Up, up, and away!

What do you get when you put two tiers of love, a woven basket of fondant, together with some dry ice? A hot air balloon cake of course!

To welcome Spring, blue skies and warmer weather, we are so excited to share our latest cake with you all... the hot air balloon cake we created for Olivia's first birthday party.

The theme of this cake was inspired by Baby Livvy's favourite book "I see clouds in the sky" and photos from her recent family photoshoot by Yulia Pavlova.

Although I have competing deadlines this week and am stretched with time to write a full blog, I couldn't resist putting together some photos for this blog.

Baby Livvy's very creative mummy, Sotty (of Little Sotty!) artistically handcrafted all the decorations for the party, including a "design your own hot air balloon" craft station for the kids!

Feeling inspired yet?

“Dear Cake Me!, Thank you so much for making us the most gorgeous cake to celebrate our precious Livvy’s first birthday. Your attention to detail is amazing and I love how you were able to design and personalise the perfect cake for me, based on the party’s “Clouds and hot air balloons” theme while incorporating the colour palette from the birthday invitation. Not only did the cake look amazing but it also tasted devine! It was so nice to be able to plan the rest of the party knowing that the cake was in the hands of someone I trusted and knew would do an amazing job. Thanks again”

— Sotty

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Mums are tops

As a mum of two kids, I can truly appreciate what limited time a mother has to do... anything, really. I remember having just the one child, and returning to work part time. Although the balance between home and work was a juggling act, work itself was like a holiday! Don't get me wrong, I love both my children more than all the stars in the sky, and I did feel guilty for thinking this way, but really, going to work was like a break. Eating lunch in peace (without having to feed my mini-me, whilst at the same time mopping up the spilt milk and scraping melted cheese out of her scalp) was truly a luxury you take for granted. Heck, even the forty-five minute journey on a germy train, just staring into space or eavesdropping on a high school girl's conversation was bliss. Guilt-free bliss at that!

So that's why we think it's absolutely incredible of those mums who insist on taking the time and love to make their own children's birthday cakes. Now I mean absolutely no disrespect to the amazing mums who order their children's cakes, especially because without those mums who love our cakes, there would probably be no us. Those mums are probably slaving away at other things, and pay us their hard earned money so that we can create their dream cake for their child. We are truly grateful and honoured that you trust us to make your beloved children's cakes. But back to the mums who do make their kids cakes, there is something truly special about it. It really takes a lot of effort and time and love, and even motivation to go and grab that spatula, wipe down the kitchenaid and pull out all the ingredients. Even for us, the "cake people", after our hiatus from cakes, it was daunting making our own kids' cakes. Just the thought of creaming eggs with sugar took a lot of psyching up to do.

“I need a week to recover from that!! Who knew kids parties were so exhausting!”

— a recent customer who shall remain anonymous ;)

I'm proud to say that quite a few of my girlfriends who choose to make their own cakes often use us as their 1800-cake-hotline. Over a span of a week, they would call or message me, most often after ten o'clock at night.. First, to ask for a good recipe. Then the next night to ask about the consistency of the ganache, then the following night about air bubbles in the fondant. Then almost without fail, at the party they would be highly critical of their creation and tell me how they stayed up past 2am and that they will just order a cake from me the next year. But the following year, I get the same call for a recipe the week before the party. I truly admire you mums and I think that the cakes you all make for your kids are beautiful and from the heart. I'm sure your kids, even if not now, but in twenty years time, will look back on the photos and appreciate all that you do for them.

Over the years we have had numerous orders for cake toppers only. The mums (and dads!) who love to make their own cake, but just want that extra "awwwwwww" or wow factor. We love doing cake toppers as it means that the parents can still do their thing, and we can also play a part in their magic. Most of our topper orders have been local orders. We've had some from interstate but there was always a relative who would be travelling from Melbourne, so more than happy to help transport the precious sugary works of art. We've sculpted fondant teddy bears (miniature versions of a child's best friend), large fondant bows, roses, fondant letters and names to personalise a cake, and even fondant goldfish!!

This brings me to what I've personally been juggling between kinder runs and swimming lessons this week. This week we have completed two separate orders for toppers. One for a little girl who's all time favourite princess is Princess Jasmine from Aladdin, and another, a boy from Cairns who is crazy about the Smurfs. The little girl who loves Princess Jasmine is the youngest of four kids. I can't imagine how busy that household would be, but her mum still says "I try to make all their cakes every year". What a champ!

