Cakes in the last 6 months!

Wow, it's been too long!! My apologies for being a little quiet...I just cannot believe how a year of 'not doing cakes' can still be so crazy busy!

Since my third child Micaiah was born in May, I have been busy with a few things.

The main thing has been our application with mission organisation SIM (www.sim.org.au) to work in Malawi as Christian missionaries. Finally, after much paperwork, we are finally 'official' and are working towards leaving in July 2012! For more info see www.ongsinmalawi.com

But in the midst of all that, I still found time to do a cake here or there :) Here are some things I've been working on since June but haven't had the time to update here!

JULY

Rainbow cake cones with marshmallow on top

Engagement figurines for a friend

 

Child dedication/baptism spread for a friend

Replaced our dodgey oven so resumed macaron making!

SEPTEMBER

First workshop with my baby girl!

OCTOBER

Kitchen tea cake for a friend

NOVEMBER

'Half' birthday rainbow cake for my baby girl

Spy themed figurine for a friend's daughter

Baby shower rainbow cake for a neighbour

Rainbow cake for a friend's 40th

DECEMBER

My last workshop ever before we head to Malawi next July!

Mini gingerbread house decorating with the neighbours kids

Baby Jesus cookies for my 4 year old to take to preschool

Wedding cake for a friend

Surprise peach figurines for the above wedding. Their last name is peach related!

Snowman macarons for a gathering with ex-neighbours

And last but not least... my new book!

You can purchase it from here: www.blurb.com/user/store/jong78

That's all, folks!!

Have an awesome Christmas celebrating the birth of Christ!

Love, Jo

baby-marshmallows-cake

 So... what have I been up to in the past couple of months?

1. I had a baby! 

Micaiah Joy was born on 5th May - a sister for Teaghan and Lucas.

She has a good set of lungs but is absolutely gorgeous and we love her to bits!

2. I made marshmallows!

With my oven out of order, I decided to give home made marshmallows a try.

This strawberry batch here is made with this recipe:

http://lisacampagna.blogspot.com/2009/06/boogers-and-phlegm-yum.html

Despite the disgusting name, this recipe turned out very well.

Mocha, passionfruit, and lime marshmallows for Teaghan's preschool teachers as an end of term Thank You gift.

I made these peppermint flavoured marshmallows cos I really liked this blue and thought it would go perfectly with mint flavoured marshmallows.

I made it using this egg-less marshmallow recipe:

http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/2008/07/homemade_marshmallows

This one turned out quite well. It was easy to make with less things to wash up but it wasn't as chewy as the recipe with egg. I think I prefer the egg recipe.

3. I made a mock cake.

I made this cake for a friend's adorable 2 year old. I made a similar cake for her 4 year old daughter when she turned 2 so it was only fitting that little bro got one too!

Greetings from my new home!

This is my first post from our new place!
For those of you who didn't know. My husband Pete and I, along with our 2.8 kids, recently moved to live at Bible college while he completes his theology studies over the next 18 months before we head off to long term Christian missions in Africa. Read more on my family blog.

Here's my new cake table...which is a third of the size of my previous one. But I'm so thankful that I even have a place to do my cakes!

All my cake stuff has gone into the store room

I'm still getting to know this temperamental oven, which I need an ocky strap to keep shut.

It's not fan forced and things seem to burn at the bottom and remain undercooked on the surface.

So far I have baked a few failed batches of cupcakes... 

This is the first order I did at our new place -  a cake topper figurine of a photography enthusiast

Here's the cake I made for my dear little princess' 4th birthday. The kids here at college usually celebrate their birthdays with a cake to share on the playground. Teaghan has been eyeing the Snow White cake from the shops since last year, so I tried to make this cake as close to the one she saw at the shops as possible! The edible image was purchased from a party supplies shop.

It's not my usual style but the birthday girl was very excited!

and here's a photo of the 'Author Talk/Book Signing' I did at the Castle Hill Library recently. 

It was a great turn out with all 50 tickets sold out. I did a demonstration of one of the designs from the book. 

All participants received a scrumptious chocolate cupcake :o) Thank you to all who came along!

Last order!

7" square red and black striped cake with figurine of the birthday girl (who loves her beauty sleep)

 On her bed are: a tin of milo, camera, bowl of instant noodles, and sheet music

 Cupcakes with a similar theme

Christmas cupcakes

 Snowman, Christmas tree, baby Jesus and angel

Justine Clarke submarine cake

Princess Cupcake Afternoon photo shoot

My local council (Hills) wanted to come and take some photos of my work for their upcoming 2011 calendar, and asked if I could arrange for a couple of extra kids to come for some action shots of me teaching cupcakes. So I decided on a princess theme and invited a couple of my 3-year-old's girly-girl friends over for an afternoon of princess cupcake decorating fun!

Inspired by the likes of Mrs A in the Cove, I've always wanted to do a party spread like this, so this was the perfect excuse.

The whole thing turned out a little bigger than Ben Hur and I lost many hours of sleep over it, but in the end I was really pleased with the result!

 the spread

Juice, macarons, cakepops, and marshmallows

What you see here are 2nd rate macarons...

After the first succesful few batches of macarons, I hit a macaron wall this week and all attempts flopped. Being a perfectionist, I just had to keep trying... but after 6 batches, even I had to say enough is enough.

Well, just ONE more :o) ... magic batch #7 turned out beautifully!

So the night before the photo shoot, I laid out the best of my batch #7 macarons to take some photos... and ended up smashing the whole box of them when I was packing up!!!!!

Lucky I had some list-B macarons waiting in the fridge for their moment of glory (the tops are a little browned)...

Cakepops - another thing I've been itching to try.

 Love heart cookiepops
Meringues courtesy of Woolworths

Party bags

The castle cake.

Princess cupcakes (cupcake is under the dress).

'Upside-down' cupcake inspired by Debbie Browne

I was really happy with how these turned out.

Snow White

Cinderella

Tiana

Belle

Sleeping Beauty

Outside for the photo shoot