Valentine Cupcakes

I made these red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese icing for Valentine's Day. They came out totally delicious! I made the hearts, lil bows and roses from sugarpaste. The heart and bows were cut with regular cutters while the roses were made using a mold I bought in Holland while we were there on holiday. To add a little pizazz I dusted the hearts and the roses with silver pearl dust. To make it even more special I used the flower cupcake holders that I bought at Michaels.

4th of July Cake Pops

Made some more cake pops for the 4th of July and they are going fast :-). My son and his buddies are definately ensuring that they don't go to waste! I had 36 of them yesterday morning and there are only 3 left today. They are all about chocolate ~ chocolate cake, chocolate fudge icing, and milk chocolate coat. I don't like white chocolate and since these were for us, I decided to make them with milk chocolate and use the red, white and blue icing to decorate them.

I've been hearing a lot about cake pops, so I decided to investigate and found out that these have been popular for a while. I decided to give them a try, but had problems with the chocolate - I just could not get it thin enough. I will have to keep trying as practice makes perfect :-) I decorated them for Easter and I think that for a first time, they actually came out quite nicely. The cake is chocolate, the frosting is chocolate and of course they were dipped in chocolate. Are you beginning to think that I have a chocolate addiction ... if so, you'd be totally right!!! I love anything chocolate but my favorite are the Lindt truffles and the Ferrero Roche bonbons. Also, let's not forget the bonbons from Leonidas, a chocolate store in Belgium and Holland! Yummy.

Oh the pressure of trying to find something "cool" for a 15 year old boy!!! :-)

Then I had this little spark - my son and most of his buddies are totally into the Little Big Planet 2 game, so I thought I would give it a try and this is the result. It was a great hit!

The bottom two layers are chocolate cake filled with chocolate mousse. The sack boy cake is butterscotch flavoured and a great complement to the chocolate. The whole cake was then covered in chocolate mousse. I added some icing sugar and cocoa powder to make the "knitted" effect on the top a little darker. The zipper, eyes and mouth are all cut from fondant.

Giant Cupcake

I took a class on how to make a giant cupcake and I'm loving it. They are so much fun! They can be used for kids birthdays, showers, adult birthdays ... their uses are limitless and the colour combinations are endless. One this size serves 25 people. Best of all is that you can have different flavours in one cupcake. I had a lot of fun with this and I can see make more in future.

Valentine's Day Cake

Could not let Valentine's day go by without a cake, so Ta-Da!!! The cake is chocolate marble, with cream cheese filling. The crumb coat is also cream cheese flavoured. The cupid and heart were cut with my cricut cake - the cupid is from the Celebrate with Flourish cartridge and the heart is from George. It took a couple of tries to get cupid cut properly. I found that it worked best after I put the fondant on the cricut mat and put the whole thing in the freezer for about 5 minutes. The cake is on a pedestal glass stand which compliments the cake very well, as the pedestal is a rich dark pink. We had it for dessert and everyone enjoyed it!

Soccer Birthday Cake

As a result of the Soccer World Cup, a friend asked me to make a soccer cake for her son's 2nd birthday, so I tried to make it kinda cutsy since it was for a little tyke. I used the Wilton soccer ball pan that I had recently won in a raffle, and then put the 'ball' on a double 12" round cake. This was large enough to feed 40 people.

I used my cricut E to cut the letters and the little soccer dudes. The uniform is yellow and blue, the colours for Brazil! For some reason, I struggled to cut the letters with the E. The little dolls cut out perfectly and since I was using the same fondant/sugarpaste mixture for the letters and the dolls, I don't quite know why it kept scrunching up the letters instead of cutting them. Eventually I followed the advice of a lady that I found on the cricut message board and froze the sugarpaste for a few minutes before cutting. This helped tremendously. The buttercream icing was all made and coloured at home except for the black which is from Country Kitchen.

Birthday Cake for Hubby

My hubby enjoys golf, but doesn't get the chance to play it as often as he would like, so I thought for his birthday, I would make him a "golf themed" cake. Since I'm still rather new at all this, I tried something that was simple and I must admit that I'm very happy with the way it turned out. Hubby like it and it was delicious - what more can you ask for? I used my cricut E to cut out the little golfer dude. Since they are small cuts, I only had to move one roller out of the way, but a cricut cake is definately on top of my wish list! I used fondant to cover the cake and sugarpaste for all the cuts. Another thing on my wish list is a silicone bead mold, because making all those little golf balls, lost it's appeal after the 15th one :).

My Blue Cake!

Sometimes, when you run out of ideas, you ask someone else to help you out. This was just the case and my son very graciously helped me out with this cake for my class. He wanted a chocolate cake, with chocolate fudge filling and then blue fondant to go with my white shimmering bow. It is bright but it is also very yummy!

Calla Lily Cake

I had to put my calla lilies to good use, so I used them to decorate this birthday cake. I like how it turned out, but I do have to improve on my lilies. Although my favourite colours are pink and red, I have to admit that I also like yellow - it is such a happy colour - the colour of sunshine!

