Happy Easter

Easter is one of our families favourite time of the year. We celebrate with a traditional Easter Sunday brunch, hosted by my beautiful mother and her partner.... with the help of my brothers who cook up a storm for breaky!.

For this year's Easter sweets table the kids and I chose soft pastels for our colour palette. We created a simple sweets table and chose this years Easter printable range by Style me gorgeous which was perfect! The party spots were printed on edible icing and were used as cute cupcake toppers.

We decided on  the kids favouite vanilla cupcakes and shortbread Easter cookies.  I had the images (Bunny by the gate) printed on edible icing and the kids and I attached them on to the cookies using home made sugar glue.

Our Easter treats included "Easter" M&M's, Speckled eggs (yummm!), popcorn, scones and plenty of Cadbury chocolate Easter eggs and bunnies!.

Brunch is always followed by The Easter Egg hunt, and the kids have a ball looking for and finding the many eggs and bunnies scattered throughout mum's garden... I love watching their innocent little faces light up as they discover their chocolote goodies.

I hope your day was filled with laughter and smiles!!

x 

Vendor credits

Easter printables " Some bunny loves you" : Style me gorgeous

Edible images " Bunny by the gate" : Little dance invitations

Treat boxes : Candy Soirees

Cake stands: Sweet Style

Shortbread cookies 

Milk Chocolate. Printables by Style Me Gorgeous.

Owl first birthday Cake and cupcakes

I had the pleasure of creating the sweetest first birthday cake and cupcakes.  My lovely customer, Rebecca, provided me with the invitation from Fairy dust stationery. My brief was simple.  To incorporate the very cute owl in the design.  So of course we decided on a very sweet owl topper which adorned the extended 8 inch white chocolate mud and 6 inch chocolate mud cake!.

The cupcakes are vanilla sponge with buttercream swirl.  Patty cases by Paper Eskimo where used for these simple but sweet petities!.

Rebecca included the cake and cupcakes on her dessert table. (photo courtesy of client). I loved how she used the paper eskimo cups throughout the table.

Hired items included the gorgeous white milk glass stand and the stylish plain glass drink dispenser. Both are now available for hire through Boutique Party Hire.

Blast off for Ethan's 5th Birthday!

A few weeks ago we celebrated our middle son's 5th birthday.  Each year I ask my children to think of a " theme" they may like for their birthday, they do some thinking and get back to me ever so excitedly!!!. I love that they want to become involved in their own party planning and dessert table styling!.

It was my son's last year at kindergarden and for the majority of the final term they were learning about Space, planets, rockets and astronauts, so it was of no surprise to myself that Ethan would choose a "space theme" for his party!.  He has actually developed a keen interest in the planets and can name them in the correct order to the sun...

We chose the invitations from Polkadot prints and Jordan went out of her way to ensure the matching wall paper arrived just in time for the party!. We printed off matching straw lables (how cute are these) and attached them to the star straws available from P is for Party. They looked great in the mini glass bottles don't you think?

The sweets table included yummy caramel mud and milk chocolate ganache rocket ship cake, gingerbread rocket ship cookies, " alien" oreo cake pops and vanilla space cupcakes.  The sweets table would not have been complete without the delicious jelly beans and sixlets from Sweet Style. They looked so cute in the mini glass apothecary jars, also available from Sweet Style.

The children had such a wonderful time, we played pin the rocket ship on the planets (a game where each child had to wear a "space helmet".  They then had to stick down their rocketship on the planets poster - the child with the rocketship closest to the sun won a small prize.

We also made little Astronaut survival kits were the children got to fill their very own goody bag to take home. The "kit" included an astronaut manual (sticker and colour book), space bubbles, a milkyway bar and a space pencil!.

Lee Bird Photography captured the awesome photos of the table. I especially love the shots of the alien cake pops!!!

All in all, the party was a huge hit, the kids had a great time and most importantly Ethan got to spend time with those special in his life right now.

A huge thank you to Amy Atlas, for featuring the party on her blog. This is my very first submission and to say that I was very excited to have recieved an email this morning advising that they would include in their featured submission, would be an understatement!!!

You can find more photos and the guest dessert feature here

Happy New Year

I absolutely love New Years Eve!, Its one of my favourite days of the year as I take time to reflect on all that is wonderful in my life... friends, good food, the fabulous country we live in and my beautiful family!.... and of course ponder on some resolutions for the new year ahead.

To welcome the new year the kids and I decided on a chic and fun party!..... black tie if you will... Kids got dressed up in their best attire and we celebrated the night with music, a yummy bbq prepared by my hubby and of course some sweets to welcome 2012!....

I am really excited about 2012!!! I hope the year ahead brings you all that your heart's desire!..

I feel truly blessed to have such fantastic friends and family and I wish for them only the best in 2012

Here's to a wonderful year ahead

x

 

Printables : The TomKat Studio

Winter Wonderland Christmas

I have always dreamt of a white Christmas, where snow would fall outside, whilst we ate our christmas dinner and sang Christmas carols by the fire.  It's summer here is Australia so a white Christmas would only be a dream for me!. We had a very warm night on Christmas Eve and a very humid Christmas day here down under. But that did not deter my dreams of a white Christmas!.

