I made this cake for the birthday of a lovely boy who turned 8. When his mother asked me for a Ben10 cake I had no idea what it was about, despite my son being the same age! So I had to search the net to find a pic of the hero. I printed it and used it as a template to cut the Ben10 out of colored marzipan, just like a puzzle. If had a neon green color I would have used it to make the icing on the cake, I guess it would give the cake a much cooler look! But well, I used a simple leaf green instead.

  For the black details on the marzipan I just used an edible pen to draw them, quick and easy!

/Zara

There is nothing like flowers to decorate a lady’s cake celebrating a Spring birthday. So here they are, two spring looking birthday cakes! Both were iced with buttercream and decorated with molded marzipan flowers. I usually prefer to pipe my own flowers as it gives a lot of freedom but using molds can also be fun and convenient, as they can be made ahead. In the first cake I piped some leaves around the molded flowers, so combining techniques is also an option!

/Zara

  The idea for making these cupcakes came all of a sudden, while I was waiting for my favourite teas to be packed in the only tea shop in Helsinki TheHuone and saw some lovely Matcha tea tins on a shelf. I recently visited an exhibition about the Japanese Cerimony of Tea and had already read here and there about the uses of the precious green powder in confectionery. Well, after chating a bit about the matcha tea with the helpful ladies in the shop, I decided to buy and give it a try.

  I used the matcha in the cream cheese filling and in the buttercream frosting. I found it’s flavour quite delicate and subtle and I was really pleased with the “natural” green tone achieved in the frosting!

  Here is another pic of the cupcakes and one of the matcha tea:

  Happy baking!

/Zara

   Last week my son’s school held their annual “play afternoon” to raise money for the school and parents were asked to bring something to sell on the coffee corner. I thought that some animal themed cupcakes would be a great idea for kids and so got my hands on decorating these ones!

  I used colored marzipan, candy and sugar pearls to decorate the animal faces. They are actually quite easy to make and lots of fun! Two of the cupcakes above were made by my son Rudi, can you spot wich ones? ;-)

  And in adition to the frogs, pigs and pandas I also made some owls and koalas:

The cupcakes were a big success with kids & grown-ups alike and I hope you also like them!

/Zara

   With macarons popping out everywhere I also had to give them a try. As I decided for a raspberry filling I though pink would be a good matching color. I think that in the end they looked quite pretty!

They are very,very sweet and the crisp/soft texture given by the egg whites is not everyone’s taste. But those who like it, love it! And their nice look will always be a winner!

/Zara

  Today I finished these cupcakes for a boy’s 8th birthday party. His mother told me he’s a big fan of Batman and asked me if it would be possible to have some Batman themed cupcakes. So here they are, I think they look rather cool, don’t they?

  They are chocolate cupcakes and all decorations are marzipan. For the Batman logo and face I printed and cut out templates in plastic to help me out getting a nice shape. The letters were molded. These are bit time consuming but also a lot of fun to make!

  Happy cupcaking!

/Zara

So today is Mother’s Day here in Finland and of course I had to bake a cake to celebrate it! As it is “MY day” I was willing to spend a bit more time enjoying myself decorating the cake but just when I was about to start my eldest sun shows up bleeding from the head and had to take him to the hospital. Nothing serious, he got 3 stiches and a nice blue bandage but then my “decorating time” was gone and I had to rush to have it ready for lunch

Anyway, besides this unexpected mother’s day gift, I also got a really nice bracelet and a sunflower planted by my youngest one in his hand painted pot. So I’m a proud and happy mother

Wish you all a HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!!!

/Zara

 This is my most recent celebration cake, it was for a girl’s birthday and should be just a “simple cake". So I iced the cake with bright green buttercream and used pink one to pipe the bottom border and the dots around the cake sides. I used three different cutters to compose the marzipan flowers and added a sugar pearl to each center. I think the small molded butterfly flying around the small flowered “i"’s gives a cute feminine touch to the cake. Hope you enjoy it and wish you a nice week

/Zara

  Finally I manage to post something after such long time - working full time, the kids and all the cooking and baking leave no room for siting at the computer!

  So just before these Easter holidays I made this cake to celebrate the 2nd birthday of a boy who loves Winnie the Pooh! I baked a big round chocolate cake and also a winnie the pooh cake. The round cake is filled and iced with white chocolate buttercream and the Pooh cake is covered and decorated with marzipan. The baloon is actually a cookie covered with marzipan and is placed a bit out of the cake, it gives such a nice floating effect! The lettering is also marzipan and the little bee is molded, isn’t it cute?

  Hope you enjoy my come back to bloging (let’s see if I manage it!) and Happy Easter!

/Zara

Wish you all a Happy Valentine Day with these heart shaped Linzer cookies I baked yesterday.

Enjoy the weekend!

/Zara