Just when you thought is was safe to get back in the water...

Last week was Maddie Palmer's birthday... so after a year of hibernation, it's time to return to Snack My Bitch up. The plan: a shark cake.... the inspiration: the Syd Festival team's shark cake from last year (see below).

Now the Syd Festival team make a damn fine shark cake. Pressure was on. I figured a red velvet cake made sense. Firstly because it's tasty and secondly because you want the red blood look when you cut into the shark. As you can see below, making two large red velvet cakes means using a lot of food colouring.

Of course, I also needed teeth. I found these Coles brand lollies that look like ice cream cones. When you chop the icecream off the top, they look just like teeth!

So I cooked two red velvet cakes... One in a loaf tin, one in a big rectangular tray (for the ocean). Then I carved the loaf shaped cake into a shark. Attaching a back fin with a skewer and two side fins. At this point it looks like a disaster and I'm getting a bit worried.

But I'm pushing on... With grey icing and pink icing. I used cream cheese icing.. which is super tasty, but I've learnt the hard way that cream cheese icing really isn't as flexible as butter icing. It's too hard to mould well!

But I got there in the end (hurruh!). Here's the final product.

Marc Fennell's Book Launch

So.... to launch "That Movie Book" in fantastic style, we needed stunt baking.

Given the theme, popcorn cupcakes seemed appropriate... and so we set to work. I found some red and white cupcake wrappers at Peters of Kensington... and made little popcorn stickers (thanks Internet!).

Then I had to make the popcorn.... 

I cannot even begin to explain how long this took. 10 bags of mini-marshmallows, then I cut them in all in half and stuck them back together (so that they looked more like popcorn).. then I painted them all with yellow food dye. With around 2500 marshmallows, that only took around SIX HOURS. Here they all are in the freezer.

Then the Cupcake Squad (Lucy Carter, Claire Genner, Sarah Gerathy and Maddie Palmer) turned up for cake construction. Thanks to Claire for making 25 choc cherry and 25 choc honeycomb cupcakes.. and to Lucy for making an epic batch of salted caramel buttercream.

Here's the finished product:

And here they are on the cupcake stand.

 So tasty!

ZUMBO ZUMBO ZUMBO

So, my little cousin has the new Adriano Zumbo book. It's amazing, but insane. Every recipe is about five pages long and involves whacky ingredients.


Last weekend my sister suggested to my aunt that she wanted the V8 cake for her birthday. Now, she was joking... but my aunt took on the challenge and TEN HOURS... and god-knows-how-many-dollars later, we had a cake.


It was exceedingly good. It looked amazing. If you've seen Masterchef season 2, you'll know the cake in question. It has eight layers including water gel, chiffon cake, creme brulee and five other layers which I don't remember. 

Just like the book.

And here's the video of cutting the cake. 

FaceCakes

Last week, Lucy Carter promised to make cupcakes that looked like the ABC NSW News Director... then she chickened out.

Thank goodness for Paula Kruger. She came through with the goods, in the form of these amazing cakes made for a colleague's birthday.

Which is real Judi and which is the cupcake? I can't tell the difference!

And in other amazing cupcakes news, check out these amazing hamburger cupcakes (courtesy of Gadget)

Slack my bitch up

Apologies for my slackness. Too much splendour in the grass, too much fun, too much work.

But Team Snack My Bitch Up is back in business. We even have new toys (thanks Lucy's Mum!):

But while Luce and I have been a little slack on the cooking front, other people have been hard at work.

These Collingwood cupcakes are brought to you by Rachel Thompson.

But the real prize goes to Becca Johnstone (@becca_johnstone) and her foodie blog: The Bon Vivant Food and Wine Blog.

She sent me some truly amazing photos of an EPIC COCK CAKE.

And the best bit: it was brought out at a birthday dinner in a busy Sydney restaurant... with lots of very confused onlookers.

Ah-may-zing. Til next time, keep snacking.

You spin me right round... like an excellent cake.

Hello stunt bakers,


Here's our latest stunt cooking extravaganza. A record player cake!!!

Zan Rowe needed an excellent cake for her 33 1/3rd birthday. Lucy Carter and I came to the rescue. Our very first cake commission! We were almost as excited as we were when we discovered Coles sold cupcake-holding-tupperware for $12.


So we set work. Lucy made cakes (a round choc mud for the record) and I started on the cupcakes (red velvet with cream cheese icing and chocolate records.


Chocolate records are hard to make. Out of the first block of chocolate and half a block of white chocolate, I only managed to make TWO records. But don't they look great?

Then we started icing the cakes. Due to all the excitement, we forgot to document the early stages. But we bought black fondant and made pink fondant. The base cake (the white bit) is amazing caramel mud cake covered in fondant. And the grooves in the record were made with a pastry comb. As you can see, it doesn't look that great covered in icing sugar... but wait there's more.

And here are the cupcakes... thanks to Marc Fennell for the icing.

And here they are with records on top:

And the cake was coming along too. We made the arm of the needle out of a skewer covered in fondant (the only non-edible bit of the cake).

And finally we were finished.

And iced some "z"'s onto the cupcakes and put them in our lovely Coles cupcake tray.

And then it was time to transport the cake to The Dip. We didn't drop it!!!

Later, on my way to the party... I packed the essential icing for touch ups into my handbag.

And then it was time for the eating (thanks to Levins for cutting it up). The cupcakes vanished so quick I didn't have time to take a pic. SOMEONE ate TWO. They know who they are.

Til next time, Happy Baking.

Tarts and Cupcakes

Let's face it, tarts and cupcakes are king in the stunt baking world.


I've become a little obsessed with tarts of late. These are my faves so far.


Lemon meringue cupcakes, recipe by Masterchef. So tasty!

But my obsession cannot compare with Lucy Carter's cupcakes obsession:


Here are caramel filled double choc cupcakes... with salted caramel buttercream (the crack of the baking world)

And double choc with turkish delight.

But this is the level of cupcake design we should be striving for. Thanks to Michael Turtle for finding this one... and the Laughing Squid blog for posting it.

Happy baking!

Baking and books!! Best combo ever!