I wanted to create a dessert table which was inspired by so many fabulous recipe's and decorations I had at home, and I figured if I couldn't have snow on Christmas Eve, I would bring elements of a white christmas wonderland to our sweets table. 

I painted a wooden tree I had in my stash of Kaiser products, white (yes. I was once a very keen scrapbooker) and hung cookie ornaments off the tree. I loved how it turned out.

Dessert menu consisted of vanilla cookies, pannacotta, raspberry swirl vanilla cupcakes, white chocolate mud cake, dulce de leche roll (caramel yule log ), cakepops and an assortment of macarons!

Candy buffet: Pink raspberry jellybeans, Blue lemonade jellybeans, Rafaello's, Dark chocolate bars and milk chocolate silver bells.

I hope your Christmas was as sweet as mine!
Merry Christmas!
x

Printables : Winter Woodland by Style Me Gorgeous
Cake stands, small glass pots, wooden spoons and jellybeans : Sweet Style
Panacotta recipe couresy of Blissfully Sweet

The very hungry caterpillar party

I had the pleasure of styling a very dear friends baby girls first birthday on the weekend.  When I heard she wanted to incorporate elements of her daughter's favourite book - "The very hungry caterpillar", into the party, it bought a smile to my face as this book has always been one of my favourites.... oh and the fact that my mind was running wild with the endless possibilities for the dessert table!

The backdrop to the dessert table was the greenery of a local park - and there was no need for added decorations to the backdrop or table as the elements of this dessert table were very bright, fun and told the story beautifully with printed buffet labels purchased from Jennifer Leonardini on etsy.

Vanilla Caterpillar cookies , vanilla cupcakes with butter cream swirls and Oreo ice - cream cake pops - all by Studio cake
The gorgeous mud cake adorned by handmade sugar elements was made by the talented Tanja of Choice Cakes.

Fruit platters - courtesy of the clever mummy!

Thank you Milly for allowing me to be part of your special day x

Cake Pops

I am loving making cake pops at the moment. Its so nice to be able to just reach for a couple of ingredients and create some yummy treats when the kids or I want something sweet and fun. Cake pops are the new cupcakes - in my opinion. And they are so much fun to make. What makes these little balls of cakes on a stick so appealing to both children and adults?.... well its the bite size loveliness of course!. 

There are so many great cake pop recipes out there right now, and if you happen to have Bakerella's book you will find so much inspiration, its just amazing what this lady can create. My personal favourite recipe (which is so simple and most importantly quick and easy to follow) is the Oreo and Philly recipe - Two ingredients 300gm of Oreo's biscuits and 250gm of Philadelphia cream cheese. Too Easy!

Things you will need to make these yummy little balls on a stick -

• Two packets of  Oreo biscuits (150gms each)
• One packet of Philly cream cheese ( 250gms)
• Candy melts
•  Lollipop sticks
• Sprinkles to decorate

Method

1. In a food processor, place the two packets of Oreo biscuits and whizz these, making sure the consistency resembles breadcrumbs

2. Add the cream cheese to the mix and whizz for a few seconds, until combined with the biscuits

That's it!!!, how easy is that

3. Next I use a 24 whole mini muffin tray and roll out small balls of the cake pop mix and place them in the mini muffin trays

4. Place in the fridge for a few hours, or if you are short of time, you could place them in the freezer, but remember not to leave in there for too long or they will go rock hard!

5. The next step is to prepare the candy melts. If you use compounded chocolate from the store be sure to purchase the correct product to colour chocolate. Roberts confectionery have a great range of colours. Or you can use the ready coloured chocolate from Wilton's which is readily available form places like Spotlight. I purchase mine from cakes around town. They have a large selection of ready made coloured chocolate melts.


Make sure that what ever you are using to melt the chocolate in is deep enough for the ball to be completely submerged in.
I melt my chocolate in the microwave using 30 second intervals.
Once the chocolate has melted and is smooth, you are ready to cover the cake pops

6. Take out the tray of cake pops from the fridge and place one lollipop stick into the melted chocolate. Next insert the stick in the hardened ball

7. Place the ball on the stick into the candy melts, ensuring the whole ball is covered with chocolate

8. Next take the ball out of the chocolate and lightly tap the excess chocolate against the side of your dish/cup to remove excess chocolate (note I have not done this for the ice cream pop as I wanted a melting effect)

9. Decorate the cake pop, using sprinkles, flowers, etc and then place the finished cake pop to set on a Styrofoam block

 Although a little time consuming to make, these little lovelies are OH so yummy and so worth the effort

ENJOY!

For these I used pearl balls  on co ordinating chocolate melts.

These yummy ice cream balls are a little more work, but how effective would they be on a dessert table!
I used mini ice-cream cones and smarties to decorate.

These mummy cake pops were a favourite at Halloween!,


They make such a fabulous addition to any dessert table. I hope you find this little tutorial useful, I am happy to answer any questions you may have or alternatively would be happy for Studio cake to make them for your next event. Prices vary depending on complexity, and start at $4.50 each. Please contact me for an obligation free quote.