It’s not that it was a terrible year, it’s just after June it exploded into six months straight of 60+ hour weeks and 16-19 hour days. I’m burnt out. For some reason my work just got busier and busier. I ran a class every Monday. I’ve always been around the same google ranking (nope, apparently we’re now first), but the amount of work just overloaded us and I started to feel a bit burnt out.

The quality also broke down.

It all came to a head earlier in December when we got bad feedback on a very big order. I didn’t take it as badly as I thought but I knew it was coming after we finished the work and it still hurt. I worked my butt off on that order but it just didn’t turn out like I planned. There were so many problems. It just proved we couldn’t do it after all. All I could do was profusely apologise and now wear the shame of it – whenever I see/hear about that particular place my heart hurts.

But I took the feedback on board and immediately changed how we did things. I stopped taking orders for the entire month even though we were only three days in. I set my holidays to start earlier and completely changed our menu and dropped a product for now until we can get it back on the road again. I started making new plans for class structures and offered gift vouchers for Christmas.  I stopped over booking myself.

We could have taken what probably sounds like thousands of dollars in orders this month if I continued to take them on board, but after that bad feedback and the amount of work we put into it, I started to feel burnt out. I started to dread emails and work.

If you ever feel like that, you need to reconsider your life. I turned my hobby into my work, and if I start to hate it, I will have nothing in my life to turn to. I play video games, but that is really the only other thing I have. The end of this month I’ve been on holidays since the 19th, and with just three orders until 2012 it has been a nice slowdown, but I’ve also been a bit bored when I have no work to do. I don’t really remember life before this.

You might get people asking you to do things all at the same time – but you have to set a limit. Help everyone, and the quality of everyone is compromised. Help just a select few, and everyone walks away absolutely delighted. You be the boss.

Have a very safe and Happy New Year, and I hope 2012 brings you all wonderful things. For me, there’s only one step to take my work, so that’s where we’re heading.

Monnie x

Some suggested contents: A nice thick set of oven mitts to put it all in, an oven thermometer or timer (or both!) a good whisk, a silicone spatula, and a good paring knife!

I use Victorinox knives which you can find in all good cooking stores (King of Knives, Creative Cooks etc). They are black/red handle small knives that are usually in a box and are around $7.95-$9.95. If your recipient has never had a good sharp knife it will change their cooking life!

I also recommend an oven thermometer, because as I always say in all of my classes, your oven can be out by 10-20C – and can be the cause of baking failures!

Alternatively, if you want to specialise your present a little bit, why not build a cake decorating kit?

Add into it some cupcake liners, sprinkles, candles and sparklers, piping nozzles and bags, royal icing or gumpaste decorations and anything else you think might be great for that budding cake decorator friend of yours. Find a nice box and pop it all inside!

Also if you’re in Adelaide shout them a Cupcake Treats class voucher

Here are the reasons I’ve had this problem over the years – thanks to some testing that my boyfriend helped me with, we were also able to figure out the first problem and haven’t had the same problem since (unless I am not paying close enough attention and pull the tray out too early).

1. You haven’t baked them long enough

The best way to tell if your cupcakes are truly ready (of course, this is dependent on your recipe, but works for my vanilla/chocolate base recipe) is to push down on the top with a fingertip. If it fully springs back to where it was before you touched it, it is done. If your finger leaves an imprint and they don’t spring back as much as they should, they need a couple more minutes. Couple this with the cake tester into your cupcakes and you should get perfect results every time.

The reason for this is if the leavening agent hasn’t finished its work, the cakes will shrink away from the liners, giving the peeling effect, and ruining all your hard work. Yeah you could put them in cupcake wrappers or inside another liner but I just don’t feel they look quite right. The good news is you could use them to make cupcake sandwiches (cut them in half and ice in the middle, for something different) or in cake/cupcake pops, but their cupcake days are over.

