I-Scream, You-Scream, We all Scream for Ice-Cream...

8th Birthday Cupcakes: 17-Aug-2011

I could not resist making these for my oldest birthday - for him to share with his fellow classmates! What a ball they must have had... and of course, I just HAD to share some pictures... & here they are... Yum Yum Yum!! It sure smelt GREAT as I was carrying them to his classroom!!

So what did I do to produce these cute cupcakes, I hear you ask... 

Well, I used my favourite chocolate cupcake recipe (any cupcake/cake recipe will work really...) & filled each cone 2/3 with the prepared cake batter & baked it at 180C for about 30 mins. I then made a simple butter frosting (but half the amounts of sugar - as I found it too sweet, if 4 cups were added in...) and coated the cupcakes with it. Retain the remainder frosting, as you will need it again.

I then topped it with chocolate magic topping (what you would usually use on real ice-cream where the cold from the ice-cream will actually harden the chocolate), or you could make your own using this recipe, which I have yet to try & if anyone does, let me know how good it is... but at least making your own means that there will be minimal preservatives, additives, etc... :-D. Anyway, I digress...

Once topped with chocolate magic topping, using your icing bag, ice more buttercream on top of the chocolate topping (so that it resembles freshly piped whipped cream), sprinkle some 100s & 1000s on top, & top with an orange jaffa chocolate. Hopefully that doesn't sound too complicated! :-)

Packed & ready to go to school... :-)

Some inspirational sources when I was wondering how to do this & looking at pictures online to help...

(a) This one I thought was really cute... http://musiclovecupcakes.webs.com/apps/photos/photo?photoid=110635712

(b) http://tomkatstudio.blogspot.com/2010/03/cupcake-monday-super-cute-ice-cream.html

(c) Totally love the presentation of this one... http://cakecentral.com/gallery/41286

But if you do google & search for "ice-cream cupcakes" you will find tonnes of pictures... Really fun to do! ;-D And the kids will LOVE it... *hehe*

Thanks for reading & enjoy baking... :-D

I-Scream, You-Scream, We all Scream for Ice-Cream...

Birthday Purse Cake

Date: 31-Mar-2011

Blessed Birthday Mum!!  :-D We celebrated mum's birthday at Formosa House Chinese Restaurant (Add: 86 Springvale Rd, Nunawading). Food there was excellent especially that fish that was recommended to us... yum yum!! My hubby has helped me to label the types of food we ordered! LOL!

OK not sure what's happening with the arrangement of the photos here... but here they are anyway...

Canton Pork Ribs

Crispy Chicken

Sizzling Mongolian Lamb

Spicy Salt Deep Fried Fish

Yummy food!!

Combination Tofu Hot Pot

Baked the usual Japanese Strawberry Shortcake then covered it with the same frosting I used for the Birthday robot cake.

The idea was inspired by this website: http://www.parenting.com/article/how-to-make-a-purse-cake.

Ooopsss! Candles burnt the handles!

I used:
(a) for handles: long twisted marshmallows - cut into 2 long pieces (you can buy them at the sweet section of BigW in ForestHill, VIC. It took a ridiculously long time just to find the long marshmallows... one of those where you remember seeing them somewhere but can't quite remember which shop it was, so you end up visiting many shops to find it & finally find it in the very last shop...).
(b) for flower petals: normal white marshmallows - cut into 3
(c) for center of each flower: Malteesers
(d) for leaves: Spearmint leaves - cut into 2 (can be found in Target)
(e) for buttons on side of bag - brown M&Ms

Cake anyone?

I sprinkled pink 100s & 1000s at bottom just for added fun... & made a colorful border on the cake plate, using the left-over M&Ms.

Note: Do not put candles near the handles, as you can see, those marshmallow handles burn easily!

Birthday Purse Cake