Posts Tagged ‘Cake’

It’s no secret, I love cake. No I don’t think you guys get it… I looooooove cake. So much so that the first thing I thought when I was trying to think of a way to store my false eyelashes was cake… and you’ll see why in a minute

If you’re anything like me you have a lot of lashes. Here in Aus they don’t come in the nice little trays, they come in stupid plastic packets which mean it’s really difficult to store and reuse them. My counter tends to look like this after a few days…

Very ugly, very messy and very unhygienic. So what to do? When I found this cheap craft storage box at a $2 store I had a great idea

I decided to turn it into this:

Yep. It’s an eyelash cake.

The storage container looks like this when it’s filled up. Each compartment has it’s own lid so when you need one set they won’t all fall out and it’s transparent so you can see them all at once. It’s exactly the right size so your lashes don’t get crushed or out of shape.

So let’s get started! What you need is:

-Paper clay. I picked up a kit from Singapore but I’ve seen this same kit available on Etsy as well.
-Container
-Cute ribbon
-Icing bag with nozzles
-Optional if your paper clay kit doesn’t come with white icing you can use acrylic modeling paste (read more here)
-Small false flowers

So this is what came in my kit. It has lots of molds and a couple of colours of clay and a ready to go icing kit.

I wanted a strawberry for my cake so I made one with the mold like this:

Put clay in both sides of the mold.

Squish it together..

You get this:

Remove the extra and you’ve got a strawberry.

You can make pretty much anything you want by hand as well as it’s really easy to work with. I made some macarons, hearts, icecream tops and some of those swirly chocolate wafer stick things.

Also squish some of the yellow clay flat and cut out 8 fairly equal triangles like this. These are going to be the slices of cake on top so make the roughly the same size as the container sections.

I make a bunch of clay bits and pieces at a time because they need to be left to dry over night.

The next day!

Now that everything is nice and dry let’s get going! Turn your container upside down so the lid parts are on the bottom and coat the top sections with epoxy glue.

Glue the triangles you made on

Now decide on the design you want on the top. I like to lay mine out first so I know that it will all fit!

Before I go ahead and glue it all, here is a mini tutorial inside a tutorial on making the wafer swirl things. After they’ve dried you can add the chocolate. I paint mine with brown nail polish

Paint the swirl… fairly self explanatory! Let them dry really well before you add them to the cake!

Now back to the cake!!

Time to cover the edges, get your pretty ribbon and glue it around the edge. You should align it as close to the bottom lids as you can without obstructing the opening/closing. Don’t worry about having a large gap towards the top, we’re going to fill that with icing

I decided to put flowers on the top of mine, glue whatever you decided to put there ^_^

Time for icing!

Fill your icing bag with whatever you’re using for the icing (please use the paper clay or acrylic modeling paste rather than silicon as silicon attracts a lot of dirt in the bathroom) and get any decorations you have for the top close at hand.

Start icing around the top gap of your cake

You can use whatever icing method you like, I just did this: http://www.wilton.com/technique/Shell

I did two lines of icing to fill the gap up to the ribbon.

Next pipe a gigantic swirl in the middle of the flowers

Then while the icing is still wet you should add in any decorations you want. I added the strawberry, two wafers and some diamantes

Make sure to leave it to dry at least a day or so then it’s ready to use

And there you have it! A delicious way to add to your bathroom collection of sweets! And oraganise your collection of lashes!

Also if your collection is bigger than 8 pairs (like mine is) you can just add more layers to your cake underneath ^_^ YUM!

So it would appear that my bathroom now has an unintentional sweets theme now

This is my guide to baking an epic cake. Yes it’s seriously epic! Those of you with dial up might want to not continue because there are around 50 photos! Trust me though, it’s totally worth it because the end result is both pretty and delicious!

So here’s roughly what you need:

-3 standard cake mix bags (I know cheating :P) If you are in Australia get the Home Brand butter cake because it is AWESOME and it’s only 60c per bag.
-Eggs
-Milk
-Butter Milk
-Fondant icing
-Ingredients for royal icing (check this recipe it’s great)
-Milo (or just plain old chocolate powder if you’re not in Aus)
-Red and green food dye

Gather your ingredients.

Preheat your oven following the instructions on your packet mix.

Now it’s time to make the cake mix Depending on your cake mix the ingredients might be different but this is how I do it… Packet mix in the bowl!

This cake requires 3 different layers, 2 of plain butter cake and 1 of my version of red velvet cake. We’ll make the red velvet version first.

