Valentines Day // Mini Honey Yogurt Cakes

 

So, tomorrow is Valentines Day! I plan on painting my nails tonight with red glitter nail polish in celebration. Apart from that, I don't have too many exciting plans. I have pulled a mini lamb roast out of the freezer though & I think these mini honey yoghurt cakes will be a nice accompaniment for pudding.

 

I got the idea for these from my Mum - I went to visit my family in Dunedin last weekend & Mum had made this amazing lemon yoghurt cake for afternoon tea - it was so tasty!

 

I changed the lemon juice to honey, added some vanilla paste & baked these in baking paper lined ramekins. They came out as cute little moist cakes which I dressed up with rose syrup & chopped pistachios with some yoghurt on the side (middle eastern inspiration is my favourite!)

 

The recipe is so easy, so I hope you give these a go!

 

 

Mini Honey Yogurt Cakes

3/4 C White Sugar

1 Egg

1/2 C Oil (I used extra virgin olive oil but canola is good too)

1/4 t Salt

1/2 C Yoghurt (Greek or plain unsweetened)

1 1/2 T Liquid Honey

1/2 t Vanilla Paste (or 1 t vanilla)

1 C Self Raising Flour

 

Heat oven to 180 degrees celsius & grease & line the sides & bases of 6 small ramekins (or a cheesecake tray with removable bases)

Mix sugar, eggs, oil & salt with an electric beater or whisk until thick.

Mix in yoghurt, honey & vanilla paste.

Fold n flour until just mixed.

Scoop into tins (the mixture is quite runny - I used an ice cream scoop)

Bake for 10 minutes at 180 degrees, then drop the oven temperature to 150 degrees & continue cooking the cakes for approximately 15-20 minutes until a skewer inserted into the centre of a cake comes out clean.

Cool for 5 minutes, then turn out onto a cake rack to cool completely.

Serve with rose syrup poured over (or more honey) plain yoghurt & chopped pistachios.

 

Serves 6

 

**To make a lemon version, omit the honey & vanilla paste & add 1 1/2 T lemon juice & the grated rind of 1 lemon. Serve with yoghurt & blueberries.

 

These are so yummy & stay good for 2-3 days (if they last that long!) I really want to go out & find a cheesecake tray now so I can make a whole heap of them...

 

What do you have planned for Valentines Day?

 

Kc



Business Time // Southern Crafters Market

Yes...this post title does sound familiar!! I have just attended another Southern Crafters market here in Invercargill. It wasn't as busy as the first one but it was still pretty good!!

I thought I'd share some photos of my stall. I was really proud of it this time, I put a lot of thought into my display and  think it paid off! I ordered a banner off Vsitaprint and am stoked with how it came out - its huge! I got lots of nice comments so that was cool.

I made 8 flavours of cupcakes (lemon blossom, candy floss, double choc, carrot cake, malty milkshake, rainbow vanilla, peachy bellini and cherry bomb) a chocolate raspberry brownie & gluten free blueberry & lemon friands. Yum!

I made all my business cards myself, as well as the price lists and the cupcake menu's (I'm so pleased with the menu's! They work really well!)

Another exciting thing - my lovely friend Laura made me a website!! So check out Sequin Corner Cakes on the web - www.sequincornercakes.com - she's added all my prices and photos which is pretty cool!

Do you guys have any little businesses on the side? Do you have a stall at a local market?

Business Time // Southern Crafters Market

A couple of weeks ago I had a stall at one of the biggest markets down South - The Southern Crafters Market. It was held in the Velodrome which was pretty cool! I spent the 2 weeks before the market getting everything ready - planning my cupcake flavours, practising my stall set up and buying all the little bits and pieces I needed for the weekend. 

I was up the Friday night before the market until 4am baking and decorating cupcakes and then 2am the Saturday night! It was well worth it though, I managed to sell everything I made and I ran out of business cards and price lists to give to people. I got some awesome feedback about my stall set up too, so even though I was a bit of a Zombie by the end of it I was feeling pretty happy!!

