Bingo Bear

  Kintsugi Influence

Daffodils for St.David's Day

  Beaten Silver

Indian Wedding Cake

High Tea Birthday Cake 










Australian Sugar Flowers

Ballerina Cake Topper















1st Birthday Busy Bee

Buttercream Hobart Show

Christmas Cookies

Latte Art

Buttercream Unicorn

For Daddy by the Children

Buttercream Cornucopia

Dark Mofo Toothbrushcake

Meringue Buttercream                 
  Always Popular Fairy       

Fidget Spinner that Spins
   
House and Roam

Lady Bird

  Lego for Henry                       
Minecraft

Mini Chocolate Snowdome


Nativity with Female Shepherd and Wise Woman

Paisley Cookies

Pastel Bttercream


Peter Rabbit

Real Tennis and Golf

Rose and Homeless Snail


Sheep Wedding Cake

Sheep Cast Twice Over












A large 21st Birthday Cake for a party in an underground nightclub.  A new experience for Grannie.


The largest cake so far, Tasmania, for the ordination and installation of our new Anglican Bishop.

 
Red roses on a red velvet wedding cake covered in white.









It was a delight to win the miniature wedding cake class at the Royal Hobart Show recently.












I  also came second in the sugar flower class
with this Lily.







Cookies for all the class, from the 8 year old birthday boy.


A Battery Point heritage home, the cake for the family's farewell dinner.  Quite a wrench after 60 years.

A 60th Birthday cake, to her daughter's specifications! 



A large cake for the Centenary of the Mission to Seafarers in Hobart.  This was a great Vice Regal occasion, with plenty of flags, and hymns for those in peril on the seas.  Most of the old salts could interpret the signal flag message.



Another horse cake.  The birthday girl hesitated before cutting this one!



An engagement cake for a Nepalese  couple, featuring their ring.



Queen Mary Club 105th birthday cake






Cherry Blossom and Japanese Maple Sugar Flowers



Dark Mofo cookies, the 2015 version. These were mentioned on ABC Radio National.


A birthday cake for Kate, the special teacher of Kinder Koalas.


What is it about little boys and trains?



For a baby shower



Anzac cookies with a fondant  mould of the  historic rising sun badge.



Easter Egg Cookies, with a nod to Faberge





Easter Bunny Cookies, they hopped rapidly out the door at Jam Jar Lounge

Autumn - as Keats called it 'Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness' - it certainly is this in Hobart.  I have been busy preserving the bounty, making jams, jellies, chutney and other delights.  

 

The bounty from a trip to the Huon Valley










The black bas relief cake remains a favourite of mine.




For those who love chocolate.  My chocolate mud cake is delicious, and always receives a favourable press.






Another fairy princess castle cake.  I guess one Hobart little girl had this dream come true.





An interesting request was for a fire fighting cake for a 5 year old. His Dad fights forest fires in the USA, hence the interest.  What better local touch than Sam the koala's rescue?

This was a quick naive cake for a family barbecue, for my sister's birthday.  This is the house they are buying, the sellers must have wondered why I was lurking around taking photos.

A baptism cake for a girl who likes pigs and one who likes elephants. The meerkats are keeping watch. 

I don't often cover cakes with buttercream, but this one was for a family from the USA - I added Tasmanian Blue Gum for a local touch.



Happy Valentine's Day. 




A nautical theme for a 5th birthday boy was much admired.

January 2015 - The first cake of the year is a Princess Castle cake for 5 year old grandaughter - to her own design.


Cookies featured again for a first birthday party.



December - Christmas cakes are always great to make and decorate.

The main cake this year was a Nativity cake,  from a design which evolved a couple of years ago.  It was for John and Roslyn, the heart of St Georges church.

My generic Christmas cake this year was well received.



The Christmas Confusion Cookies created some interest as well.


Grannie's helper making Santa toppers for her pre school teacher's cakes.



The finished product, we made twelve using plastic snow domes from the USA. 


A simple Art Deco cake for Danny of Jam Jar fame for his Speakeasy party was fun to do, and the party was great.

A shoe cake for my beautiful daughter, the shoe is sugar, the box the cake.



A graduation cake for two Masters, returning overseas.



Also last week were two arrangements of roses, both for weddings.
 






November -Back in action again with a ruffled wedding cake for a wedding at Mona.  The flowers were stylised ranunculi.


September and October - recovered well from hand surgery and continued master classes on line.  I only managed one cake for the Hobart show this year, a black bas relief miniature wedding cake.












August - A box of edible succulents was well received by the theatre staff and hand surgeon as they embarked on making my right index finger usable again.


My recovery is going well as I take part in some online master classes.  Edible art is such a huge field, there will always be new and fascinating projects to undertake.

