Baked Doughnuts

One of my favourite treats to bake on the weekends at the moment is doughnuts!

Bake you say? Not fry? Correct!

I bought one of these doughnut baking pans a few months back at Big W (apparently they are unavailable at the moment - boo!) and it has been brilliant. If you are US based here is one from Amazon. The doughnuts are quite small making them a good size for kids. Only problem is I tend to eat several at once...

Fox Cake

It's no secret that I love decorating cakes for my daughters every year for their birthdays. But this year Anna requested "a cake of a dog that stands up, wags it's tail and also has a bone it can chew." Ummm...that might be stretching my skills way too far!

Pinterest to the rescue! I opened the app for the purpose of finding a simple cake, and this fox cake tutorial by Handmade Charlotte popped up immediately in my feed. Anna saw it and said "I WANT THAT!" Phew. I knew all the bits and pieces I needed would be sorted by a quick trip to the supermarket.

This is how my version turned out. Sorry, no fancy styling, it was eaten about 10 seconds after these pictures were taken!

The tutorial was really simple and helpful, and the only thing you need that might not be available in your local supermarket is a piping bag and tip. The tutorial suggests piping bag tip Wilton #233, which creates a fur effect, but I didn't have that one and I've found using my small star tip Wilton #21 just as effective for a fur like texture.

I also cheated a bit on the eyes and ears - the tutorial uses fondant icing to create those features, but I used brown m&ms for the eyes and nose, and chopped a kit kat bar to make two triangles (I ate the rest, chef's privileges haha!) which I used for the ears. The back of the kit kat was facing up so I could pipe onto the flat side.

I didn't fill in the sides of the cake with orange icing because I didn't have enough. If the cake was on display at a party, I would have bought more, but it was just a small gathering with immediate family. I used two tins of Betty Crocker type ready made frosting - one for the white undercoat of the cake, then another tinted orange for the fur. When using colours to tint large amounts of icing, I strongly recommend you purchase gel colours - you don't need as much. Liquid colours will do in a pinch, but the gels are much better and they are available in a wider range of colours. You can buy them at cake decorating stores both in person or online.

Verdict? Success!! Happy 5th birthday my beautiful girl.

Lucy's Ladybird Cake

A few weeks ago my baby turned two! To celebrate, I made her a special cake - you know I love a bit of cake decorating!

I needed something pretty quick and easy, and not too big because I didn't want leftovers. I used my trusty Women's Weekly Birthday Cake Book  (you know - the birthday cake bible for Australian families!) That link takes you to the new version just recently published, but I have the old book with the train cake on the cover. This cake is actually called 'Lucy Ladybird' in the book, so it was meant to be! I've mentioned this book on my blog before - I have fond memories of my Mum letting me choose from the book when I was a kid, so I will be continuing that tradition with my kids for sure!

I can't believe my girl is two. We are well and truly past the baby stage now, and I am mourning for it a little bit.

She was pretty excited about her ladybird cake. I used a basic chocolate cake mixture and baked it in a pudding bowl. I also saved some mixture and made a couple of cupcakes to use as the head. (I made two in case one failed.)

I made the Vienna Buttercream recipe for the icing, which is in the book, but I wasn't a big fan. I'll be honest - it's easier to cheat and buy the pre-made can of Vanilla Betty Crocker icing. I know it's probably horrifically bad for you and full of crazy preservatives, but oh well. It's not like as if we eat it every day. Plus from a decorating perspective, the Betty Crocker stuff is a crisp white colour so it tints very well when you add colours. Butter based icings don't tint as well as they are pale yellow to begin with.

I tinted the icing with a red gel colour, but it had a slight orange tint due to the yellow of the butter. I used brown m&ms as the spots and some red licorice I had in the cupboard for the antennae.

It's not my best ever cake decorating effort but I did it in about 30 minutes before we rushed off for a family lunch at a restaurant.

And the birthday girl liked it so I call it a success!

You can check out all my other decorated cakes here.