The mum from Cairns trawled the internet and Pinterest for inspiration for her son's cake. We are so grateful that even though we are in opposite ends of the country, the lovely mum found us on google and that she had chosen us to create her son's Smurf toadstool house and have it couriered 2982 kilometers to them!!

After ensuring that the Smurf house was as dry as possible, we carefully packaged up the house and prayed that it would arrive in one piece to that very excited little boy up in Queensland.

"All have arrived in perfect condition. They are truly magical. Thank you so much for such beautiful creations" - Sharee

So to answer many of your questions, "Yes, we can do fondant cake toppers only!" If you love making cakes and want us to assist with adding the final touches to your cake, please don't hesitate to contact us.

To all mothers and fathers, cake makers or cake order-ers, to our own mothers and fathers, to the amazing father of my two monkeys - I applaud you.

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Here are some of the photos sent to us from our gorgeous customers, of the cakes they created themselves, using our toppers.

“I’m actually still mesmerised over how beautiful and delicate they all were – my favourites were the bees and ladybugs of course. But then there was the apple barrel…..really all just absolutely beautifully mesmerising. Thank you again for such beautiful, lovely, wonderful cake toppers and for being so accommodating and helpful. It certainly made the birthday a highlight.”

— Sharee

“Thank you so much - Jasmine is amazing!!! The detail is incredible - she is going to LOVE it!!!

The cake was a BIG HIT!! Thanks so much!”

— Amelia

A smashing cake... naturally.

It has been a tradition in many families for their babies to have their first-ever taste of cake on their first birthday. For the first twelve months of their lives, these babies have been on super-strict diets, their mums religiously writing down each and every first food they have tried. Not only do some babies get to try cake for their first time on their birthday, some lucky babies even have their own special cake to mark their first big milestone. Obviously with limited coordination, these cakes usually get "smashed up" hence they've been affectionately termed Smash Cake.

Smash cakes have become extremely popular in the past few years, and have even almost become, dare I say, a rite of passage, into free-eating and toddler-hood. It is because of this "free-eating" that I was super surprised when we were approached by a super-health conscious, yet very fun mummy, for her daughter's first smash cake. Not surprising though, she asked us to create a delicious, but not-so-naughty version for her soon-to-be one year old.

Kira's "not-so-naughty" pink ombre smash cake, with fondant candle — Kira's "not-so-naughty" pink ombre smash cake, with fondant candle

Baby Kira and her older sister have been very fortunate to be raised on mostly organic produce and natural products. They try to only eat organic, their clothes are lovingly washed with organic detergents, they even sleep on an organic bed! To capture the magical memories of baby Kira and her first "natural" smash cake, they had commissioned their very talented sister in law, Amanda Lui, from Amanda Lui Photography to do their photoshoot.

To make this cake, we used a recipe from a London-based baking blog called Bake, and re-created their Wholemeal, Honey and Vanilla Sponge. We used wholemeal flour, reduced the sugar, supplemented the sugar with honey, natural yoghurt and vanilla beans. The aroma and taste of the cake was beautiful, a delicate honey flavour with a gorgeous texture from the wholemeal flour. We tripled the batch as we like our cakes at Cake Me! to be high and grand, and a smash cake is no exception.

Instead of a lemon curd filling, we used cream cheese to create a healthier cream-cheese "frosting". Kira's mummy insisted on zero-sugar frosting, so the cream cheese "frosting" is actually pure cream cheese. Yes, no sugar, no stevia, no spendour, no equal or any other sugar alternative!! Might sound a bit strange (and stinky!) but it is actually pure genius. Kira loves cheese and wouldn't realise that frosting is meant to be sweet in the first place.

For the ombre effect, we used natural colour paste by Creative, so it's free of artificial additives and preservatives. It's also made in Australia. When we first sourced the paste, we were worried that being "natural" that the colours would be muted, however we were pleased with how the colour turned out, deep pink where it was supposed to be, light and pastel-ly on the top. One thing we noticed when we opened the bottle was that the natural colour "paste" was runny up the top and gluggy at the bottom. Fortunately the colour seemed to mix fine with the cream cheese. We haven't tried the paste on fondant, but hopefully after a good stir, the paste would work well on fondant too.

