Walkie Talkie Birthday Cake

Tonight was the ‘night before birthday party’ cake creation time!

Earlier in the afternoon I made a basic butter cake, one that I had made before and knew I could easily shape into the required walkie-talkie shape.

Even so I was a little daunted, concerned that in the end the cake would just look like a big black blob of icing. But the rolled black fondant worked a treat, together with a few embellishments. I added hand grips on the side made out of small sausages of extra fondant, a speaker/mic made out of an extra layer of fondant studded with holes made with a fine skewer, buttons above the speaker made with simple smarties, and a ‘screen’ created using some black and white fondant combined to create a grey icing. For the antenna I simply rolled a piece of fondant into the approximate shape and then cut an angled end for the top. I then squared off the roll to make it look as realistic as possible.

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And the best thing is the cake got the thumbs up from the birthday boy. It was just what he was imagining! Phew! Sometimes I think my kids have expectations that way out weigh my abilities!

Quick and Easy Birthday Cupcakes

My little baby turns six tomorrow. And tonight, just before bedtime, he placed an order for chocolate cupcakes to share with his class at school tomorrow. He also requested flame orange icing.  I added a little additional decoration with a Queens writing fudge and ended up with this…

I’m not exactly sure what I was trying to create…but boy I hope William approves when he wakes up in the morning!

These were made with Donna Hay’s super simple Basic Melt & Mix Chocolate Cake recipe. Here it is, just in case you get the call to whip up a cake super fast at some stage.

Basic Melt and Mix Chocolate Cake
from Donna Hay Kids’ Magazine Issue 7

375g plain flour, sifted
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder, sifted
275g caster sugar
250g butter, melted
4 eggs
430ml milk
50g cocoa, sifted
1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees celsius. Place the flour, baking powder, sugar, butter, eggs, milk, cocoa and vanilla in a large bowl and mix until well combined. Spoon into 24 half cup capacity muffin tins lined with paper cases and bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until cooked when tested with a skewer. Place cakes on a wire rack to cool.

Now it’s time to wrap some birthday presents!