Red Velvet Cupcake Bites - Recipe

Sponsored by Philadelphia

I love cupcakes! Love. But sometimes they are too much - especially for the kids. If you think of the size of a regular cupcake, it really is the same size as a large slice of cake. When the lovely people from Philly invited me to try some of their products and share them with you I knew I would be making some sort of cake, but I decided to modify these to make them suitable for little appetites!

Red Velvet Cupcakes - yum. The gorgeous chocolate flavour with the added tang of buttermilk and a cream cheese icing. This recipe is largely taken from the recipe in the Philly Simply Heaven Volume 3 cookbook, however I've changed it slightly to make it a bit more pantry friendly.

The recipe calls for buttermilk. I find buttermilk difficult to buy - large supermarkets stock it however smaller ones don't and I know my mother-in-law, who lives in a country town, finds it hard to purchase certain items like this. There is a quick way you can make buttermilk, which I've shared below. First - the recipe:

Ingredients (makes 36 mini cupcakes, 12 regular cupcakes)

75g softened butter
3/4 caster sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 cups flour
1/4 cup cocoa
1 tsp baking powder
1 cup milk
1 tbs lemon juice OR white vinegar
1 tsp red food colouring (no flavour) or 1/4 tsp red gel colour
1 tsp white vinegar
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Frosting - 250g Philadephia Frosting Cream Cheese with a hint of Lemon Flavour

1. Preheat your oven to 160C (320F). Line a mini cupcake pan with papers.
2. Make your buttermilk - add the tablespoon of lemon juice (or vinegar) to the cup of milk. Set aside.The milk will curdle slightly - don't be alarmed - this is meant to happen.

3. Cream the butter and sugar until pale and creamy. Add the egg and beat well.
4. Fold in the sifted flour, cocoa and baking powder.
5. Add the buttermilk and the red colouring and mix well.
6. Combine the vinegar and the bicarbonate of soda, and stir it through the cake mix.
7. Half fill each mini cupcake paper with cake mixture. Bake for 10 minutes or until they spring back when touched.

Cool on a wire rack then pipe or spread the Philly frosting. A small little dollop is perfect for these bite size cakes.

These little cupcake bites are the perfect size for a treat for my girls. Be wary though - you might not be able to stop at just one!

To find more great Philly inspired recipes you can check out their website. I always use Philly Cream Cheese in my cheesecakes and you can see my favourite cheesecake recipe here.

Love Heart Cake

It was Anna's birthday last week and to celebrate we had a lunch with a small group family and close friends on Sunday to celebrate. She has recently discovered a love for dim sims so we went to Yum Cha which delicious and lots of fun.

The brief was: a 'lub heart' cake with pink and sprinkles please Mum.

This one was very much a home style cake. I know I've made much fancier cakes in the past, with professional piped icing and decorating, but this time I went for a more rustic, easy approach. (aka I didn't have much time and I had a bunch of other stuff to do!)

I also had a bit of a baking fail. I must have knocked the oven dial somehow - I have a fan forced oven that bakes cakes nicely at 170C. After a while baking it was giving off a burnt smell - I checked the oven and it was set to over 200C! Eek! The outer edge was a bit burnt so I ended up cutting all the edges off and trimming the cake down.

I can't take credit for the musk stick border (which I love, mainly because musk sticks are a huge favourite of mine!) My friend Anne from Domesblissity shared a picture of a cake she made for her daughter's birthday a few months ago. She used the musk sticks around the edge and I loved how it looked so I copied her :) I used little candy hearts for the four, which I got at a specialty lolly shop at my local shopping centre, and the finished the edge with sprinkles, as per Anna's instructions.

A big discovery during this cake baking project was Abby's pan coat to grease the cake tin, which was not a non-stick tin. She gave me some the other day to try - the recipe is on her blog here - it was brilliant! I just brushed it on my cake tin and not one single crumb stuck. If you bake a lot you MUST make up a batch.

One happy girl and one yummy cake which didn't last long. Especially with my father-in-law around-  I think he had four slices!