Baby Kira had a wonderful time at her photoshoot. She looked so adorable in her pale pink onesie trimmed with black polkadots. She dug into her cake and loved it (even mummy and daddy got to enjoy the delicious cake off-camera). Unfortunately for big-sister Caitlin though, she was so excited about eating the "icing" not knowing that it was a hundred per cent cream cheese and zero sugar. Making the most of this rare sugar opportunity (her mum said she could, "Go for your life!!"), she took a huge chunk of what she thought was pink icing and put it in her mouth! Needless to say, she was not too impressed. Lucky for Caitlin though, her mummy let her indulge in the flame of the fondant candle.

“Loving this amazing cake by the ever talented Liz Tu from Cake Me! Liz met all my fussy requirements of a “less naughty” cake and still delivered a stunning cake! That’s not sugar icing, it’s all pure cream cheese icing with natural food colouring. Little Kira is sure going to have a smashing time!!”

— Jen

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Cake Artist?

A common request from followers of this blog, is for me to write about what happens behind the scenes. People seem to be interested in the design process and how we get to our finished product. I've ummm-ed and ahhhh-ed about blogging about this as I am frankly quite embarrassed to show you what goes on, especially for a self-confessed perfectionist this is a bit difficult to digest... but for the sake of a bit of humour, I will swallow my pride! Here it goes...

Some of the sketches we provided our client

I've mentioned in previous blogs that I'm no artist on pen and paper, and that I'm almost always hesitant to send a client a sketch of our cakes. I'll have beautiful visions and images in my head, but when I try to put pen to paper, it never comes out the way I intend.

The recent Lego Superheroes cake... thankfully it turned out how we had pictured it in our heads and not what was on paper!!

We also enjoy having the freedom to make changes to the design of the cake whilst we are making it as we are often able to create an effect that we didn't think was possible, whilst designing it (for example Domo with one arm up and the other down, or the weight of the sun topper floating above the cake instead of sitting on it) or improving the overall look of the cake (displaying the Hello Kitty cake on a rectangular cake board instead of a round board as quoted).

I take pride in having real attention to detail, and at the same time, our cakes have clean lines, look fresh and have an uncluttered finish. But somehow my pictures always look like a scribbled mess and even I can't decipher what I've tried to transcribe from my head. Even my eleven year old niece critiques my sketches and tells me that she'll have to teach me how to draw one day.

With cakes like Genevieve's Winter Wonderland themed cake, she was happy for us to design the cake whichever way we wanted, as long as it was not a "Frozen" cake. So originally we had planned a more "busy" cake that was round and unsculpted. Having the flexibility in design meant that we were able to sculpt the cake into an actual iceberg, and then decide to keep the lines clean and uncluttered, and not over-complicate the cake with the igloo or polar bear up top.

Having the liberty to change the design gives us the flexibility of making the cake look better than what we are confined to by our drawings

Quite often, clients get so excited about their cake, they ask to see a sketch of what to expect. I'm always happy to provide a sketch, but always pre-warn them so that they won't doubt our cake-making abilities.

So here I am exposing my vulnerabilities to you all... please don't judge me!!!

Admittedly we now have a new design studio which helps the sketches look slightly more acceptable. But for a great laugh, and for the ultimate mind-blowingly embarrassing picture... here are two I drew when designing my kids' cakes. Amazingly though, I showed them to my four year old and asked her what the sketches were of, she confidently exclaimed "Ohhhh that's my bucket cake, and that's Xav's digger cake!!". So there you go, it can't be that bad? ;P

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The blanketed crusader

This cake is one that is extremely close to my heart.

Waz, the Blanketed Crusader and his cake. Designed by Khanh of Cake Me!, this cake perfectly sums Warren up.

I remember taking the bus home one winter's evening after uni. It was bucketing down, very cold and very dark. Kind of scenario where you'd prefer to just stay on the bus and not get off, even though you couldn't wait to get home. But there, waiting in the rain by the unlit bus stop was my brother, on his little bicycle, with an umbrella. He's always been like that.

Fourteen years later, my brother Warren founded the charity organisation 300 Blankets, to keep those who are less fortunate in our community warm. Waz works a full time job in Merchandising at the Myer Headquarters, but after work and on weekends, he directs a team of over 70 volunteers to provide warmth to the homeless. 300 Blankets raises awareness, funds, buys, collects and distributes blankets to the homeless. His work isn't just about providing tangible materials, it is also about providing warmth through friendship. Every Wednesday night, rain, hail or shine, Christmas Day, his birthday or just any regular Wednesday, you would find Waz out with the Vinnies Soup Van distributing food, a hot drink, blankets and friendship to those who need it most.

