Wedding cake project

For my big wedding cake project this week, the order is for a three tier chocolate mud cake with soft pink icing.

It takes a lot of ingredients to make a cake that size, and I've also discovered that the biggest cake I can make in my KitchenAid mixer is a 10 inch square.

The last tier will be made today, and over the next few days I will start the decorating process. And I will of course post about the finished product.

Wedding cupcakes

As I was already making vanilla cupcakes today, I took a few aside to practice on. Made a pink Glace icing, and decorated with little edible silver pearls which went really well with the silver foil casing. I could definitely see those on a stand for a wedding.

Vanilla Cupcakes

Found some awesome cupcake paper on special at General Traders the other day, so when Charlie ordered cupcakes (see previous post) I knew I had to test them out. I also bought two moulds, a frangipani and a little rose, so made some flowers out of some leftover sugar paste and coloured them pink.. Quite pleased with the overall result, and they tasted great too.

New Toy

I remember that when I was little I used to love it when mum got out her kitchen stand mixer. Because the mixer meant there was a cake coming, and I always got to lick the bowl afterwards. Now, as an adult with a love of baking, I can really see the how these stand mixers would come in handy, and for the good part of the year I've been drooling over the KitchenAid Artisan one. 

I just love the retro look of them, and the fact that they make cake making so much easier. So after having thought about it long and hard, yesterday I decided to have a look at the shops to see what I could find. I went to a few different places, none of which had anything even remotely close to what I was after. Then... there it was... starring at me from the shelf at David Jones. There was only one left in the store, and the girl kindly took $70 off the price for me, so I bought it.

So now it's sitting on my kitchen bench, all shiny and new, just waiting to be used. Charlie has ordered cupcakes tomorrow. Can't wait to make them!

My family

I though I'd take this opportunity to introduce the members of my family, considering I'll most likely mention them over the course of my blogging, and it would be nice for everyone to know who I'm talking about. 

This is us. Ben, Charlie and me. Ben and I have been married for 8 months today, and I can't believe how fast the time has gone by. The photo was taken while on our familymoon (meaning a honeymoon with a child) to Bali in June this year. 

This is my side of the family. From left to right we've got my dad, (Ben and I of course), my mum, and my siblings, Siri, Ida and Jonas. They all came over from Norway to celebrate our wedding with us. My dad, Oyvind, used to be a pilot, but unfortunately had to give up his license due to an illness, he has also done some radio programs. My mum, Nina, is a Principal for a year 8-10 school in Oslo, Norway, she's also been a teacher at the same school since I was about 1 or 2 years old. My sister, Siri (25), is educated as a ballet teacher, she is also the coach for Norway's national team in cheer-dance who got bronze at the last world championship. My sister Ida (16) is a high-school student, and works for a pet shop. And my brother Jonas (17), is 

also in high-school.

This is my youngest brother, Mathias. He is 13 and could unfortunately not come to Australia with the others. This photo is from May 2008, when Charlie and I went over to Norway to visit. Mathias is a year 8 student, and he is very good at making animation movies.

This is Ben's side of the family. from left we've got Julie (Ben's mum), Bill (Ben's dad), Simon, and on the far right is Abby. Julie, work in the school system helping vision impaired kids, Bill is a butcher, Simon has just started work as a landscaper, and Abby is a high-school student and works at Boost Juice.

So now you know my family. They are a good bunch of people, and I'm sure to mention them several times in my blog.

A day out

After weeks of pouring rain and storms, we finally got some proper spring weather. With a forecasted 20 degrees and sunny, we decided to go for a nice long drive.

Our first stop was Mount Bold reservoir in the Adelaide Hills. 

We have been at Mt Bold a few times before, but this is the first time we have actually seen it at 100% capacity, which is promising going into summer. Everything was so green, and it was just beautiful.

