Easy Mermaid Birthday Cake

This year, my newly 5 year old, Willow opted for a Mermaid themed party! After I convinced her that she couldn't have a Unicorn theme two years in a row that is! She had never had a BIG party before, so this was her year. We made it a joint party with one of her close friends, hired a hall, invited their whole kinder class and more and had games, craft activities the whole lot!

Sharing a party with another family is great, sharing the party work load worked out so well for us! I volunteered myself to take on the task of the cakes! Because I secretly love stressing myself out about making them perfect and spending half the day in the kitchen!

But, actually these cakes were relatively simple and looked really cute! I probably would have made it even easier for myself if I had some of the proper baking utensils, like one of those handy metal scrapers for the butter cream, but hey.. it worked!

For the cakes, I used the same recipe I always use, the simple yet effective Butter Cake recipe from Taste.com.au , always a hit! Basically, this recipe makes 1 cake layer in an 8 inch or 9 inch cake pan.

For the butter cream, its a mixture between guessing and reading too many recipes, I still haven't perfected the butter-cream, it is next on my to do list! If anyone has a fail proof recipe hit me up! But, this time what I did do right was to invest in some gorgeous gel colours for the butter cream, rather than trying to create something from the basic supermarket colouring. I used Ameri-color Violet and Dusty Rose and they both turned out gorgeous!

My favourite part of this cake though was making the little fondant Mermaid Tails. I haven't used fondant much before, mostly because I don't like the taste of it and I've been a little worried it wouldn't work out. But, I am here to let you know its actually pretty easy! Especially if you are good a playing with play-doh! I purchased the silicone tail mould/mold from Ebay. The tails were really just a matter of rolling the fondant around in my hands until it got warm and therefore soft enough to mold. I experimented with the two colours mixing them together before and after they were in the mold, and ended up with a range of cute colour combos. After ensuring they were pressed down enough in the mold, and removing excess fondant from the top and around the edges I peeled them out, and gently stuck the skewers almost all the way to the end and left them to harden. Here is a great You Tube tutorial that I watched before making them : How to make fondant mermaid tails

I then pulled out this champagne coloured edible shimmer I had purchased, and brushed it onto the tails with one of the kids unused paint brushes! And WHAT a massive difference it made, they became all shimmery and gorgeous! You can see the before and after shimmer pictures below!

Some of the other cakes I've made for my kids birthdays are :

Easy Toothless Dragon Icecream Cake

Easy Miffy Birthday Cake

Pastel Layered Ice Cream cake with White Chocolate Bark

Easy Sprinkles First Birthday Cake

When we were on our travels earlier this year (which I will blog about soon), our littlest one turned One! There was no extravagant party, and just a few small presents, because thats all we could fit in our luggage. But, I did however, make a cake! I didn't really think it was fair to buy him a cake when the other kids both had very thought out homemade special Birthday cakes. So we went for something simple. And apparently naked cakes are all the rage, and so that just helped make icing this cake even easier!! Easy birthday cakes are becoming my specialty!

Once again, I used my trusted Butter Cake recipe, the one that I've used for every one of my kids cakes, except for the ice cream cakes of cours, and it never disappoints. (You can find it HERE ). I made butter cream icing. Placed a number 1 template that I cut out of a sheet of baking paper and then covered the whole thing with sprinkles, or as us Aussies like to refer to them as 100's and 1000's, and then soooo carefully peeled the paper template off!!! Really easy, but I quite liked the simplicity of it!

Archer was so excited! But, he wasn't quite sure what to do with the cake and ended up smashing up most of his piece into pieces and then rubbed it all over himself! But, at least he enjoyed it! So did all the other kids, because you know CAKE!!!!

Check out some of my other Easy Birthday Cakes here:

Easy Toothless Dragon Ice Cream Cake

Easy Miffy Cake

Pastel Layered Ice Cream Cake with White Chocolate Bark

Pastel Layered Ice Cream cake with White Chocolate Bark

Pastel Layered Ice-Cream cake with White Chocolate Bark

A few months ago my baby girl turned 3! My gorgeous Elsa obsessed baby girl, who really isn't a baby anymore at all! One thing about baking cakes, is that often the kids eat the icing and leave the rest of the cake. Maybe it is just my baking. But, I know that ice-cream cakes never go uneaten! Being time poor and just exhausted from being up all through the night with a baby, easy was definitely on the agenda! Its amazing that I even managed to make a cake at all!

This one was really easy, mix each layer with some food dye, freeze for a few hours and then do the next layer! I added a layer of crushed oreo to make it a little more fun (and delicious)!

The shards on the top are made from white chocolate bark! Which is as simple as melting down white chocolate and spreading it on a baking paper lined baking tray! We decorated it with some pink shiny bits and pieces and then popped it in the fridge. Once it is set, I just used a knife to make the sharper points and then, stuck it in the top of the cake! 

So so simple! But it was a hit with the kids, and I think it looks kind of pretty!