Add an egg! Eggs look so gross

Add in the butter milk, you should use however much milk the packet mix says to, mine said 3/4 of a cup. For the other layers you should use plain milk.

Mix it all together

And then beat it to death! It should be nice and fluffy ^_^

Once it’s fluffy add 3 table spoons of Milo and beat it in.

Now add some red food colouring, this is why it’s called red velvet cake and it makes for a really pretty effect when it’s finished.

Pour it out into your cake tin, I use a silicone one because it’s easy to get the cake out of.

Put it in the oven until it’s cooked all through

Turn it out onto a rack to cool and make the other 2 layers.

The other two layers should not have milo, food colouring or butter milk in them. They should just be plain old butter cake following the directions.

If your cake breaks when you turn it out, just use some icing and glue it back together

Once your 3 layers have all cooled down it’s time to cut the tops off them. The reason you cut the top off is so you can get a nice flat cake and it doesn’t look like a gigantic lump on top ^_^ It’s much easier to ice a flat cake! So get a knife and poke it in the side towards the middle and start working your way around. Keep going until you’ve done the full circle. Use the knife to lift the top off (and eat it because by now you’ve spent forever staring at cakes bloody baking and you’re probably hungry).

Once you have 3 flat layers get some icing (I’m using Betty Crocker) and cover the top of the red layer/

Once it’s covered use the plate you had it on to flip it onto one of the plain layers.

Cover the top of the red one again and flip the last layer on to it. This is what you should end up with!

Cover the entire thing with icing ^_^

One for the cake, one for the cook!

Now get your fondant icing and roll it on the bench top. If it’s too hard pop it in the microwave for 10 seconds, if it’s too sticky dust it with icing sugar. Once you’ve rolled it out, drape it over the whole cake. It should end up something like this… You can see that I’ve repaired a crack by putting water on my finger and rubbing it. It’s going to be covered in icing so no one will ever notice!

Now it’s time to decorate! Make some royal icing in the colour of your choice, mine is pink! Put it into a piping bag and start decorating! Ok mine isn’t very even but this was my first time using a piping bag so it’s ok!

I tried to make it very decorative, there is a big heart on top, scalloping on the outside and lots of little bumpy bits. Whatever you do as long as you put effort in everyone will enjoy it!

Now put it in the fridge to cool and it’s time to learn how to make icing roses Grab some fondant icing and colour it pink with food dye. You do this by putting a tiny amount on and kneading it until it’s pink. Make sure to do this on a surface that you can clean easily, food dye will stick to EVERYTHING. Maybe wear gloves, look at my hands, they’re all red

So let’s start making a rose! Pinch off a little bit of icing and roll it in a ball.

With your finger squish one side of the ball…

Pick it up and roll the squished end in on itself like the photo below. You should make a bunch more squished balls, these are the petals.

Roll the second petal onto the first but on the opposite side like below:

Keep making petals and placing them around the part you’ve already made. You should over lap the next petal slightly with the one you’ve just done.

As you go you should use your finger to push the petals out a bit.

Once you think you have enough petals roll the bottom of the rose together with your fingers so it’s a bit rounded.

Make a bunch of them This is what you should end up with!

Now bring out your cake from the fridge. Mix up a bit of royal icing and colour it green.

I put a bunch of green icing in the middle of the heart and placed the flowers on top.

I make a lot of flowers in different sizes so….

…I can shape them into a heart too!

Yay! Finished

NOM NOM NOM!

Delicious cake…

I think the flowers really make the cake… and they are delicious too ^_^

And the best bit… When you cut it open it looks even prettier!

How pretty is it? And the red velvet is delicious!

Now serve with thickened cream…

And enjoy!

So there you have it, it’s delicious! What do you guys think? What’s your favorite type of cake?

Currently this is my faaavorite outfit! Most of that has to do with the fact that it includes my awesome shoes! They were on sale, so I bought them and added flowers to make them Hime style. Much cuter!

I also found opaque stockings on sale a Myer for $7.50! And they are *actually* opaque.

James also surprised me with this belated “Un-Birthday” cake. He made it himself, how cute is it? Btw yes my real name is Nikki but I’ve been Violet online so long now that I prefer it!

Loooove it! It was so sweet and yummy, we could only eat a tiny bit because it was so rich.

This is just a quick snapshot, see I’m not glamorous all the time
It’s getting cold here in Aus so at home it’s comfy pj’s and jumpers all the way!

Ah I have the best boyfriend ever