Weekly Update 26th Feb

This week's standout cake was certainly a labour of love, just ask Emma who was in here until 8.30pm last night finishing it off. Four magnificent extended tiers hand piped and then painted, finished off with huge sugar flowers. This is one impressive cake, and well worth the effort to see that priceless look on our long-suffering delivery driver, Carlos' face.

This week we made the super-exciting purchase of a brand new camera, as most of us have phones that take better pictures than our poor old one! It took a while to get the hang of it, but I must say I quite like what happened by accident in this one,very arty-like.

This race track was over a meter in length and 30 kilo's in weight, and I have to say, in my humble (yet correct) opinion this is an absolute winner!

Good friend of Planet Cake, Lauren spent two days working with Ritzy this week in our kitchens, honing her skills and I just had to share with you this fabulous bag she made on Tuesday. Souber-realistic I can barely contain the urge to sling it across the back of my chair and fill it with endless old receipts, pens that don't work and half-used lip gloss'!

Last Saturday Antony spent the afternoon adorning this wedding cake with fresh roses (he smell was just divine). With just a bud and a few leaves left over, the cake was absolutely transformed and became the centerpiece for a Renaissance-themed wedding at Sydney's State Theatre.

We all get a little stressed from time to time, and with the aftershock's of last Saturday's full moon still echoing, there were a few tense moments in here this week. So rather than run to the choccie stash (which is far too accessible for anyone's good around here) I decided to take these pictures of a very flexible Ken as a reminder that no matter what's going on, sometimes we all need to take a bit of an Om-moment. The question still remains however, just how or why he landed on my desk???

The Lotus

The Warrior

Ooh la la, love was in the air this week at Planet Cake. Alas no roses turned up on my desk come Monday morning (hey a girl can hold out hope) but our Valentines Day cakes helped to soften the blow a little, not to mention Anna Maria's home-made nougat. Ah if only all men were as sweet as AM's baking...

What happens when you are asked to make a cake for a Vegas-themed wedding on Valentines Day? We weren't sure either and we took to the drawing board several times before we got a design we were all happy with. This cake is the fabulous love-child colaboration from Paris and Antony. The lucky couple were winners of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitor's Authority competition 'How I met my Partner' and the wedding was held on Monday in Sydney's Royal Botanic Gardens. Very cool.

 

Sigh, I l-o-v-e this one. Channel 7 asked us to create something spectacular for the Valentine's Day edition of the Morning so we created this design, inspired by the fabulous Paper Eskimo Stationary. Yummy vanilla cupcakes baked in Paper Eskimo cupcake holders were finished off with meringue icing and a love heart made from sugar roses. Think romantic meets Alice in Wonderland.

Fellow office gal Cat and myself are known for our not-so-secret infatuation with the heart-achingly addictive Angry Birds, and were thrilled on Monday to discover this special Valentines Day edition.Once again, it was no bunch of roses, but it definately made us smile!

This client is a serious Hello Kitty fan and not only did we create this specially-themed Madhatter for her wedding, but matching Hello Kitty and Daniel cupcakes as bon boniere's. It was goodbye computer and hello Apron for me yesterday as I helped our QLD recruit Danielle ganache and box all 164 of them. A little cross-eyed at the end, yes but I reckon it was all worth while for the end product. They looked A-mazing. Oh yeah, and Ritzy's cake wasn't too bad either.

 It was a serious week for cupcakes this week and this gorgeous rabbit cupcake tier, for a 6th birthday party takes out my personal fave of the week. Oh, to be six again...

Last week I showed you a sneak peak of these Funky's, still in the delicate process of creation. Check them out in all their compelte glory this week.

This cake will leave all you fans out there in little doubt that Margie is back in the Planet Cake house, bringing a little inspiration to this awesome cake, from her latest hiking adventure. Check out what she gets up to when she's not making cakes - Margie not only roughs it in royal icing, but in the great wilderness too!



February 11 2011

It's been one of those rare, peaceful weeks in here and for the first time in I don't know how long there are (almost) no drama's to report. With Adam and Jess both in Melbourne and Margie trekking through Tasmania (literally) it's been pretty quiet in here. Emma has left the phones for fondant this week and there's been some serious girl power going on in the studio...go girls! My personal fave this week was this fab Hawaiian shirt (I just love the simplicity and clean lines). We had originally planned to use digital images of the pineapple print, but Ritzy decided to hand-paint them in the end. So very. very cool.

 To infinity and beyond!

 There's just something about seeing funky's hanging out in the studio that gets me every time. I can't help but wonder what they get up to when we're not around...?

This photo may not look like much, but it's a miracle that Anna Maria is smiling, after receiving about 24 hours notice to add an additional tier to a madhatter. Luckily our AM is a total professional and took it all in her stride.

After a long week, Cat took some time out this arvo to listen to some 90's tunes on Paris' dancing bunny stereo....this thing never gets old!

Yep, sometimes even we get it wrong. On Wednesday Danielle tried out a new cupcake recipe but our fan-forced oven had other plans it seems. So, what does one do with fifty dodgy cupcakes? I'll let you take a guess at how we 'disposed' of these...

Bootcamp (Planet Cake Style)

While we certainly promote healthy living (I know I've exercised at least once this year), let's face it, when it comes to bootcamp we do it one way and one way only...with cupcakes! So if those new years resolutions have fallen slightly to the wayside (totally acceptable in my book for the record) maybe you should consider Bootcamp...Planet Cake style!

This weeks Bootcamp team were so utterly engrossed this morning I struggled to get anyone to actually look up from their work. This morning's challenge...buttercream.Hmmm, think it might be about morning tea time...



Back to Cakes

Well it appears that life post, world’s-biggest-freak’n-Opera-House-cake does indeed go on here at Planet Cake! I’m sure that most of you have followed the journey of the cake, its tears, tantrums and tiara’s (and if you haven’t then get out from under that rock! http://www.youtube.com/user/PlanetCakeTV ) so I thought I would just take a quick moment today to show you some of the other things that have been going on around here lately.

Last week was equal parts challenging and rewarding and we’re still chasing our tails this week trying to catch up (you should see Emma’s inbox, scary doesn’t even begin to sum it up). Never ones to be slowed down by something as trifling as twenty volunteers packed into the studio and a full classroom, we even managed to squeeze out a cake or two. It was a little like trying to eat a meal on an airplane with the lack of elbow space but the guys were their usual brilliant selves and produced maximum results with minimum complaining (you’ve got loads more patience than I do guys!).

 We're also back in Melbourne this month for one last hurrah before we wind-up our interstate workshops for 2011. Last week Adam managed to not melt into a pool of ganache while he taught Basics Foundation, and this week Jess has landed to some considerably cooler weather this week.

In Sydney last weekend we held the uber-popular Shoe box and Stiletto workshop, with none other than the shoe-mad Anna Maria. Fabulous work gals!