Waz and some of the awesome 300 Blankets volunteers — Waz and some of the awesome 300 Blankets volunteers

The stories and experiences that Waz shares are moving, heart wrenching and more often than not, puts a lump in your throat or fills your eyes up with tears. Listening to my brother speak at a recent event and looking around at an audience of over a hundred people, you can see how his work and anecdotes pulls at people's heartstrings.

So that's Waz as a brother and as a member of the community. What makes Waz extra special is that he is your normal, average person. He loves his fiancee, his family and his close group of friends. Waz is our everyday superhero. He's a man with many hats (or lego heads, as this cake suggests).

Superhero Lego heads, Chocolate mud cake and Red Velvet mud cake with chocolate ganache

The other Waz we know and love is "Uncle Wazzie" as he is affectionately called by his niece and nephew. Waz is a big kid at heart, an awesome uncle, and our kids adore him. He loves toys and for years, worked in the toy department at Myer, and then later, in the Buying Office for Toys. Waz has especially loved Lego and made sure he rubbed his passion for these coloured bricks on to his niece and nephew. Another of Waz's childhood loves is Raphael, the red teenage mutant ninja turtle.

Warren. Our brother, friend and uncle. Hero in a half shell. Friendly neigbhourhood spider. We couldn't be more prouder of you, Waz. Happy 30th birthday to our Blanketed Crusader.

Lego minifigure Waz cake, complete with his signature mole, 300 Blankets tshirt, and CAPE!

Everything is awesome. You are everything AWESOME.

To learn more about 300 Blankets or to volunteer/donate to the charity, please go to www.300blankets.com.au.

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Winter Wonderland - Our first Cake Me! kids party

We were stoked to have been asked to make Miss Genevieve's eleventh birthday cake this year, and to also host her Cake Me! kids party, our FIRST official Cake Me! kids party!! This blog entry will be quite long as I want to share both the cake and the party with you, but if you don't want to read it all, click here for the cake, and here for the party. No hard feelings, I understand, we're all time-poor these days ;)

It's been five years since we made Genevieve's sixth birthday cake, how time has flown. To celebrate the beginning of winter, Gen decided on a Winter Wonderland themed party this year - and was very explicit when stating that it was a Winter themed cake and NOT a Frozen themed cake. We were told that anything to do with "blue, penguins, snowflakes, igloos are fine" ;) Clearly Frozen is for the younger crowd and Gen is now a young lady.

penguin iceberg cake cupcake cake me kids

Gen's sculpted iceberg cake was so much fun to design and create. I won't lie, for a moment there I did wonder whether I had been over zealous and had gone overboard with the sculpting, destroying an otherwise beautiful 5 tiers of white chocolatey goodness. But google images reassured me that icebergs do come in all shapes and sizes.

Images from Google Search : www.pixshark.com

My main priorities were for the penguins to have a slippery slide to dive head first into the icy turquoise water, and for the baby penguins to have a warm and cozy cave to huddle safely in.

Judging by the expression on the birthday girl's face, I'm ecstatic to say that the mission was accomplished :D.

We were so excited to hold our very FIRST official Cake Me! kids party after all the trial runs. Gen's Winter Wonderland theme was perfect. Using Gen's brief, we mocked up a sample cupcake and based our cake decorating and sugar sculpting tutorial on the sample. The 17 girls, ranging from four to 12 years of age, were so excited and couldn't believe they would be making their own version of what they saw.

The girls were so focused, attentive, enthusiastic and most importantly, they LOVED it. They themselves were in awe of their own creations. After our step-by-step tutorial, the girls were able to create their own masterpieces using the skills they had learnt from the session. It was amazing to see how none of these girls had prior experience with fondant before (other than eating it!) and how creative they could be when given some instruction. We were sooooooooo impressed! Here are some of the gorgeous designs they came up with.

I can't describe the feeling... watching the kids' eyes light up when they were free to experiment on their own, their fingers racing and not being able to catch up with all the ideas they had in their head, watching the dads relaxing on the couch deep in conversation with a coffee cup in hand, the mums snapping away with their mobile phone cameras... this is how parties are meant to be!!

We were so pleased to receive a text message from Genevieve's mum after the party. She said that this was the "first time it's taken less than 30 minutes to clean up after a party!" and that the birthday girl said that it was the "BEST PARTY EVER".

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“A very happy birthday girl and a very happy mum. Genevieve said that this was “the best party EVER” and I agree. Liz had the girls enthralled and entertained for two hours with very impressive and creative results.”

— Diem