Easy Miffy Birthday Cake

This year for Willows 2nd Birthday, I made her a Miffy bunny cake! She does love rabbits after all, and Rabbits don't get much cuter than Miffy! Plus, Miffy's face is really, really simple! The hardest part of the whole cake is cutting the bunny ears out. But, I found an easy way to do that too!

This cake is really easy. Its perfect if anyone is embarking on their first child's birthday cake! I know, it can be a pretty daunting task! I have now successfully made 5 birthday cakes, and I have another one to make in about a months time, and Ez is requesting a dinosaur...eeep!

For all of the 5 kids birthday cakes I have ever made, I have used the same really simple butter cake recipe, I'm not trying to be all fancy, butter cakes are a simple classic, here is link to the basic cake recipe that I use. BUTTER CAKE RECIPE . For this cake I needed to double the recipe. some for the head and then some for the ears!

I used a round cake pan for Miffy's head. And then a smaller square tin for her ears, but you could use another round tin if you have one on hand, or if you only have one cake pan!

Once I baked the cakes and let them cool it was time to embark on making the shapes. I put some baking paper on a bread board and taped it down underneath, and then placed the round cake at the bottom. I then used a sharp knife and cut it a little at the top and bottom of her face to make her head a little more of an oval shape.

For Miffy's ears, I found this template on Pinterest HERE opened it on another page and printed it out at 250% the size, I tried a few other sizes, but this was perfect. I placed the template on the square cake and cut around it with a sharp knife. Then I picked up the ears and moved them to the covered breadboard and put them in place! Thankfully they stayed together.

Next was time for the icing. I just used a simple Cream Cheese icing recipe with a bit of lemon for some extra zing! I'm no expert in icing cakes, but i put most of it on with a spatula and then spread it around to even it out with the back of a tablespoon.

Then, for her eyes and mouth I used liquorice. I just sliced the liquorice about 3mm thick in a round shape and stuck on her eyes, and then for her mouth sliced thin pieces and crossed them for her mouth.

Like I said, easy!!!

Some of my other cakes:
Easy Toothless Dragon Cake

And yes, we made Miffy cookies too! These little cookie/sandwich cutters I got on Amazing for less that $3 and Free shipping! Steal!

Easy 'Toothless' Dragon Cake

Ezra had his 3rd Birthday this week, and his cake request was a Toothless ice cream cake. If you haven't been introduced to the How To Train Your Dragon movies yet, then I'll explain that Toothless is the main dragon. Ez is nuts about this movie, hence the request for a Toothless cake for his birthday.

I have been pretty busy the last couple of weeks with the shop launching and everything that comes along with running a business from home with two toddlers, so I didn't have the time or energy for an elaborate cake making session, so I did it the easy way, But, I think it looked pretty good and the main thing was that Ezra Loved it! He was so excited when he saw the big cake and of course the dragon.There was no way I wanted to try and make a dragon out of actually sponge cake and icing, so I was secretly really glad that he'd asked for an Ice cream cake!

All I did was buy two tubs of different flavour ice creams (I bought mint chocolate chip and cookies and cream) wait for them to start to melt and then layer them in a cake tin, taking time I between to re-freeze so your layers actually work! The next day, I pulled it out of the freezer, removed the cake pan and put it on a plate, then added some Flake pieces (the small pre-cut ones that come in the little bag) around the edge, then drizzled some ice magic (I haven't used that stuff since I was a kid, so many memories!) around the edges and did a swirly pattern on the top, I crumbled some flake to make a standing pad for the dragon! I popped it back in the freezer until cake time!

We bought a Toothless figurine from Toys R Us because I am not an expert at icing creations! Plus he gets to keep the figure!

Anyway, if you have a Dragon fan in your house,and you are time poo and looking for an easy cake, then I hope I could help!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Rabbit Party for Willow

So this post is a little late in coming, its been a few weeks now since Willow turned one. I like to think 1st Birthdays are kind of a big deal, I mean, what a massive year for everyone, and how cute are they when they try cake for the first time! It's amazing to watch their faces! SO, we threw her a bit of a party, and she loved playing with all the balloons, and eating cake, she definitely LOVED eating cake, but there is no surprises there!

Her birthday was an excuse to get our friends to make the hour drive down and visit us and see the new house! We haven't really had lots of time for visitors seeing every weekend we seem to be embarking on some new project, and theres the shop too. It was so nice to see everyone again and just hang out. It maybe got a little chaotic, but thats why I am so grateful for our big house and open spaces!

I feel like with the second child their first year just flies past. Its hard to believe she's almost 13 months, she's given up on crawling and is walking everywhere now, and has said her first official word, which is 'Shoe' closely followed by the word 'sock'. No surprises there really, seeing she's got a pretty great shoe collection already thanks to her mini shoe adddict Mum! A child after my own heart, oh we are going to have some fun!

It wasn't really a overly themed birthday party, but due to her love of her Ikea Rabbit stuffed toy 'Rab Rab' and her new Mini Melissa Rabbit shoes,  I decided that the cake, at least had to have a Rabbit theme.