Trinket Box

I'm just having so much fun with sugar paste! Isn't this just the cutest box ever and all made out of sugar paste?! I can already picture this little gem in different shapes and colours for various occasions. Would make a great little party favour, cake topper, etc. The possibilities are endless.

Calla Lily

I just love working with sugar paste! It is definately my favourite. Here is my very first calla lily. I think it turned out pretty cute - I just have to perfect it and voila! Let me know what you all think, and remember that I do appreciate your comments and any advice you may have :)

Draped Fondant Cake

I'm so excited about this cake. I really enjoy working with fondant and sugarpaste. For me it is so much easier to make flowers with sugarpaste than it is with buttercream icing or even royal icing. We decorated this cake in class, and for my very first fondant cake, I think it came out very pretty. The rope needs some adjusting. I will have to practice more on that. I just love how the flower came out and I think that the drape gives it a very elegant look. What do you think?

Spring Basket Cake

This was the grand finale of the Wilton Course 2. Hahaha if I thought that squeezing out little stars was hard, I was in for a big surprise with the basket weaving. Again it was shear determination that got me to finish this cake. I enjoy the basket weaving, both doing it and the effect, but let me tell you I could quite happily have taken a full bottle of pain killers. My poor hand and wrist were hurting that bad!

Funny thing is my instructor told us that once you develop the muscles on the icing hand and arm, you can quite easily knock someone out. After this , I can well believe it ~ an added advantage to cake decorating ~ who would have thought?

As you can see, it looks like the purple rose is falling. Well, truth be told, it actually did. On the way home from class, I had to brake really hard because some lunatic driver cut in front me! Don't you just really dislike these people that think that they own the road? By the time I got home, the rose and part of the border had fallen onto the bird damaging the little leaves around it too. In the end, I had to put this down to a learning experience ... make sure you ice and decorate a cake well in advance before transporting it anywhere!

By the way, did you notice that the purple rose is looking more like a rose? I guess, practice does make it better :)

Rose Bouquet Cake

Well, as much fun as I'm having with cake decorating, the Wilton rose is just something that I can't do very well. I'm not sure if it is my icing consistency or me, but something is not quite right and I can't quite figure out what it is. They look like roses, just not like very nice roses. This is one of those times where you can really appreciate your friends. I had few come over for coffee and they all thought the cake looked wonderful, so by the end of our coffee session I was able to look at the cake (or what was left of it) and see that the roses, although not perfect, didn't look as bad as I originally thought. I guess I'm my worst critique, but then aren't we all?

Pink Flowers Cake

A friend asked me to make a cake for her for a church auction. Well, let me tell you that I went into complete panic, after all I'm still a newbie!!! But I couldn't let her down, so I tried my best and in the end I thought it came out okay. She thought it was very nice, and I must admit I was pleasantly surprised when it sold for $40. Some of her friends from church came up to me and told how pretty it looked and this really boosted my confidence. :)

Clown Cake

Aren't clowns just the happiest of people? I think they are cheerful and lively. I know that there are many people that are afraid of clowns, but I just don't see it. From what I'm told, it mostly has to do with a certain movie ... I'm so glad that I didn't see this movie! I guess we all have our fears ~ mine are scary movies, hehehe thus the reason I never saw the scary movies about clowns ;) I thought that this cake came out very cute and I was very happy because I learnt how to make a clown out of icing!

Easter Bunny Cake

This was the very first cake I decorated after starting my lessons. After squeezing out countless little stars, I thought my hand was going to give up on me. But since I'm very determined, I finished it. Some people call it stubborn ... go figure. What ever it was, it kept me going till it was all covered! In the end it was worth, because on Easter Sunday we went to have coffee with friends and I took this cake and everyone enjoyed it.

My Sweet Creations Blog

Hi Everyone,

For those of you who know me, you may already be familiar with my other blog called Lena's Creations. That is for all my paper crafting, scrapbooking, card making and general crafts.

This blog, however is going to be dedicated to my Sweet Creations only. I sat for a while and debated about it's name ~ should it be Sweet Creations or Yummy Creations. Well, I'm actually hoping that it will be both, but I didn't want the name to be too long, so I settled on the Sweet Creations.

I have always enjoyed baking cakes and desserts. In fact, although I can cook pretty nicely, at least everyone says so :), I much prefer baking. Maybe it has something to do with my sweet tooth?! All of my cakes have always been made from scratch and baked in fancy bundt forms with no further decoration being required.

However, I always admire beautifully decorated cakes and it was with this in mind that I decided to learn. So I began by taking a few classes to see if I would enjoy it and if, especially, I had the patience for it. You see, patience is a virtue that must have been in short supply when I was born, because I wasn't blessed with much of it :)

As the lessons progressed, I found that I really enjoy it. I have now successfully complete Wilton's course 1 and 2 and have started a Sugarpaste and Fondant course. I enjoyed the other 2, but I'm having a ball with this one. It is just so much fun!

I will be posting my sweet creations periodically on this blog, so come take a peek every once in a while and if you see something you like, email me at lenfon@msn.com.

Please remember that I'm still new at this, so if you more seasoned bakers have any advice, suggestions or kind criticism, please let me hear from you.