The view from the top of the dam is just amazing. There's a nice big drop straight down, and down the bottom is a suspension bridge over the river. We've never been down there before, so decided to go for a look. It was pretty steep, and many steps, but Charlie was so good, and walked the whole way, although he needed a little help to get back up again.

Because of all the recent rain, it was so beautiful and green. There were flowers everywhere, and even the normally dry creeks were full of water. And since I love taking photos of flowers, I just had to snap one of these little cuties, blossoming just next to the stairs.

We saw plenty of animals too. A few kangaroos relaxing by the water, and just after our little stop we spotted this emu just next to the road. Charlie however, was much more interested in the two little duckies that were walking just next to it....

Our next stop was at Meningie, a little town by Lake Albert. We grabbed some lunch, and sat down next to the playground, meaning we could relax, while Charlie could run wild.

Charlie had a ball. With swings, a "rocking horse", and slippery-dips, how can you go wrong? He even found another little boy, also named Charlie, to play with.

We had a wonderful day together, and after all that fresh air, I'm sure all of us will definitely sleep very well tonight.

A little sweet-tooth

I LOVE to bake and decorate cakes! The funny thing is that I only discovered cake decorating just before Christmas last year. Just thought it would be fun to make a Christmas themed cake for the family party, so off I went and bought a big, fat, book. I ended up buying two square fruit cakes and some sugar paste, and sat down with my book, ready to be inspired. This was the first time I had ever used sugar paste (or fondant) on a cake, and the result wasn't too bad. 

Since then, I've jumped at any occasion to make a cake (I normally bake them, I just didn't have enough time to make a proper fruit cake). I found plenty of videos on YouTube, and started learning more about how to work with the fondant, and all the things you can make with it..flowers, figures, plaques etc! The list seems almost endless.

These were the first flowers I ever made. They were made out of marzipan, and wasn't too hard to make when using a five petal cutter. Was pretty pleased with the result, at least since it was the first time trying. I was also trying out different ways of colouring sugar paste, and for this one I tried to get a marble effect going. A bit hard to see in the photo, but it's there.

When Charlie turned 3, and was asked what he wanted for his birthday, the answer was simple,"A rocketship cake, mummy!". And as he didn't ask for anything else, what can a mum do but to make said cake. I searched the internet to find some inspiration, and found a photo of a perfect cake, made by using a footy shaped tin. Once the design was settled upon, the rest wasn't too hard. I went to my favourite cake supply store, and rented the tin for $3. I used a normal chocolate cake recipe (all kids love chocolate cake), and baked the cake without much too much problems... I did however try a choc mud recipe first, that ended up getting stuck in the tin, so I ended up having to line it, and I also changed to the normal choc cake, as the mud cake was  bit to unstable for the shape. The second attempt worked perfectly. I coloured the sugarpaste blue, and covered the cake using some sugar syrup as "glue". The flames, smoke and stars were made from royal icing (and I did correct the slightly uneven fire after the photo was taken), while the legs and "glass" on the windows were cardboard covered in foil. Everything else, including the little astronaut was made from sugarpaste.

The cake was a great success, and Charlie still talks about his "rocketship birthday".

My very first blog

Hi, I'm Marit, and this is my very first blog! 

I'm a norwegian who, packed up her things and moved half way across the world to study nursing at a university in Adelaide, South Australia. Little did I know that I would find love, have a baby, get married and actually stay here.

My husband is Ben, a born and bred aussie, who I met after 1 year in Australia. We got married in February 2009 at Mclaren Vale, South Australia. A perfect day that we got to share with all the people we love.

In 2006 we had our little boy, Charlie. He is now 3 years old, with plenty of energy and lots of questions about how the world works.

Other then my family, and my job as a nurse, I love to travel, which is of course how I ended up in Australia in the first place. Some of my favourite destinations are, London, Singapore and Bali, and of course my home country, Norway. And I'm very happy that I've infected Ben with my travel bug. Hopefully we'll have many incredible destinations ahead of us.