I'm loving the community feel of the markets down here, everyone is so friendly and helpful (I'm always running out of change and asking people to swap me all their coins!)

I hope you've all been having a good month or so, I'm hoping to be able to fit some outfit posts in soon now that it's almost spring and the days are getting longer!

Business Time! // Sequin Corner Market Stall

I mentioned a little while ago I was taking part in some local markets selling cupcakes. So far I've had a stall at 3 monthly markets and it's going pretty good!! (please ignore the unironed table cloth!!)

I thought I would share some photos from the market I had a stall at today. It was a quiet day, although with the temperature still at -3C at 12pm I can understand why people didn't want to venture out! I had 7 cupcake flavours today - Candy Floss, Pumpkin Spice, Double Choc, Orange Sherbet, Banoffee and Peanut Butter, plus a chocolate raspberry brownie. Yum!

The hardest part of having a stall has been figuring out how to display everything nicely. I love stalls that are dotted with different cake stands, but I didn't want to spend a lot of money on them plus drive them around all over the place. From my days as a Chef at a cafe I know how the Health Officials like all food to be covered so when I found these plastic stands I thought they would be perfect! Add in some cheap plastic food trays and I'm good to go.

I designed all my packaging labels and used my home printer to print them all out. One day when I'm rolling in dough (heh) I'll probably get stickers made but these will do for now!

I hope you enjoyed this little sneak-peak into my cupcake venture. I have a couple more markets this month, including a big 2 day one which should be interesting! In 2 weeks I'll be going road tripping to Lumsden (about an hour from Invercargill) to have a stall at a market there, then again in august to Arrowtown (near Queenstown) so I'll be all over the place!

The Cupcake Files // Candy Floss Cupcakes

Since I moved to Invercargill I had been thinking about having a cupcake stall at a local market. At least once a week for the last few months I've been coming up with & trialling new cupcake flavours. I thought I would share some of them on my blog, because it is a big part of my life now and this blog is a little slice of my life, right?

I have decided not to share my exact cupcake recipe. I know that seems kind of mean, but I have adapted one I found & turned it into my own recipe which produces the type of cupcake I want to be known for. I've learnt some tips though that I'll share;

1. Don't over mix! It's the same idea as muffins, if you over mix they will be dry & tough.

2. You don't have to bake a filling into the cupcake. Cook it, scoop out the centre & fill with jam, frosting, curd or cream - yum!

3. An ice cream scoop is your friend - you will end up with evenly sized cupcakes - uniform is good!

So these are my candy floss cupcakes. All you have to do is...

a) Make up a basic vanilla cupcake mix. 

b) Before baking add approx 2 cups of candy floss - pulled into small tufts. Gently fold through -  don't mix until whole batter is pink, just until you have swirls of pink through it.

c) Bake cupcakes as per recipe.

d) Frost with candy floss frosting detailed below.

Candy Floss Frosting

115g Butter, softened

1 t Vanilla

60ml Milk

500g Icing Sugar
1 C Candy Floss

Add butter, vanilla & half of icing sugar to a bowl. Place candy floss in a separate bowl & pour milk over - this will melt it. Add candy floss milk to other frosting ingredients & beat until fluffy. Add remaining icing sugar & beat through. Fill a piping bag with frosting & pipe onto cupcakes. I used a 2D tip for these cupcakes.

I recently made some of these for a 7 year olds birthday party! I sprinkled them with a little edible glitter to give them some sparkle. What do you think?

 

Outfit Post // My Grandmas Garden

Lately I’ve been in a bit of a rut when it comes to getting dressed in the morning. As in I just haven’t been getting dressed. Yep, workin’ in my pj’s all day! It really wasn’t helping my motivation levels and I was feeling a bit down.

