Miss 3's birthday cakes

 Miss 3 loves yellow.  So for her third birthday we had to have not one, but two yellow birthday cakes.  One for her 'party' with her family, the other for her 'party' with her three little friends. We had yellow balloons, yellow food, and played 'parcel parcel' as she calls it [pass the parcel].

Almost each day since her birthday, I have been told that now she is a 'big girl'.  

Miss 5's birthday cakes

Cupcakes to share with friends at school.

A pink poodle cake to share with family on the evening of her birthday.

And a train to share with special friends at her birthday party on the weekend after the special day.

Miss 9's birthday cakes

Miss 9 had two cakes this year, the number nine on her actual birthday with the family, and then the fairy princess castle for her party.  She helped to decorate them both, she loves to decorate cakes now.  I have had to let go of my perfectionism to let the girls help to decorate their own birthday cakes, but they love them all the more when they have a hand in decorating them. 

Miss 9 will be doing it all herself in a couple of years I think.  She is very creative. 

Miss 7's birthday cakes

The first birthday of the year was this week.  Miss 7 had three birthday celebrations, one with friends at school

One with us on her actual birthday

And she shared a dvd and some craft with three friends last night

I have to say I am OVER cake decorating.  It was a mammoth two days.  I have two weeks to recover before the next birthday...

Miss 2's birthday cake

Miss 2 is into dogs and puppies. Really into them. We don't have a dog. But she does have a stuffed dog teddy. He gets carried around the house and taken out in the car most days. Reading books containing dogs is also a favourite thing of hers to do. And each time we see a dog while out driving, or on tv, she gets really excited. For a little girl who doesn't talk yet, we know she loves dogs. So it was easy to decide what birthday cake to choose for her - Spot the dog.

I used my new favourite gluten free cake recipe: the gluten free madiera [pound] cake, but I made it with vanilla extract rather than orange. It was so delicious, that ALL OF THIS CAKE GOT CONSUMED within 2 days. Usually my birthday cakes get eaten for a day or two but I throw the rest away as it goes stale and yukky.

ANOTHER RAINBOW CAKE

There are some crafts that I do with my kids that I think are significant, and then there are the ones that they ask to do again and again. The rainbow cake was one of those silly things we did one day to teach Miss 4 primary and secondary colours. The other day she asked to do it again, almost 12 months since the last time! So I got our our 6 bowls and food colouring and the usual wacky cake recipe, and we started with our three primary colours. Yet again Miss 4 was so surprised at the transformation of yellow and blue into green, and the other secondary colours. But by far her favourite part of this process is licking the bowl.Miss 1 thought it was pretty good too:

If you're going to do this at home here are few tips:

1. 1/2 teaspoon of food colouring is TOO MUCH for each bowl of 1/2 cup cake batter - it won't cook properly and will send your kids cuckoo


2. Put your children in old clothes and expect that it will take a day or two to get the food colouring out of your toddler's hair


3. Start with red [or pink] and pour into the centre of the prepared cake tin, then continue on with the colours in order pouring each on top of the one before, they push the first ones aside. When you turn the cake out, put it on it's top and ice the base so when you cut it a true rainbow will appear


4. I use plain white butter icing and tell everyone it's a 'cloud' cake, then they get a lovely surprise when it's cut
   

Miss 4's birthday cakes

Here are the two cakes I made in the last 24 hours for Miss 4's birthday. The swimming pool was for her tea party with two friends from church. The koala was for her family dinner celebration. Just as I'd finished cutting the koala shape she asked me if I'd put a baby on the koala's back [I thought you'd better know in case you thought I was confused about koala anatomy].

I always use wacky cake as my base for kid's birthday cakes, because you often need a double or triple batch and they really only eat the icing anyway, which is expensive if you need lots of eggs and butter in your gluten free cake recipe. Wacky cake holds it's shape well when you cut it out, and if you make it chocolate tastes pretty good gluten free.

Now that I'm through the last 6 weeks of "3 kids' birthdays plus various other crazy life events" I will get back into some sort of routine and try to find photos of Miss 6 and Miss 8's cakes. When I find them I will post them here. If only posting photos here meant I was scrapbooking them as well. Sigh.

AUSSIE CUPCAKES

I needed to do something special with the girls to pass the time today as we are quarantined [with impetigo no less - that's school sores - but I prefer the medical name as it doesn't sound so gross] and Mr E is away at a conference. I picked up these really cute cake toppers at Aldi on Friday [yes gluten free - I always read labels!!] that were Australian animals. Today we made chocolate cupcakes [brown for dirt] with green icing [for grass] and stuck them on top. Very cute and the kids all thought they were very special. Cake toppers are a great way for the kids to do the decorating and having the cakes coming out looking very presentable. If only we were able to go out we could share them with someone...

Birthday Cakes - done for 2010!!

Here are the birthday cakes [most of them] that I made for my 4 girls for their birthdays this year... they all chose their own [except Miss 1], and helped with the decorating for the most part. It's been a busy time! I'm hoping now I can concentrate more on my papercraft and sewing and less on cakes... until 2011.

ladybird cupcakes and icing roses

Here are cupcakes I made for Miss 1 to celebrate her birthday yesterday with her playgroup friends. This is only a few - I actually made 4 dozen!! I wasn't planning on ladybirds, but when I looked in the cupboard and couldn't find anything more inspirational to decorate cakes with than chocolate chips, I was forced to be creative and think of something cute that suited a first birthday. This is the result.

Later in the day I decided to use the leftover icing to practice my buttercream roses. Here is the result:

If you look carefully [though the poor photography may prevent this I hope] you will see one of the roses is actually upside down, as it fell onto it's head as I was transferring it. Others are melting. And some look okay. Things I learned during this process:

1. the people who make this look easy on YouTube are VERY talented and well-practiced.

2. when the icing is warm from being handled it makes gooey, melty flowers that don't look like roses [Mr E thought one of them was a frangipani!].

3. making them and putting them straight in the fridge helps the above problem.

4. although roses are my favourite flower I've never looked that closely at how the petals are formed around each other, cause for the life of me I couldn't recall what a real rose looked like when I was trying to make one.

So this was a process that produced mixed feelings - because one or two were a success, it took a lot of practice and patience and honestly it was mostly an accident!

Oh, and if you eat 4 or 5 of these 'practice' roses in one sitting you feel a little queasy afterwards [experience talking].

Mastering the cupcake swirl

I've been practising at least once a week, and I think I'm finally happy with my cupcake swirls, both with fluted and smooth piping nozzles. In fact, I took cupcakes to playgroup yesterday and the girls thought they looked professional, so I'm happy.

Now to master the icing rose...

Another attempt at cake decorating

Sunday night I made another batch of cupcakes and attempted to decorate them with buttercream. All I wanted to do was a large swirl on the top... but I was very disappointed with my attempt. Remembering my promise to show you my next attempt I took some photos.

After all swirls completed, I spread the swirls out cause I was unhappy with my swirls.

Then piped a mini swirl on top with a purchased flower to hide my untidy swirl ending.

In the end the photos make them look better than I thought they were in real life. Perhaps the cupcakes I see on the internet aren't as perfect as I thought. Or perhaps I'll keep practising...