I roped a friend into helping me with some DIY tissue paper tassel decorations! And I got the Love Mae party plates and cups and such on sale! Thanks to some inspiration from Babs at Patchwork Cactus we served American Hotdogs with a range of toppings, including chilli con carne, sauerkraut, onions, cheese, all the good American style stuff! We bought Hunsa hotdogs, and Joel, reckons that they are pretty darn close to real American hotdogs! And he should know, they were part of his staple diet growing up! ha!

I also ended up taking heaps of cake photos and not a whole lot else! Thats what happens when you are hosting, you have no time for pictures. I didn't even get one with the Birthday girl.

HER FACE!!! PRICELESS!!! 

An Almost 1 year old

Next week my baby girl turns one!!
WHAT!!! I can hear you gasping from here! Oh wow, this year has gone fast. She's almost a toddler and no longer my little baby.

I definitely have not had the same amount of quiet, gazing into my baby's eyes moments that I did with Ezra. Life is full of chaos and something is always on the go. I will admit, it is nice to have one day a week where Ez goes to play school and I can have some one on one Willow time! Although, mostly she is bored because she doesn't have her older brother around to entertain her! And, that is one awesome thing about having a second baby, you don't have to do ALL of the entertaining ALL of the time! There is a whirlwind of toddler action going on around her! Today I found them playing in the spare room, Ez lying in the pram bassinet on the floor and Willow climbing up on it and then body slamming him, I left them to it, and had a cup of tea. It was quite relaxing!

Her personality is really shining through, and I'll tell you, this girl is feisty!! She know how to stick up for herself and if you steal one of her toys you will hear her wrath! She has a grip so strong, probably developed to stop an older brother taking toys off of her! And she will fight him for it, and boy she is determined! If there is something she wants, she will just keep on trying to get to it, nothing will distract her.

I mean, apart from food, she'll drop anything at the sight of food! Some mornings she eats more breakfast than anyone! She's an eater, although meal time is rather strategic, either it is finger food, which I'm a big fan of, or she HAS to have the bowl on her tray table, and she HAS to have her own spoon, which is great because she is soo good at feeding herself with a spoon already!

She is just learning to walk, and its such a fun time in a child's development, such a big milestone, I get so excited for her! Her max is about 4 steps at a time, but generally she takes about 2 steps and then flings herself into a belly flop on the ground and then thinks its hilarious! She's a joker, anything for a laugh, so she becomes more interested in the laughs than learning to walk!

It is pretty amazing the second time around to have a child who actually sits still and plays with toys. Ez is my beautiful wild-child, and he was so full on from the day he could crawl (5 1/2 months) and then he was walking at 10 months, and he was into Everything and never stopped and NEVER played with his own toys and was like a baby tornado! But Willow will sit there putting blocks into a bucket and then taking them out again for like 15 minutes, I cleaned the bathroom today whilst she opened and closed a small cupboard door putting things in and out!!!!! WHAT! Amazing!

Anyway. 1 year. Where does it go. Life zooms past.
I'm trying to get things together for her party, but theres so much going on at the moment I am not even organised at all!!

Trying on shoes at the Mini Melissa Animal Lovers Launch Party at M Dreams the other week! (I chose the blue Rabbits)

Such a cheeky chops!!

My Birthday Re-Do

Saturday morning we woke bright and early (5.30am) to the sound of Ez vomiting in the hallway.

Yay.. What a perfect way to start a Saturday, and what an especially awesome way to start my Birthday. It wasn't really a surprise that he was vomiting, because he had already thrown up all his dinner the previous night, all over my few month old couch. I'm so thankful for couch cushion covers with zips! But I was really hoping it was just a one time thing.

My Birthday Wishlist

So, I'm turning 30 this week!! I think I am the same as most people, a little sad to say Goodbye to my 20's and I have that feeling that I am 'getting old', but at the same time it doesn't bother me that much. There is so much great stuff to look forward to this year that I'm looking ahead with excitement and anticipation, not the dread of more grey hairs!

For a few weeks now Joel has been asking me what I want for my Birthday, and my answer has been: 'I don't know'. I honestly haven't really had that much time lately to think about myself and what I want. So this week I took some time and sat down and happily searched the interwebs to find some things I love and would be very happy to receive for my birthday. So this post is really for Joel (and my parents), but I hope you enjoy it too! There are lots of pretty things to look at!

Joel can be a great gift giver, one year I got an IPad for Christmas, complete surprise! But, he also has a tendency to revert to very 'practical gifts'. He and I think very differently about gifts, which is why in the past I have received a cutlery set, a scanner and a kettle for different Birthdays or Christmases. Not that I want to sound ungrateful at all, but seriously, A KETTLE!!!! It was a lovely kettle, but a kettle all the same, I thought he would have learnt his lesson after I got cutlery, but no. In his man wired brain he figures if you need it, you should get it as a present. My thoughts are that I like to try to buy people things they love but wouldn't necessarily buy themselves, something that is a treat! So, this year, I wanted to help him out a little, I like surprises, but because we don't have heaps of money to splash around, I don't want to waste it on things I don't like either.. does anyone else have this problem?

1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15 

Karen xx