The sky's the limit....or is it?

Goooood morning!

I need coffee. Lots of coffee. I wonder if a jug full would be enough to counteract the feeling of being hit by a bus. Coffee, coffee, coffee. Why do I feel like I've been hit by a bus do you ask? Well......
This week has been crazy busy.  So busy that I've asked myself at least 1000 times how I am backing this shit up and why I'm not dead.

This week I had the most orders I have had since I started this venture at Christmas. Every day I went to work from 9am-5pm, then came home and worked from 5pm- 11pm to get my orders finished.
To add insult to the injury of my busy week- last night I got NO sleep, and it was the worst night to not get any sleep because I had to get up at 5.00am to take my partner to the airport for his 7.00am flight.
It was unlucky for me that the houso neighbours across the road (you know that one family in every street) decided to have a domestic at 1.00am and the daughter stalked off down the road wheeling her luggage along noisily behind her, stopping every metre to re adjust. Naturally it took her about 10 minutes to get past my window and she made sure every house in the street new she was leaving. I felt like sticking my head out the window and yelling "JUST LEAVE ALREADY". Like honestly- what do you have to do to get some sleep around here. Anyway that right there is why I need COFFEE!!!!

During the last week I have commissioned a butt load of cakes. The first project was for V-day for all the loved up guppies out there. It was a little disappointing to see that I had not ONE order from a bloke. All my orders were from woman....seriously boys you need to lift your games. Woman love chocolate and cake and strawberries, so my chocolate covered strawberry chocolate cupcakes with chocolate ganache was like a quadruple threat. So yeah you should have ordered some. Shame, shame, shame on you. I can only hope you redeem yourselves next year.....I mean look at those cupcakes.

Moving on- my next project was project Leggo/Peppa pig. What an odd shaped head Peppa has....before I added the eyes and the smile and the ears and the second nostril she resembled a.....never mind. My favourite had to be the Leggo. I loved the way the little blocks turned out and they were super easy to make. All I needed was a lump of coloured fondant, a rectangle cutter and a round cylinder tube (whatever size you want) to cut the circle pieces out to stick on top. Wallah!!

My third labour of love was a giant cupcake for a 1 year old's birthday party. It was one of those smash cakes that are all the rage at the moment. He even had a photo shoot to capture the smashing of the cake. Twas a Vanilla Butter cake with a baby blue wrapper, white polka dots and blue buttercream with sprinkles. I must say I was quite chuffed with the way it turned out as I had never made a giant cupcake before. When the last sprinkle had been sprinkled into place I loaded it into the car for delivery (the scariest part of cake making) and dropped it off to the shoot so the birthday boy could smash it to pieces and spend the rest of the day on a happy sugar high. Another successful day in the kitchen. Wouldn't all the feminists out there be proud.

After producing the giant cupcake, I hopped off to work, spent the day under a pile of paperwork longing for better days and a realistic way to make a million dollars before coming home and loading the car up with another one of my creations. Low and behold....A MINION CAKE!! I have quite literally always wanted to make a minion cake but I wasn't bothered making it for myself as it would just have gone to waste. When you see so much cake it makes you not want to eat a whole lot of cake.  Anyway it's rather irrelevant now because I was patient and the opportunity presented itself. Gotta be pleased about that!! This cake was a scrumptious chocolate mud cake with milk chocolate ganache....ohhh baby. Mouthwatering, tantalising....get in my belly!
It took me two days to bake, fill, stack, ice, cover and decorate this crazy yellow fatty and I've never been prouder. The hardest part about making my minion baby was handing him over because I knew he was going to get eaten! RIP little minion buddy....RIP.

 

In loving memory of Min 22/02/15-24/02/15                     

Anyway...onwards and upwards. My last cake was a Hawaiian themed cake for my cousin's 30th. I thought long and hard about the design of this cake. I had free range with the design- all I knew was she wanted something yellow and purple with pineapples and that she was going to Hawaii so she wanted to tie the cake theme in with her holiday. I didn't want to make one of those tacky luau Hawaiian themed cakes because she wasn't turning 13. I wanted it to have a more sophisticated look. Not only because its nicer and more age appropriate but because I have never done a delicate cake like this before with flower work etc. Cut to me making yellow and Purple Hibiscus flowers (my first attempt at these flowers) some frangipanis and a pineapple. I whacked them the cake with some purple fondant and this is what I came up with.

So as you can see its been a crazy week with lots of projects! As usual I've had lots of fun but I am looking forward to a well deserved break. No cakes this weekend! I'm going to party so hard at home in my pyjama's before I go to bed at 9pm. You have no idea. 

Next cab off the rank will be next weekend when I hope to produce an electric guitar cake and a wedding cake/wedding cupcakes. Wish me luck!

On a side note: They say the sky is the limit but I'm pushing atmosphere here. Yay me.

This is Neat signing off for coffee- Have a great weekend!

xx

The reality of cake is....

Making cakes is nose grinding work and more often then not people don't appreciate how much time and effort goes into producing them.

I don't know about everyone else but for me every cake I make is like my baby. I love and nurture them and watch them grow until the time comes for them to move on. 

Delivering my cakes is bitter sweet. On one hand you get that amazing feeling when you see someones face light up at the sight of all your hard work and on the other, you get that sad feeling when you realise that its no longer a part of your life and you have to turn around and walk away after everything you went through together.