Happy Australia Day!

Tomorrow we celebrate Australia Day so I thought I'd share a few of my favourite Australian themed things - delicious baking and some fabulous fabric of course!

Firstly, some baking. Tim Tams are my favourite chocolate biscuit. (Closely followed by a milk Chocolate Royal - you know the ones with marshmallow). The ULTIMATE tim tam treat would have to be this amazing cake by baker extraordinare Steph from the blog Raspberri Cupcakes. This one is on my to do list and I can't wait until I get the chance to make it!

 

Image courtesy of Steph from Raspberri Cupcakes

Another Aussie favourite of mine is Lamingtons. Oh the simple goodness of some sponge cake smothered in chocolate and coconut. I have made this recipe and can vouch for it's awesomeness - you can find it here on huge recipe site, Taste.

 Image Source

If you are up to a bit of sewing, you should definitely check out Cat & Vee's awesome Australian bird fabric panels.

Image courtesy of Cat & Vee

The perfect size to make cushions, they are available at Cat & Vee's etsy store. This cheeky cocky "Hello Gorgeous" design is currently in the Spoonflower Contest of the Week - this week's theme is Australian Animals. Pop over and give the girls your vote! This cute Dirty Dancing themed one with a pink galah is my other favourite!

 Image courtesy of Cat & Vee

Finally, in typical Aussie tradition, are you planning a bbq? Or perhaps you are not Australian and would like an insight into the culture of the Aussie barbie? Then you MUST check out this e-book by Amanda from A Cooker and A Looker. So hilarious, I laughed the whole way through. Amanda have you been spying on my family?? Love it! I'm linking with Amanda for her Australia Day party.

Happy Australia Day!

Dragon Birthday Cake

I was just thinking this morning that I haven't made and decorated a cake in a while. Anna's fourth birthday is coming up in two weeks and a 'lub heart cake' (love heart cake) has been requested.

Then I remembered that I took some quick shots of a fun cake I made for my friend Peta's little boy Oliver for his fifth birthday back in October. He requested a dragon, and this is what I came up with (with the invaluable help of Pinterest of course!)

More of a cartoon dragon than a scary fire breather, but I was pretty pleased with the end result. (And Oliver was too!)

I made one standard round cake and one rectangular cake. I used my fall back chocolate cake recipe that never fails. A couple of packet mixes would work perfectly well.

If you look closely, you can see the body of the dragon is the round cake, cut in half then placed on it's side with the rounded edge forming the ridge of the dragon's back. Using the remaining round half, I cut it into a crescent shape and cut a blunt end, butting it up against the body to form the tail.

I then cut the rectangular cake into pieces that would suit as four legs, the head and the neck. When I added each piece, I 'glued' it to the board and to the other cake pieces with icing to keep it sturdy.

Once the dragon's body was assembled, I decorated him - scales first!

I'd love to tell you I'm some hot shot pastry chef in the making, but it would be a lie. Cheaty McCheaterson here bought two tubs of pre-made Vanilla Betty Crocker icing (frosting) in the can from the supermarket, and tinted it green. Tip when tinting icing - for best results, use gel colours. You can buy them from cake decorating stores and online.

For the dragon's 'scales' I used a small star tip (Wilton size 21) in a piping bag, and just squeezed small stars all over the dragon. Once that was done, I tinted a small amount of icing purple and used a round tip (Wilton size 12) to make the purple spikes on his back.

Finally, lolly bananas for claws, halved oreos for eyes, and brown m&ms for eye balls and nostrils. Then some green craft paper wrapped around drinking straws and cut into shape for wings. The drinking straws then insert easily into the cake.

I shall name him 'Norbert'. Yes, after the dragon from that very famous series of books ;)

Lucy's 1st Birthday - The Cake

I love making cakes but things have been pretty busy around here lately. Rather than experiment with a new style or skill, I decided to keep Lucy's cake simple and fall back on successful techniques I've used before. Also known as 'I ran out of time' haha!

