A sweet little vintage cake I made for a friend’s daughter. Chocolate cake with layers of strawberry swiss meringue buttercream and a simple teal cream cheese buttercream with sprinkles and cherries on top.
Nice.
A sweet little vintage cake I made for a friend’s daughter. Chocolate cake with layers of strawberry swiss meringue buttercream and a simple teal cream cheese buttercream with sprinkles and cherries on top.
Nice.
The main dessert table for our son’s Vintage barefoot wedding was the centrepiece of the whole reception. I used three old doors as the backdrop, with doily bunting draped across them. I used my vintage yellow fabric to make panels for the glass door in the middle, which tied in with the Sweets table, bringing cohesion to the theme. I also used a gorgeous yellow chenille bedspread as the tablecloth. White wooden letters saying SWEET AS brought a touch of fun to the display.
Happy New Year fellow creatives and all of you lovely people who take the time to look at Mama bear’s Kitchen. I feel like I am finally up for air after yet another busy Christmas season. I have quite a few posts to share with you but wanted to start the year off with this funky tiered buttercream cake I made for our New Year’s eve party. I had been mulling over the concept of a unique, summer related New Years theme, wanting to leave behind the glitz and sparkle usually associated with this time of the year, instead capturing the essence of our lengthy, sunshine filled Australian days. With this in mind, I came up with my Summer Boho theme and had the most glorious time sourcing bright neon props and copious amounts of feathers!
I don’t really know what I was thinking when I made this cake last weekend. A lovely member of our church was turning 60 and I volunteered to make his cake. Any excuse to create! What started out as a caramel cake evolved into this messy, slightly over dramatic peanut buttered Tim tam popped nutty toffee sharded badly drizzled ganached Twixy twiggy bombboozle you see before you.
No explanation. No apologies. It is what it is.
And it was deeeeelicious. Even if I say so myself. x
Hello there friends. Life is chugging along at an increasingly hectic pace here in Mama Bear’s Kitchen. With only 8 weeks left until THE wedding of the year, it’s all hands on deck to get through that mammoth list of things to do. Time to wash the tea cups, find all of those buntings, and try really really hard to think through all of those teeny tiny details that will make this wedding an event to remember!
As you are aware, our oldest son is getting married this year. I was delighted to be a part of their gorgeous vintage engagement shoot a few months ago. The happy couple didn’t really want a large engagement party, but rather a small gathering of some of their friends. I happened to have my lovely vintage doors still set up from my Ladies tea party so I just changed the colour scheme and added a few vintage bits and pieces to create this simple dessert display. I found a cheap 70’s dresser at the op shop, which I will give to my son after the wedding. As soon as I saw it I knew it would be the perfect drink station. A simple buttercream cake adorned with flowers and some sweet daisy cupcakes on vintage props made up the desserts. This was a very easy display to set up. You don’t need a lot of food to make a dessert table look fabulous. Sometimes less is more if you have an intimate gathering of friends. Just put your effort into creating a simple backdrop, a splash of colour and hunt around your home for some matching vintage pieces.
I made these cakes for a vintage baby naming celebration. Nothing fancy, but oh so sweet. The semi naked cake is lime and pistachio, with vanilla bean cupcakes. The simple cake and cupcake toppers were handmade using lace, gingham ribbon and hessian scraps tied to toothpicks and skewers. An easy way to add a touch of colour to a neutral palette.
This was such a special afternoon. I gathered together a group of ladies, many of them mothers with young children, with the aim of creating a relaxing and indulgent tea party where they would sit and enjoy being served. As women, we are so often the ones who tirelessly meet the needs of others, so I wanted to give these special ladies an afternoon off, where they could finish their conversations, have fresh tea poured for them, leave their diets at the door and indulge in decadent sweets and treats.
If cake could talk, then I guess this monstrous volcano of messy ganache and sticky caramel might just give away the level of stress I was experiencing while trying to bring this misguided explosion to life. It wasn’t really meant to look like this. I had a plan. My plan didn’t look like this. My plan was neater. The caramel sauce would drizzle evenly down the sides, like it does for all of those amazing bakers with fabulously successful blogs. The ganache was going to be smooth and sleek, not lumpy after the second failed attempt (!) My salted caramel Tim Tam pops were going to be deliciously dipped into the perfectly textured caramel sauce.