2. Humidity during storage

This is caused by two things:

- Putting them into boxes before they are completely cooled, causing a “sauna” in the box
- Keeping the boxes completely closed overnight in a humid environment

If you’re in doubt, leave your box / container open slightly so that the air has a chance to circulate. This keeps the dust and airborne things out, but allows your box to breathe.

This goes DOUBLE if you are using edible image logo discs on the top of your cupcakes. If you can, put them on right at the very last minute. The sugar in the logos starts to dissolve depending on the temperature and humidity in the air, causing the edges to kind of melt over the top of the icing. They still look fine, but not as crisp as they should be.

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I believe there can also be some problems with people who live in higher altitudes, but I’ve never experienced this and don’t think it is a big issue in Australia – but you can google for solutions and recipe adjustments easily if this is something that affects you!

Happy Baking

This is a 50th wedding anniversary cake I finished not long ago! It’s a two tier vanilla sponge cake filled with custard, cream and strawberries, and then covered with white fondant (RTR). It’s loosely based off of their original 1960′s wedding cake:

50 years is quite the achievement!

When I first started getting into baking, I bought myself a Sunbeam Mixmaster from Kmart. At the time, I thought it was the absolute bees knees, with a rotating bowl like the professionals use. I started getting into cupcakes and cakes even more and after Cupcake Camp, I started a little cupcake business on the side – just me and my mixer.

Just over a year of use and the motor burnt out and started smelling funky, so I said goodbye to the benchmixer and used a handheld one for a few months instead, before sparing a some dollars to pick up a second hand Kenwood Chef benchmixer to get me by in the meantime. But it’s just not the same.

While I was studying at TAFE, I got the opportunity to use REAL mixers. Huge 5L bowls on Hobart mixers with paddles that weighed a ton. We also got to use the semi-commercial version of the KitchenAid and immediately I fell in love. No mixer truly compares to a KA. Kenwood’s deliver on super power – but I make cake and desserts, and I’m looking for function and not the ability to mix hard doughs for bread. They can be almost as expensive – but it’s really just not what I want.

Last night while preparing for this weekend I used a new recipe to make my macarons because I have lost my trusty one, but they are all much the same – and both batches FAILED miserably. The first one was way too runny – not enough air in the egg whites. Second time around and almost the same thing – no feet on the macarons, and then the second tray cracked and split. I was too tired to cry, but I knew straight away it’s my mixer letting me down.

If you could buy a Kitchen Aid in part payments, I would so be there – but I haven’t seem to found a place where you can. I put almost all of my earned money back into my work and bills – the last few years have been very far from easy.

When you make macarons with a sugar syrup base (italian meringue), you start off by whisking the egg whites to peaks before adding in the hot sugar syrup to make a foamy and airy meringue. Well, it seems I’m not getting enough air from my egg whites. The whisk attachments on my mixer aren’t getting enough air in, and because egg whites are light, the bowl doesn’t spin to go all the way around. So this evening I’ll be using my hand mixer to whip egg whites and a thermometer in my other hand because there’s unfortunately no way I could spare the money for my dream boat, the Kitchen Aid.

You should be aware though – there’s a million points of failure in a macaron recipe, even with the italian meringue method. Prepare yourself for disappointment (and console yourself by eating the leftover failed ones) xx

Classic Macaron Shells (colour them as you please)

200g almond meal
200g icing sugar
75ml water
200g caster sugar
2 x 80g egg whites (separate measures)

1. Preheat your oven to 150C.

2. In a food processor, blitz the almond meal and icing sugar together, then sift into a bowl and set aside.

3. In a saucepan, add the water and caster sugar and bring to the boil. Do not stir it. With a pastry brush, dip it in water and run it along the inside of the saucepan just above the water line, to stop any sugar from bubbling up and burning (or if there is any on the sides already, it will remove it).

4. Beat 80g of the egg whites to soft peaks. Here’s where it gets a little difficult. If you do have a bench mixer, it’s likely that 80g may not be enough for the whisks to hit the bottom of the bowl and whip up all of the egg whites. Keep an eye on it!