The first technique I used is the ruffle for the icing. I used a white buttercream and a Wilton petal tip (no. 104)

You may remember I made this ruffle cake for my Mum for her birthday last year. It was so easy and the outcome looks really great.

For the inner layers, I cheated and used a sponge packet mix. Inspired by some ombre cakes I'd seen on Pinterest, I made a pink ombre sponge. The making of it was pretty much exactly the same as the rainbow cake, but easier because you only use one colour. The picture of the cake cut open was not great, so here I am with the cake - the proud baker!

The birthday girl liked it too!

And just for laughs, I had to share this hilarious photo! What is that face?!

Tomorrow would normally be my Needle & Thread Interview weekly post, but I've decided to rest it for a little while. For the last couple of weeks I've felt like a bit of a slave to the computer...do you get like that too?

Have a great weekend!

The Year So Far...

Can you believe it's April already? In a couple of days, I celebrate my birthday...they seem to come around quicker every year! Here in Melbourne the leaves are changing, the mornings are chilly and the AFL is back (to my husband's glee), which means we are heading quickly towards winter. I am definitely a warm weather person, so I am dreading it!

Today I thought I'd do a quick round up of my favourite posts from the first quarter of 2012.

My labels tutorial went to number one with a bullet on my stats list - it is now my most viewed post ever. I got a lot of great feedback from people who had successfully used the tutorial to make their own labels, which was so lovely!

My Big Books Library Bag tutorial went viral on Pinterest - it was amazing. I have since made several of these bags for friends and one as a custom order in my shop for a lovely lady named Kaitlin who saw it on my blog and had to have it! Hopefully it has arrived in Pennsylvania by now and she is giving all the people at her local library a good laugh!

I shared my husband's crafty secret - he crochets! You can read more about this divine baby blanket he made for his colleague Kellie here.

Finally, for my daughter's 3rd birthday I made a rainbow cake! She still talks about it all the time which is the ultimate compliment and made it completely worthwhile.

Don't forget to have a look at my Needle & Thread interviews with some amazingly talented ladies - you can't help but be inspired when you see their work.

My next post is a great tutorial, so stay tuned! I am planning a little fabric giveaway when I hit 250 'likers' on Facebook, so if you don't already, make sure you join me over there!

Ghost Birthday Cake

Many Australians of my generation (growing up in the 80s / early 90s) will know all about this - one of the highlights of your birthday was your Mum handing over the Australian Women's Weekly Children's Birthday Cake cookbook and you got to choose which cake you wanted. Awesome!

                                                  
So much to choose from! My Mum was a bit of an expert at these cakes and there are not many in the book that weren't made by Mum and devoured at a Jackman family birthday party over the years. I remember having the piano one year, and several years having a Dolly Varden cake with a Barbie sticking out!

My sister told me a while ago that she'd always wanted the Ghost cake. Luckily for me, Mum found a copy of the original book (pictured above - it has since been reprinted with a new cover and not all the same cakes) at a market a few years back and gave it to me. So I made the Friendly Ghost cake for Kirsten for her 30th last weekend.

The most challenging part was the 'fluffy frosting' which is pretty much just a meringue. The only difference was that I had to boil sugar and water to soft ball stage and pour it into the mixer where the stiffened egg whites were waiting, mixing on high speed and pouring slowly. Scary! The first attempt with store bought egg whites was a disaster, but when I tried with fresh egg whites it worked perfectly. So glad I persisted - the frosting was a luscious (and super sweet!) marshmallow-y triumph!

For the eyes I used Oreo biscuits (cookies) and some little blue round sweets, and the mouth is red licorice. Simple! This would also be a great cake for Halloween.

The current version of the book is this one, but if you see the original in a second hand store GRAB IT STRAIGHT AWAY! They are quite rare. Although chances are if you are Australian your Mum or Nan might have one floating around ;)

Lots more creativity here today.

