The end of Summer wedding season

Its so wonderful to be back home!  Since I last wrote I've been galavanting around the East coast of USA & Canada.  As luck would have it, we managed to arrive in Boston on the day of the lockdown and watched it unfold in the relative comfort of a hotel room!  Talk about excitement.

 

I did manage to do some caking research whilst there (Including learning how to make a whoopee pie properly) but to hit all the amazing cake places as well as doing the tourist thing.....would've been impossible.  

 

I do have to say though, that my highlight would've been the 1000 island region on the border between USA and Canada.  Super super fantastic!  That, and I LOVE thousand island sauce!

 

 

So Eastern USA, ticked off the bucket list!

 

Anyways, I did promise some photos of the cakes we did for the November - March wedding season, so here there are!

 

First up, a romantic classic design, perfectly suited for the venue at Millbrook Winery in Jarrahdale.  The bride wore lace and had a posy of pink peonies.  Perfect!

 

 

Then, this fabulously styled wedding on the Matilda bay foreshore, with ghost chairs, floral chandeliers and flowers in the Swan River.

 

 

 

Painstakingly handpiped to match the invitations.

 

 

Pretty close don't you reckon? 

And figurines in traditional wedding costumes to match.

 

 

 

Here they are again....cheekily in my car on the way to the wedding.

 

We also loved being a part of Laura's big day with this gown inspired wedding cake.

 

 

It all starts with a nicely edged cake

 

 

Apply some ruffles...

 

 

Some sugar lace, sugar flowers..... some bling and Et voila!

 

 

Laura loved her wedding dress, which was lovingly crafted by her sister in law, one of our budding local designers.

 

 

 

Often weddings are a team effort, and more often than not it requires the work of many teams.  Such was the case with the Angela's stunning wedding.

 

Styled by the talented Blissful Affairs, furniture and placement by Her handpicked harvest, flowers by Zinnia, photography by Nectarine, Video by White box studio and cake by yours truly, all seaside by the Indian Ocean at Indianas.

 

 

 

The cake

 

 

 

Awesome wedding video, cute as anything...!

https://vimeo.com/61248757

 

Sometimes, it even takes a team to put together a cake....such as these two beauties.

 

 

 

Cake by us, flowers by the wonderful girls at Eufloria.

 

 

This cake was a real team effort.  Original design by the Caketress, sugar flowers by Glenda, figurines by me, Glenda & Kartini!  Wonderful centrepiece for the Quarry Ampitheatre.

 

And these wonderful babies, that we gave equally as much love to!

 

 

 

 

 

A macaron tower....or two....

 

 

 

AND....in the situation that macarons are not enough..... well, you can have a whole dessert table!  Just like Jess & Richard did!

 

 

 

Complete with a chocolate macaron tree and toadstool cupcakes!  Love it when we get such awesome clients!

 

Hope you all had a lovely season too and I look forward to sharing all the pics from our amazing guest teachers in the last few months!

 

Love,

Cake Mojo

Late last year, with the general stresses in life, I lost my caking mojo for while.  The thing is, when you lose your mojo, everything just seems that much harder and frustrating.

A cake you're are making collapses, and you have to do it again, the next cake you make does the same, you open a new batch of dodgy icing that is ultra soft and sags on the cake you're making...and you have to cover it again.... you make another cake that you dislike so much - that you dont even care that you didnt photograph it...even the chocolate ganache splits and has to be thrown out....3 batches of white chocolate...  Sigh, and white chocolate costs $20 a kg.  Sniff sniff.

I was so sad.....I had lost the mojo and didn't know where to find it again.  Luckily, the support of some really cool caking friends offered some great advice and got me through.  It took a while to get the groove back, but happily, I've found the love again and this last month has reminded me how much fun caking is!

 This truly fun cake for little Tai, with all the great characters from Madagascar (except the penguins) - I am an animation fanatic.  Once upom a time I wanted to be cartoonist when I grew up.....funny how life works that way!  So naturally I loved making this cake - even though it was a tad fiddly. 

An equally impressive Hollywood themed cake for Peggie's 30th.  Complete with sugar popcorn and photos of Peggie over the years and her family.  Peggie's response was "Thanks for the cake, love love love it very much :) "  Awww shucks!

Another fav is this Mexican themed one for Cory & Erica's 24th birthday party.  Design inspired by Julie McMaster.  It was fun to make and gave me a chance to dust off the airbrush!

