lovely seeing all the familiar faces and seeing how much they've grown since our last School Holiday Program. There were also so many new faces we met this time round. But to specifically name a few highlights: An eight year old student baked some chocolate chip cookies for me (they were delish!), one student travelled all the way from Traralgon just to attend my school holiday program, another student chose to celebrate her ninth birthday by coming to my class, and we were so lucky to have professional photographer Gavin Ferrier take photos of the kids in Session C & D (all photos have been made available to the parents and can be viewed in our gallery).  

Finally, one particular highlight these holidays that I wanted to mention was that my daughter, who has been begging me to let her join our Cake Me! kids School Holiday Program, was finally old enough to participate.  After attending the first session, she decided to come to all four sessions!!  Since she had started Prep this year, I did feel some mummy-guilt thinking that I wasn't able to spend the ENTIRE school holiday with her - but in the end, I got to do just that :).  What a bonus!!!  My daughter loves cake and she loves fondant - given the opportunity, she would gladly eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  However she is also a hoarder, and will not eat her creations.  So now on our kitchen bench are four new cupcakes that she's planning on displaying FOREVER.  

My little five year old's masterpieces

What did your child do?   Did they scoff their cupcakes down, or are they planning on saving theirs forever?!

----

Special thanks to Lynn and Florence for assisting me with the School Holiday Program, and to Gavin Ferrier for the wonderful photos.

Please join us on our cake adventures by clicking here to subscribe to this blog!

Fist pump of a cake!

We were commissioned by six year old Elijah to create his Marvel birthday cake. He requested that his four favourite superheroes, Ironman, Spiderman, Hulk and Captain America to be featured on his two tiered cake. 

Elijah's Marvel Avengers birthday cake 

As we prefer our cakes to be uncluttered with clean lines and high tiers, our challenge was to fit all four characters without cramping up the two-tier cake. 

The birthday boy advised his mum to tell us that his favourite of the four characters were Captain America and Ironman, whilst Spiderman was his least favourite of the four.  

We decided that hulk was easiest and most striking on the top of the cake, Captain America on the largest tier and Ironman on the top tier. But where to put Spiderman? 

To keep options open, we made the cake board and Ironman tier red, to allow us to play around and decide where to put Spidey. 

Playing around with positioning... our three sample layout mock-ups

The end result?  

What do you think? Where would you have put Spidey? Which design do you prefer?  

Happy 6th birthday, Eli!

To read more about our cake-adventures, please subscribe to our blog by clicking here.

D'oh!, Donuts, Duff

To say that I felt excited when I was creating this cake just doesn't cut it.

The Simpsons has been a much loved cartoon throughout my childhood, my teenage years, and still now as an adult. The timeless comedy has amused both the young and the old since 1989, it would be difficult to find another cartoon in the same league. 

Because of this, I was actually a little hesitant in accepting this order. The pressure to do the Simpsons justice, I almost couldn't do it.  For me personally, I have yet to find a 3D Simpsons character out there that I feel, looks entirely true to the 2D characters that we all know and love. Especially not a 3D Simpsons character created with fondant. Everyone knows exactly how the Simpsons characters look, and a nose out of place or one finger too many, can cause die-hard fans trolling. Because of these reasons, I was really hoping that our client would change her mind. 

But there was no chance, our client insisted on having a Simpsons themed cake for her boyfriend as he REALLY loves the Simpsons. Even though I tried my best to deter her from the Simpsons, she was so determined to have a Simpsons cake that she was willing to have "anything-Simpsons-related", and trusted us to create her dream cake. It was because of her persistence and determination that we agreed and decided to give it a try.

I was so glad that we accepted the challenge as I loved every moment of it. From designing the cake and running my ideas by my client (who was always enthusiastic and lovely to deal with!), googling images from the actual TV show, to sugar sculpting the toppers and finally putting the scene together on the cake. 

When we agreed to do the cake, there was no question, it had to be Homer. Full of character, personality, habits, he would create an awesome scene. The setting also needed to be well known, so either the front of the house, or the lounge room, and there would need to be beer. Alot of beer. 

So I got googling. I was ecstatic to find the image of Homer, passed out with a part-eaten donut in his hand. Of course, there has to be donuts!

Then I found an image by someone named "Ben", who drew the exact scene I wanted to recreate. Some of the aspects of that image didn't seem to be exactly how Matt Groening draws, so I combined Ben's scene with Matt Groening's masterpiece.

I started off with sugar sculpting the couch, and when I was happy with how it turned out, I started on Homer's head.

It felt like forever to get his proportions as accurately as I could best do it and finally, I was happy with how he looked.  In fact, I was quite smug about it... until....

I placed him on the couch. Gasp. Shock horror... His head was almost a third of the size of the couch. Do I redo Homer's head from scratch, or do I make an entirely new couch? I chose the couch. 

So after a new couch was sculpted, this time in proportion to Homer's head, we were able to sculpt the rest of Homer's body, and then add all the finer details, including his signature white Y-fronts.  As the birthday boy's name is Alvin, we decided that it would be most fitting to brand his jocks after him.  Creating the rest of the scene, the beer cans, donuts, rug, lamp table, complete with lamp, books and phone was just pure enjoyment.  

Finally, for the side of the cake, I really really wanted to recreate the outside of the Simpsons house, yet at the same time, I wanted to do the Simpsons introduction sky theme. After speaking to my client and hearing that she was planning on decorating the party with clouds, the decision was made.