5. When the sugar syrup hits 105C (yes you need a thermometer) turn the mixer speed up, and when it hits 115C remove from the heat and pour in a thin stream into the egg whites. Keep mixing for 5-10 minutes until it cools.

6. Pour the other 80g of egg whites on top of your almond meal/icing sugar mixture and combine to make a smooth paste.

7. With a spatula, add about 1/3 of the cooled meringue to the mix and fold it in carefully to loosen the mixture. Add the rest and fold gently. This is when you should add your colouring (if applicable)

8. When you lift your spatula and leave a ribbon of batter, it should take 10 seconds to fully sink back into the mixture and disappear – then you know it is ready for piping.

9. Fill a piping bag with a 1cm round tip with batter, then pipe the macaron rounds and leave to sit for 30 minutes before baking.

10. Bake for 13-15 minutes. The shells should barely wiggle if you touch the top with your fingertip.

I recommend you go and read up as much as you can on macarons before attempting them, but once you have mastered them you can bake anything!

Also, congratulations to Ed over at http://www.tomatom.com who is celebrating SIX YEARS of food blogging by holding a pretty fabulous giveaway… go have a nosey! I’m not even up to two years yet! x

Cupcake Camp is actually what triggered me to start my own business, and look how successful that is – we’ve done over half of last years work in under two months. I’m exhausted!

And so… in three weeks we’ll be holding Adelaide’s second Cupcake Camp with all proceeds again going to charity.

Cupcake Camp Adelaide is an event where a group of random volunteers from across the city bake cupcakes and bring them along. They’re sold with all proceeds on the day going towards a charity of our choice. Everyone amazingly works together to bring us a variety of flavours, with almost everything you can think of (yes, I believe a bacon cupcake is in the mix somewhere).

We’ve got face painting and cupcake decorating for the kids, with soft drinks, coffee, tea and more. It is an amazingly fun but very fast afternoon and it’s over before you know it!

If you live in Adelaide or know people that do, you should spread the word. The Cupcake Camp Adelaide website has posters and flyer sheets available to download, or you can just email the picture to your friends here. Every person helps us to sell out on the day, and we’ve currently got over a thousand cupcakes pledged to sell where last time we sold over 400 and raised over $1000!

I am very passionate about my charity work and I hope you will rally behind me to make this one my most successful event yet. I raised over $2000 at the High Tea last year – that’s my goal to beat, I know you guys can help me do it!

xx Monnie

P.S – I’ve got another competition coming up very soon! Just posted the first one off to the winner, I hope you like it

I have had my camera for four years this year. In 2010 I bought a new lens for it that has changed the way I use my camera, before that I was pining for a newer model. After being told it’s mainly the lenses that make the camera, I splurged on a new one and have not looked back.

The way you photograph your creations makes a very big difference to how they’re perceived.  Mobile phone shots are just likely to make them look very regular, when you should give yourself some credit and make them look as spectacular as they are!

What camera do you use?

I use a DSLR. If you don’t know what that is, a DSLR is a higher end professional quality camera that allows you to change the lenses. Digital cameras basically have a lens built into them you can’t change. Lenses affect the zoom and the amount of light that can enter the camera, which helps with low light shooting.

I use a Nikon D70, and my primary lens is a 50mm f/1.8. My backup handbag camera is a Canon IXUS 80IS which has great close up capability and produces a very clear shot.

How do you get these kinds of photos?

I must admit that it is after the purchase of the 50mm that things changed. The difference with this compared to other lenses is that the smaller the f number, the more light that can go into the camera, and the price goes higher. A 50mm lens is a fixed lens, so you can’t adjust the zoom at all, but is considered one of the most important lenses you can have. It helps to give this incredible depth of field effect that you see in a lot of my photos, the style of one thing being in focus while the rest gradually falling into the background.

What do you use for lighting and background setup?

I work on a budget, so I use a big white canvas as a backdrop for most shots, and my kitchen bench. It is a neutral gray colour so it helps with bringing out the colour in whatever my shots are. I do primarily dessert and macro photography anyway.

