We celebrated Hamish's 2nd birthday with a picnic BBQ at Clareville beach. After the torrential downpour of the week before we were lucky with the weather. It was such a beautiful day.

The kiddies had a wonderful time playing in the water and digging in the sand. Clareville beach is a great spot for an outing. Pity it's so far away!

Sarah and Duncan had requested no gifts but I hate to turn up empty handed. In lieu of a gift I made Bakerella's Cookies and Cream cupcakes. Unfortunately, I only had time to make 12 cupcakes. Andrew pointed out that there wasn't going to be enough to go around especially if there were lots of people there. Andrew was right, of course. There were about 20 kids there and with all the parents, 12 cupcakes just weren't going to cut it.

So I made an executive decision. The cupcakes were for the adults. In my opinion, cupcakes are totally wasted on children as they generally just lick the icing off the top and leave the cake bit behind. The kids enjoyed Sarah's colourful and tasty train cake and the cupcakes were distributed amongst the adults. There still weren't enough for all the adults. I need to be a better sharer.


Happy 2nd Birthday Hamish!

More photos (slideshow) on Flickr.

I can't seem to host a gathering without baking cupcakes. So after my Halloween efforts I started up my Kitchenaid again and whipped up some Melbourne Cup themed cupcakes.

My original idea was to recreate the race using cupcakes and horsie cupcake toppers. I had grand plans of 24 cupcakes with cupcake toppers showing the colours of each horse and jockey in the race. I even wanted to make a finishing post and fence out of fondant. Of course, ultimately I didn't have time for these pipe dreams.

I ended up making 15 chocolate cupcakes. I iced these with green butter cream using my special "grass" tip. I made cupcakes toppers by meshing horse clipart and jockeys from the form guide. I only had time to do two different jockeys. I went with Red Cadeaux and Niwot cause their silks were pretty.

So not the fantabulous idea that I originally had but in the end not totally unfortunate looking. And they were taaaaaaaasty. That's all that matters really.

Now that I'm on uni break I've got more time for fun stuff. Yay! I couldn't pass up a chance to make Halloween cupcakes. Especially as Sarah and Duncan gave me a great book, Zombie Cupcakes, to use as inspiration. After seeing Not Quite Nigella's Haunted House cupcakes, I knew that I wanted to try them out too.

I think they turned out pretty well. The cake bit is gluten-free vanilla cupcakes. The tops are yellow coloured fondant decorated with black food colouring. The decorations were a Wilson team effort. Andrew is a much better artist than me so he drew the haunted houses using a food colouring pen. I then completed the pictures (by colouring in between the lines. I'm so clever!).

One mishap. The black food colouring didn't dry properly on the cupcake toppers so everyone who ate them ended up with black lips (oops!). Not sure what I need to do to make the colouring set.

To mark Fushmush's 10th birthday I made fushie cupcakes. It was another flash of pinspiration. They are vanilla cupcakes covered in blue butter cream icing. The scales of the fish are Smarties and M&M's, the eyes are M&M's minis and the beak is half a Jelly Bean. Do they look like fishies? I think they need a tail as well.


They look like fish if I do this *glub glub glub*.

I'm a big fan of themes for parties, so I'm pretty excited that I now have a new person to party style for. Unlike Andrew, Evie isn't able to voice her objections to the themes that I pick.

After a little bit of pin-spiration I decided on a Very Hungry Caterpillar theme for Evie's welcome party. When Evie was a newborn we called her our very hungry caterpillar. It seemed like all she did was eat and sleep. Also, when we wrap her for sleep it looks like she is in a cocoon. When I unwrap her after a nap I often tell her that she is my beautiful butterfly... awwww.

But truthfully, one of the main reasons I picked this theme was so I could do a Very Hungry Caterpillar cupcake cake. I've had my eye on it for quite a while and have been looking for an excuse to make it.

The head of the caterpillar is a vanilla cake decorated in red fondant. I bought the red fondant precoloured which saved me a bit of time. It also meant that I didn't have to have hands stained with red food colouring. Although I made the eyes, antennae and feet using white icing and food colouring so my hands didn't escape completely. Did you know that black food colouring turns your hands an interesting shade of purple?

The body is made up of 48 cupcakes decorated with green butter cream icing. I used a mix of chocolate, vanilla and vanilla gluten-free cupcakes. Because I had so much stuff to bake and a baby to look after I totally cheated this time and used a box mix for the cupcakes and the cake. So the cake didn't taste as good as it usually does but it sure looked pretty.