So there it is, our Homer Simpson cake for Alvin (Klein), complete with a fondant 30 donut!  Happy 30th birthday Alv!  

If you've enjoyed reading about the making of our Simpsons cake, please subscribe to our blog!

Cake requests from a six year old

My niece turns 6 today.

My shy little niece, Chloe, hiding behind her cake.

This year, she dictated who she would invite to her party. I'm glad I made it to the list.

A few weeks before her party, she sent me a voice message on her mum's phone. "Aunty Liz, can I please have a butterfly cake?". 

Then, "Can I please have a pink, blue and purple butterfly cake?".  A few days later, "Oh and can it please have ladybugs? Eatable ones of course! Make sure they're eatable."

As her party drew nearer, more and more requests came through in her cute little voice. "Grass", "flowers". "Don't forget the butterflies". "Make the butterflies flying up". "Remember the eatable ladybugs".  "Ooooh can I please have glitter? Sparkly glitter please!"

Quite often the start of her message would be truncated because she started speaking too early before the recording began, so I would receive multiple messages with the same instructions. How could I say "no" to that cute little voice?!

So here is the butterfly cake, complete with ladybugs. "Eatable" of course.  

Happy birthday, Chloe xxx

----

A special thank you to Sotty from Little Sotty, who assisted with cutting the wafer paper butterflies.

Please subscribe to our blog to read more stories like these!

First birthdays!

Happy first birthday to sweet little Joshua and baby Ariana who both recently turned one!

If you've ever planned a themed birthday party for a one year old child you would understand the conundrum. Do you go with what you love and think would look adorable (i.e. that awesome Minnie Mouse cake you've always wanted but never got), or do you go with what your eleven month old, turning twelve month old child, loves? Most people who don't have children would probably answer the latter, to go with what your baby loves... But those people might not have ever watched In the Night Garden before, where creepy creatures in squeaky costumes toddle around making weird noises. Luckily for me, it was quite easy as my daughter was a water baby and loved the beach, hence her Under the Sea themed party, and my son loved Dinosaurs, so both themes were fun for both baby and I.

We often consult with parents of soon-to-be one-year-olds who contact us for a special cake for their child's first birthday, but do not have any idea of what they should order, or what theme of cake they should have.  We understand the pressure of wanting to make it  really special for their child's first birthday.  We would usually ask the parent if their child has any interests, perhaps a favourite book, toy or animal?  

Joshua's mum had three options she was considering for Josh's first birthday cake. A Tractor theme, because Josh's favourite book is The Noisy Tractor, a horse themed cake because Josh was born in the lunar year of the horse, and then a cake based on this funny monkey toy which Josh loves. Joshy's mum was such a lovely and easy client, she let us select one of the three themes and then have free reign on the design.  It was a no-brainer for me. I love kids books and as soon as I saw the cute illustrations by Stephen Cartwright of the noisy red tractor and of the humble cow by the fence, I was sold. The hardest part was choosing my favorite scene in the book to recreate, and one that would be most eye catching and work the best on the cake. I loved the splash scene with the pond and the ducks, and also decided to do a second scene, the one with the hammer and the barn. Coincidentally when we delivered the cake, the delighted mum told us that the hammer was Joshy's favourite part of the book.  

Ariana's mum chose a Minnie Mouse themed cake for her first birthday with an adorable pink bow.  Ariana's mum was also a delightfully easy customer, her only real request was for the cake to be pink, not hot pink, but any other shade was fine.  
 

If you need inspiration or help with ideas for your child's first birthday cake or theme for your child's first birthday party, please contact us!  

Interested in reading more about or cake adventures? Subscribe to our blog here. 

“Another awesome creation Liz! Thanks again for such a delicious and wonderful masterpiece! We’ve read this book so many times the batteries are running low... the tractor is not so noisy anymore.”

— Faye

“Amazing, love it. So delicious and moist! Thanks again!”

— Yee-Ling

Cinderfella...

We absolutely love themed cakes, especially one with a good story behind it. For this week's cake, we were commissioned by a lovely wife to create a wedding anniversary present to surprise her husband, Sid. This amazing couple are hilarious to be around and spend much of their time laughing at one another.  

She was happy to leave the design entirely to us, but requested that the cake to be comical and lighthearted. She mentioned that her husband is a hoarder when it comes to clothes and shoes. He can rival Imelda Marcos in the shoe department and teases that he actually won a radio competition for being a "Cinderfella". His favourite colour is lavender. She sent over a few photos of the shoes he has sitting by the back door and a recent photo of him, and then left it with us.

Making a joke out of his name together with the title he was crowned in the radio competition, we decided on "Sid-erfella". A Sid topper holding back a wardrobe that is bursting at its seams, with shoes strewn across the bedroom floor. To make the cake more bedroom-like, we created a "wooden floorboard" effect out of fondant, and embossed and hand painted each "plank of wood". 

What an ideal client!! Thank you for trusting your anniversary cake to us, we are thrilled that you both loved it. Happy Anniversary Sid and Tiza xxx

If you've enjoyed reading about Sid's cake, please subscribe to our blog for other stories like these. 

“Thank you Liz, Khanh and Cake Me! for the creativity. Amazeballs! You are uber skilled! Sid-erfella was completely surprised!

Sid loved loved loved it. He couldn’t believe he got a cake that’s so him. Sid literally had no words, haha that doesn’t happen! The cake is so yummy, it’s awesome, so much love put into it.”

— Tiza