With lighting, I try and work in the middle of the day. Nothing is better than diffused natural light coming in from a window. It’s important to get enough light for your camera to take clear photos but not too much light and definitely avoid fluros or harsh yellow light.

What do you use to edit your photos?

Adobe Photoshop CS4. I make some changes to colour and contrast, and sometimes put some crazy action on top to make the colours different, but I like a natural look these days.

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The cupcakes in the photos are part of a mixed dozen. I had an order from someone in the UK who wanted to send a box of cupcakes to her friend here in Adelaide, so I put together a mixed dozen of chocolate, vanilla, caramel and raspberry.

There’s still time to enter the competition to win the Cupcake book – you have until Monday!

Happy 14th of February!

The last four days have been my busiest cake days on record. I baked 250 mini cupcakes, two dozen regular cupcakes, one giant cupcake, one 6″ cake and ~60 macarons… And only about a quarter of those were related to Valentine’s Day! Phew.

Since my last post I also went to teach a cupcake decorating party as part of a hen’s afternoon..

It was HOT and a very long drive to get there, but I had a great time and they made some spectacular cupcakes.

Now for more fun things! I have booked in a time to teach my own cake decorating classes in the city. They are held at the Box Factory Community Centre and the first one is Cupcakes 101 on April 11th (how original is that title? But it explains it well)!

If you’re in Adelaide and you’re interested, all the information is over at Cupcake Treats, and I am really really looking forward to it! The space at the Box Factory is wonderful and the staff are lovely. I love teaching others! I designed the certificates today.. I can’t wait to show the students.

Over the next three weekends I am teaching three cupcake decorating parties and a class, I’m busy but it’s great!

And finally something we quickly whipped up for a friends birthday last week… an iPod cake!

P.S – If you haven’t seen my jelly slice recipe before, I made a batch on Sunday for an order and I had leftovers to eat… Oh my goodness, it has been too long since I had jelly slice! You should go and make some, I won’t tell anyone

Busy weekend this one!

I went to a wedding of a family friend on Saturday, and as well as the seven tier surprise tower (above) we made for the bride and groom, I was also the photographer. A very very long, hot and tiring day, but I had one of the most wonderful and fun days I’ve had in quite a long time, with a lot of good laughs at the reception, so thank you to the bride and groom for letting me be part of it! The tower was 75 chocolate mud cupcakes with teal/blue frosting and silver cachous to match the theme of the wedding.

Before the wedding I went on a journey across the city to deliver these. Simple cupcake tower with purple liner, pale purple frosting and purple lettering/numbers. I got great feedback from these, was a pleasure making them!

To top off the weekend, I took some of the left over wedding cupcakes to a Twitter Meetup in the city on Sunday, so it was a weekend full of cupcakes and great feedback

This Saturday I have one of my biggest cupcake challenges so far, Cupcake Decorating for a Hen’s Party! There’ll be 20 guests so I’m looking forward to how busy I will be running between guests. I’m bringing an assistant though to lighten the load.

And finally, if you’re reading this from Adelaide, I strongly urge you to get involved in my other major cupcake project, Cupcake Camp! Head on over to http://www.facebook.com/cupcakecamp for all the details and come along to the free bakers training session (once you sign up as a volunteer of any kind) and meet me!

This weekend I had two orders, a big square cake for four people having their 30th together, and a steak cake. Steak cake is probably my signature cake now, as after this weekend I’ve made three of them and they are all perfect.

Except I was only meant to make two.

This is steak cake number one, the vanilla steak cake. Except for the customer order, I was meant to bake a chocolate one. Hours after it had cooled I went back to the customer order and gasped loudly. It was nearly 10pm and the cake was due for delivery the next day, at lunch time. Never mind. I came up with the best possible solution which was to offer the second one for sale (as of course, there was nothing wrong with it) and luckily managed to sell it pretty quickly

Two steak cakes in one weekend! I think I’m over steak cake and would like a real steak now please