Lets reminisce shall we. Well there were meltdown and tantrums, late nights, fussiness, burns, falls, collapses and many many tears. But in the end its worth it as you stand there proudly, looking at all you've accomplished.

So today I delivered my latest project- a Wiggles cake and some Wiggles cupcakes for a 2 year olds birthday party. The client was a dream- you know the ones who thank you so much that in the end you feel like you should be thanking them, because you can see how much they truly appreciate your work- well she was one of them. 
Cut to me right now- dreaming about all deliveries being like that.....hmm maybe I'll put that one on the shelf along with world peace.

So today is Saturday in Aus land. I started making the decorations for this project a week ago (on and off). Last night I worked feverishly into the wee hours of the morning- 3am to be exact, until all the toppers were glued into their overnight drying positions.

I dragged myself to bed, delusional from lack of sleep with random thoughts such as "If I live on Earth and Earth is in space, then right now I am in space!!" occupying the last piece of my sanity. I set my alarm for 9am with the goal of icing and decorating the cupcakes and adding the finishing touches to the cake before delivery.

My goal for the rest of the day is to be a couch potato and not think about anything cake until next week when I start all over again with my Peppa Pig/Leggo/Valentines Day cupcakes. 

Until then, Happy Caking- Neat x

Cakes, randomness and my struggle of sticking to hobbies!

Why hello there!

Welcome to my cake blog. You're probably thinking "Oh great another stupid food blog". Before I get all defensive on your ass- I'd have to admit that I probably couldn't argue the point with you because you'd probably be right. 
This blog definitely has the potential to be just another stupid food blog about cakes and fondant and techniques for flowers that are already shown a million different ways on Youtube and Facebook and Facetube etc etc but I will have to stop you there and proclaim that I am happy for this to be MY stupid food blog about cakes and lets be honest- chances are about other completely non related cake things-so by all means if you're anything like me and are addicted to all things cake and all things random that at times make no sense at all- feel free to jump on my cakey random bandwagon and come along for the ride- its free. I swear.....on cake....and all things random....Like this random picture below.

Aw isn't it cute. He can't hear him say his butt hurts coz he's got no ears! Get it!? What am I saying- of course you do! Your mumma didn't raise no fool!

Anyway getting back on track - My name is Anita and I make cakes. Nothing too serious or fancy. I just do it for fun. Its more of a hobby really. Because we all need one of those am I right!? 
I often like to ask people what their hobbies are and get overly surprised to hear that a lot of people's responses are their husbands, or wives or kids! Say whaaaa? 
I guess like most hobbies though- spouses and children cost a lot of doh ray me and you may not see dividends for decades if in natural fact you see any at all so I guess I should ease up on them a bit. 

I must admit- i've tried a lot of hobbies in my short 26 years on earth. My mum says I have a short attention span and can't finish most things I start. On reflection she's probably right. Even though it kills me to admit that so much that i'd prefer to trade places with the earless, arse-less bunnies. Give me a minute- I'm sure I can find something that I've stuck to.

Lets see....I tried dancing for a few years....I was going to be the next big thing on so you think you can dance. That venture ended up being more like "So you think you can dream that you'll end up being a good enough dancer to get on so you think you can dance" and needless to say I hung my jazz shoes up and moved on to the next thing....piano lessons. 

Oh yeah I was going to be the next Mozart. Or at least Edward Cullen- talented enough to write my own version of "Bella's Song"...."Aaron's song" which would probably be less of a symphony than a sports anthem. I'm pretty sure I went to at least four or five lessons. Anyway it was long enough to learn all the keys and long enough that I was guaranteed not to remember any of those keys once I hadn't played for a week. FAIL. 

I took on writing as a hobby and I even started to write my own book. That was about two years ago. I'm about 200 pages in and I haven't picked it up for about 6 months. 

I'm starting to think she has a point.....gymnastics? One lesson. After getting beat up at the train station for not having a smoke the chances of competing in the Olympics took a nose dive.

Horse riding? I had a horse for over a year.....I reckon I got pretty confident at riding a 500kg animal, grooming him, feeding him etc etc......I loved that horse. I hope his new owner loves him just as much....

I started a mosaic class once- it was a ten week course. I think I went three times.

I used to paint....attended a circus class for a whole term....

Hmmm. Well I started cake decorating after I decided to try and make my boyfriend a cake a few years ago. It was a Liverpool/Tigers cake. From memory it was a Vanilla Butter cake with a Caramel ganache filling. The cake itself tasted good. The decorations were a bit dodgy. The fondant balls weighed about 1kg each, the stripes weren't even or straight, the edible images made it look as though I didn't graduate my Kindergarten cutting course and all the other mistakes I covered up with Lindt balls, Tim Tams and Jersey Caramels. Unfortunately I couldn't cover up the bulging bottom tier which was bulging because I didn't support it with dowels. I had no idea that a cake needed support but I guess looking back it makes sense that the bottom tier would be at risk of collapsing should it have a heavy tier sitting on top of it. Oh well you live and learn. I guess my point is- three years on and I'm still caking. Maybe I've finally found a hobby I can stick to!

Happy caking - Neat x

My First Cake

A few years on and I am making (and sticking to it) cakes of all shapes and sizes. I reckon I'm getting better with each and every cake but I'll let you be the judge of that.

Happy caking!
xx
Neat