 Purple Dress - Recycle Boutique, Black Camisole - Stolen from Mum, 

 Girl Guides Belt - Shop on Taieri,  Black & silver Glitter Heels - Warehouse, but glitter DIY'd by me!

So when I headed to Dunedin the other weekend I made a quick visit to Recycle Boutique which has moved around the corner from its old location. I did a quick survey of the specials rack and found this dress for $4.50! Its amazing how a small purchase like that can lift your spirits.

I’ve worn it a few different ways since I got it – with tights & boots, by itself with a camisole underneath & sandals and with a lace body suit peaking out and a cardigan. I love the little coloured flowers – they remind me of my Grandmas garden in spring. Thankfully this little dress has kick-started my love affair with my wardrobe again!

Oh - I can't forget the shoes. These used to be $60 at the Warehouse a few months ago. I held out for soooo long - and the other week they were marked down to $7.50!!!! They had a wood-grain bottom part on them, which I couldn't decide if I liked it or not, so I decided to glitter DIY (see my tutorial here!) them instead. They are my new favourite shoes - They're so easy to walk in with the super chunky heel! I can't wait to wear them out, but for the moment I'll just have to keep doing my housework while wearing them...

I hope you have all had a good week. We had a long weekend here with Waitangi Day, so I went to visit some friends and their new chocolate lab puppy called Gus – Hershey and him spent all afternoon playing together while us humans ate blueberries and had a BBQ on the deck. My Mum and Sister also came down from Dunedin for a visit and brought my little nephew with them, so we had a look around the shops and had a coffee date at a local pub. It was a nice weekend!

What have you been up to lately? Has it been sunny and warm where you are or have you been playing in the snow? I kinda hope we’ll get a decent dump of snow here this winter!

Life Lately // NZCDG Conference 2011

 The venue where the conference was held - Malborough Convention Centre

I mentioned in my last post I was away at the National Cake Decorators Guild (NZCDG) annual conference over the weekend. It was the first one I have attended as I only joined up late last year so it was a bit intimidating/scarey not knowing what to expect!!

 My Dunedin group (me - bottom left!) - A few travelled up by themselves

There were 6 of us going together in a van from Dunedin, which was a long trip! We did it all in one day with quite a few stops, we left at 8am on Thursday and arrived in Blenheim about 5:30pm that night!

Because I was a newbie I got to be a delegate for my local club (I represented the Dunedin Sugar Craft Guild but I'm also a member of the Foveaux Cake & Sugar Art Guild in Invercargill!) which was so scarey! Me and another member went to the AGM on the Friday and had the responsibility of voting for the new President of the club and also voted on where the next South Island conference would be held - the options were my Invercargill Club or Nelson - unfortunately Nelson won by 2 votes!! So close.

My favourite berry of the lot - Rosehip. 
Demonstrator - Betty Debnam from Tasmania, Australia

 

 Wedding Dress Cake - Piping, brush embrodiary, pleating fondant

Demonstrator -Toba Garret from New York, USA

 

 The goodies I bought on Saturday - From the Trade Show

On Saturday I saw some 2 demonstrations, 1 on some berries which would make perfect fillers for floral arrangements, and a pretty wedding dress cake - the piping was so perfect and tiny!! I also got to go shopping - they have a whole lot of trade tables with people selling all kinds of cake decorating equipment. I didn't spend too much but I got some things I had been meaning to get for a while!! I also checked out the plaques some of the clubs entered and the competition flowers and cakes!

The plaque my club entered - The theme was "Through the vineyard window"

 A competition cake I liked

The cake that won the Peoples Choice - It was covered in tiny little fairies - including a 

Bride and Groom fairy!!

On Saturday night we had a formal dinner at the Malborough Convention Centre where the conference was being held. I sat next to a woman from the Whangarei club and it was really fun chatting to her all night! There was also a Cake Decorating Judge at our table and a few other women who had been to lots of conferences so they told me all about the ones they had been to in the past. 

 I absolutley love this little Elf - Strip cutter used for stripes (they sold out I missed out!)