More fun with the much loved Thomas the Tank cake for Isabelle.  Apparently no amount of pleading by her doting parents to choose a more "girly" themed cake design was to any avail.....all Isabelle wanted was a Choo-choo cake!

Less cute, but definately more girly, a white chocolate & raspberry cake with macarons to match for a high tea sweet sixteen. Hmmm, what I wouldn't give to be 16 and know what I know now!

Talking about high teas, this amazing set up by the very stylish boys at Blissful Affair.  140 sets of antique tea sets and lawn games for the birthday tea for Rebecca, who was also getting married on the day!

Stunning set up at the Cottesloe Civic Centre overlooking the Indian Ocean.  Custom made mirrors spanned the length of the tables and a walkway decked out in fairy lights.  It really was one of those magical weddings!

And a couple of more stylish weddings, for Emma & Andrew at the Lake Karrinyup Golf Club - the lovely flowers by the talented Jessie Anne.

and the wonderful Tracy and Keith at Frasers with this Maggie Austin designed cake.

Just perfect for a romantic Autumn wedding!

We've just finished a whirlwind fortnight of classes with Handi.  I'll post up all the amazing results soon!

Hope you all enjoying the much needed rain (of course its only enjoyable when you are rugged up on a couch with a mug of something yummy)

Love,

Being passionate

At the great risk of sounding like Oprah...... you have to have passion in your life.  Whether it be love, sports, shopping, fast cars or, perhaps, Sugar, spice & all things nice.

I've always had a sweet tooth.  Ever since I was toddler......

Yes, sweets always made me very happy!  (that is a lolly in mum's hand...)

So, how important is it to have passion for what you do?  I belong to GenX, we were brought up by our parents to have a steady job, work hard and that someone was always watching.  If you were willing to work hard, you could afford the nice things in life.  There wasnt all that much about creativity or 'living the dream', let alone being passionate about what you do.

Gladly, the world has changed somewhat since then.  The likes of Steve Jobs, Jerry Yang, and Bill Gates and a whole horde of Hollywood actors that gained overnight success and fame, lectured on the importance of following your passion.  So now, instead of just plain working hard, I work hard at doing something I love.  Although the money has yet to follow - it's not always easy to hold down a regular job that pays the bills as well as finding the energy to follow your passion!  Its rewards are great, so I wouldn't have it any other way.

~~~~

Here are the passionately made cakes and classes over the last couple of weeks.

Starting off with some cupcakes, footy themed...already!  Gee, I wouldn't mind some footy weather right about now!

pic ourtesy of Naei via FB

And these cuties headed off to a birthday party...in Bangkok.

As did this topper for an 80th birthday celebration. 

Fabulously done by Lauren.

A big cake for Alana's Grecian inspired 21st at the beautiful surrounds of the Claremont Yacht club.

White, gold, drapes columns and laurels to fit in with the theme.  21 exploding hearts and the Effiel tower (Alana's dream destination) in purple (her favourite colour).  Alana had a great time and  loved her cake, which was the most important thing.

Another very popular Giggle & Hoot cake for little Luke's first birthday

Many thanks to Vicki for doing a lot of the hard work :)

~~~

Moving onto the bigger cakes, is this romantic wedding cake for Jess.  Delicate princess stencilling and sugar pearls, resulted in a timelessly elegant design.

Jess was delighted that the cake turned out as she envisioned, but only got to look at it fleetingly.  She must have been a busy girl that night.  I hope the photographer took some lovely pictures for her to look over when she's not socialising with 120 people.

Something a little more modern for Sarah,

With dogwood blossoms and pretty ribbon.  This cake travelled down to Margaret River with the father of the bride, with strict instructions to keep it nice and cool - and no stopping for lunch!

Lastly, this understated but classic cake for Kim. 

There is a little bit of excitement in regards to what happened to this cake, but I will keep that a secret for now and upload the pics when I have them.

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And then of course the start to our Cake Love classes for 2012.

Classic 101

and Marvellous Macarons, and they really were marvellous!

 And then there was cupcake teaser thrown into the mix for a bit of variety

our May classes will be listed soon.  And dont forget all the great classes when Handi comes to town to do the amazing stiletto, advanced figurines and teapots!

At the end of the day, working hard at what you are passionate about beats just plain working hard!

So, as someone once said to me, if you had a spare sunday to do what you want, what would that be?  That is more likely to be what you're passionate about!

Me and my darling sis, the UAA, drooling away at a box of goodies (circa late 70s)

Mwah!