Rainbow Birthday Cake

This past weekend was all about family for me. On Saturday we farewelled our beloved Pa (who you may remember from this post), who passed away a couple of weeks ago. From the day I started Sew Delicious, he was my biggest fan, checking the blog everyday and we chatted about every project I posted. He was a wonderful person and he will be greatly missed.

Nan & Pa with Anna & Lucy in September

On the upside, my family were all in the one location for the first time in a while. My parents live in Queensland, my brother lives in Perth and my in-laws live in Northern Victoria, so being together is very unusual. We took the chance to have a picnic in the park on Sunday and celebrate the January birthdays, my brother Andrew who turns 27 tomorrow and Anna, who will be 3 in a couple of weeks.

So that gave me an excuse to make some fabulous cakes!

A rainbow cake for Anna and the same sort of cake in blue and white for Andrew who is a huge Geelong Cats fan (Australian Rules Football).

The pictures aren't the best - it was really windy so I couldn't really 'style' the cakes, but I'm sure you've seen the rainbow cake around on pinterest or on another blog somewhere. Personally, I was inspired by these two cakes - this cake by Cass Can Sew and this cake by Minimoz. 

Anna was very keen to cut into her cake.

So Andrew helped her.

And the big reveal of the rainbow centre was a huge success!

Yum! It was surprisingly easy to make. I cheated and bought some sponge mix from my local cake decorating supplies store, and used gel colours to tint the batter. I made the cakes earlier in the week and froze them, which made icing it much easier. I would recommend this cake to anyone with limited cake decorating experience, it was very simple to make and has such a wow factor when served.

If you do want to get more creative with cakes, gel colours are the way to go - you don't need much to achieve a very intense shade. You can buy them at cake decorating stores or online.

Was it delicious? The proof was in the eating! Yes!

Happy birthday Andrew and Anna!

Easy Vanilla Baked Cheesecake

A couple of weeks ago I was a guest over at Mine for The Making for Kara's Foodalicious Fridays. I shared this cheesecake which is a favourite recipe of mine and a sure fire winner for any party! The raspberries add a lovely festive touch so it is perfect when you have been asked to contribute something to a Christmas party or BBQ. Here is the recipe and tutorial, hope you enjoy!

Lots of people seem a bit scared of baked cheesecakes, but don't be! I think the most time consuming part of this one is actually the base. The filling is quick and easy and you can make this a day ahead and refridgerate it until you need it - a busy hostess' dream!

First the base - you need:

A 20-22cm (8") springform cake tin
A 250g (9 oz) packet of plain sweet biscuits (cookies)
150g (5oz) melted butter

Prepare your cake tin by lining the base with baking paper.

Use a food processor to whiz up your biscuits (cookies) until you have crumbs. If you don't have a food processor, place biscuits in a plastic bag and bash with a rolling pin until you have crumbs.

Place crumbs in a bowl, add melted butter and stir until combined.

Pour into cake tin and use your fingers to press the crumb mixture evenly around the tin and up the sides to form a shell. Once you have a fairly even shell, place it in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Now the filling - you need:

500g (1.1 lbs) cream cheese (room temperature)
300g (10.5 oz) sour cream
3/4 cup caster sugar
3 eggs
3 tsp vanilla essence
250g frozen raspberries (or fresh or any berries you like)

Preheat your oven to 160 C (320F).

Place your cream cheese, sour cream and sugar in a clean bowl of an electric mixer and mix until combined and smooth. You can also use a food processor.

Add the vanilla and eggs and mix again until well combined.

Pour mixture into your shell.

Bake for one hour. Turn off oven and open the oven door slightly and allow the cake to cool slowly in the oven (this prevents cracking). Sometimes it isn't safe for me to do this as my little ones are around and my oven is positioned under my bench. If you are the same don't worry, we can risk the cracks, it makes it look more rustic and home made!

I pile on loads of frozen raspberries a couple of hours before serving and leave the cake out to bring it to room temperature. As the berries thaw they ooze out their juice which runs into the cake and makes it extra good!  You can use any berries you have available.

You are done and you have a gorgeous cake that everyone will love!