Demonstrator - Raewin Kelly from Gisborne, New Zealand

 Butterfly Lily - She also showed us a ribbon rose (left)

Demonstrator - Pam Archibald from Victoria, Australia

Sunday was the final day of the conference that we were attending, and I saw 2 more demonstrations - 1 on a super cute little Christmas elf (I loved the tips for modelling little people its right up my alley!!) and the other was a pretty Butterfly Lily. 

 Bottom left are some seals on the beach!

A cute little road-side shop - Near Kaikoura

We headed home again on Monday, stopping briefly just out of Kaikoura to watch the seals playing on the rocks and to pick up some crayfish at a cute little road-side shop!

It was really cool being in the same place as a whole bunch of other Cake Decorators, learning heaps of new skills and tricks and remembering names and faces for the next conference I go to. We really need more young members like me to join so the older ones have someone to pass their skills and experience on to!! Definitely look up a local club if you're interested in Cake Decorating, I'm pretty sure there will be something similar all over the world. Next year I'm keen to attend the State one held in Melbourne, Australia too!!

Thrifty Friday // Cake Stand

Yes, I may have forgotten about Thrifty Friday - whoops!! I figure since it is still Friday on the other side of the world, I can put it up today and everything will be fine - right?

So here is my latest find - A pretty shiny cake stand! 've been looking for one for ages and I finally came across this at the Habitat for Humanity Store the other day. Isn't it pretty? Piled high with cakes, slices or cupcakes I think it will look pretty good in my new kitchen.

Have you found any good kitchen finds lately? I'm always on the look out to expand my collection!

Wishing Well // Candy Thermometer

 Candy Thermometer - Picture credit here

This is what I need to get my hands on on pay day (not till next week! Boo!) I have dreams of making all kinds of tasty goodies...remember my Turkish delight? I want to attempt that again plus find the perfect fudge recipe and perhaps make some toffee...

Thanks so much for all of your support on my Cakey Business post last Monday! I was so excited I emailed the lady about the markets the middle of last week. They aren't taking any more food stall holders for this year, but may be for next year.

Unfortunately the rules are pretty tight when you're selling food to members of the public here in New Zealand and I would need to make my cupcakes in a certified commercial kitchen. I investigated if I would be able to certify my home kitchen, but according to the local council rules you must have a separate kitchen from your domestic kitchen, where you produce the food. *sigh* so it's all a bit complicated!! There is one other option, where I could find a Cafe/Bakery or Hall that would let me use their certified kitchen after hours, although I can imagine how much they might like to charge and I would have to factor that into my prices somehow...

 Anyway!! It's good to know there are options. In the mean time I'm going to practice at home and keep making cakes and cupcakes for friends and family.

Do you know what the rules are for selling food to the public in your city or country? 

Outfit Post // Golden Roses

Golden Roses Dress - Trademe, Vintage Brown Leather Belt - Shop on Taieri, White Lace Tights - Glassons, Cream Boots - No. 1 Shoe Warehouse, Red Lipstick - Australis

 I bid pretty fiercely for this dress on Trademe! I knew it would be perfect to get me through the Summer and well into next Autumn and Winter. Luckily I got a bargain and only paid $10!! I love when that happens. 

You'll also note I seem to be wearing different boots for a change - I saw these at the beginning of Winter but wasn't keen to shell out $50 for them, so I was pleased to find them marked down to $27.95 today! I love how they kind of look like vintage ice skates - I can't wait to pair them with a bunch of 50's style dresses!!

I'll be having a busy weekend, as its time to shift all the furniture into the new house. Although the settlement date isn't until the 14th, the house is currently vacant and the owners are happy to let us move in our furniture while we wait for the finance to come through. Exciting times!! By the way notice my gorgeous wee puppy Hershey who wanted her photo taken too?? She loves the sunshine!

What are you up to this weekend? Anything exciting planned? I'll put up some photos of the new house soon!!