July - I developed the edible succulent from an idea by Nicholas Lodge, adding a Japanese theme. They caused quite a stir locally and have had many photos put up on Facebook. The main growing medium is chocolate mud.  Balloons and cloud cookies, a Lofty the crane birthday cake and 45 Orangutan cookies for the annual Orangutan Project fundraiser made it a busy week.  

A rock climber's wedding cake was both fun and a challenge.  The bride and groom are in their wedding gear climbing the organ pipes on Mount Wellington.  There were also Tasmanian Devil and Tiger cookies for interstate guests.

A frog cake for a one year old was also fun to make.   I really enjoyed giving a cookie decorating demonstration to the Cake Decorator's Association.

June - Started with fabulous and forty cake. 
Also I attended a weekend workshop with Greg Cleary from Queensland.  Greg has won many awards for his flowers and he inspires me.  There was also a demonstration day with Alan Dunn from the UK and I bought one of his beautiful books.
Dark Mofo our celebration of the Winter Solstice in Hobart is great fun with food, wine and many events.  
Last year's cookies are still on the Mona facebook page and I made a different variation on the theme this year.

May  - begins with Mother's Day preparation.  My 4 year old grandaughter suggested that we do colouring page cookies again for her playgroup to take home. She wanted to be involved in the whole process and lasted the distance, even through to doing something original with the leftovers.  The photos on the main photo page show the variety of designs the children came up with, even one cookie in Hawthorn colours.  
Henry's second birthday cake was fun to do, I planned to keep it simple but can't help being a maximalist.

April 2014 - Decorating Easter cookies reminded me that it is just a year ago that I did my first cookie platter, 170 different designs later and cookies still fascinate me.  I regard them as my business cards.  A wedding and an engagement cake due on the same day had brought  me back into the swing of decorating after my hand surgery which was a good test of stamina.

February and March 2014 - hand surgery on Valentines Day resulted in an enforced break from decorating.  The surgery was a great success, maybe helped along by the platter of Valentine cookies I took for the theatre team. 

January 2014 - A busy and interesting month in Hobart.  In Sydney Hobart spirit I made a set of signal flags for our brigantine, the Windeward  Bound.  There were memorial cookies for a dear neighbour, the church was packed with many friends - the governor and our local pizza restaurant owner among them.  There  were fairy and pirate cakes for two four year old's birthdays in the playground and an Angry Birds cake for someone a bit older.  I came up with a Tasmanian Devil design for a Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary fundraiser and added koalas and thylacines to expand the theme.  More colouring page cookies with the Wymea school holiday group and summer and Beach designs evolved.  For Australia Day there were prawn on the barbie and Southern Cross cookies.

December - Merry Christmas.  I couldn't resist a wise men and camel design for some last minute cookies.  The Christmas decorating rush is on and as I had an article published in the Australian Sugarcraft magazine vowing to be more organized this year, I am not!  However we will get there.  I am just back from Carol singing around Battery Point, the group expands as we go.  It is a great experience in great surroundings.  
I made a rainbow dual birthday cake also last week , seven layers inside as well as a rainbow on the top with Kermit and a pot of Gold.   

November - A flower fairy birthday cake for a 9 year old kept me happily occupied for a couple of days.  Carousel horses and a Paris theme were recent cookies. Thirty hot air balloon birthday cookies were fun to make, for a 6 year old to take to school for his friends.  With Spring Racing cookies earlier in the month I reached my 100th cookie design.  I started at Easter time so am quite pleased with the achievement.  The St. Georges spire featured again on a cake, with the spire of St. Marks Darling Point. This was to farewell a family who have been a valued part of our community and we will miss them.

October - a busy month with the Tulip Festival at Table Cape and then the Royal Hobart Show, Tasmanian apple cookies and finally Halloween.  My tulip cookies had some challenges, not the least of which was the sea mist and frequent rain, changing the parameters both of cookies and icing.  Leaving entries at the show was like leaving a child for their first day at school.  This was the first time I have entered anything in a competition and was thrilled to get two blue ribbons, for Africa theme cookies and for a Victorian Posy.  The posy contained 100 flowers, and was still very small around 8cm excluding the leaves.  I guess making that accounted for a fair chunk of my time.  Halloween cookies were fun to do, and as many of my cookie eaters are quite young, I didn't make them too frightening.

September - Tales from Africa, Potted Flowers, China Dolls and Monet's Garden have been the cookie themes this month.  Visiting the Monet exhibition in Melbourne recently, I wanted to see if I could capture some of the beauty of the waterlilies in a cookie.  Look at photos the photo on page 5 to see my attempt.  There was also a Jackpot Cake for a 70th birthday, and previously there were Father's Day cookies and a Father's Day cake decorated by the grandaughters.  For the same day, a birthday piano cake was constructed for Steve, the Jam Jar pianist.  I say constructed as that part fascinates me, the issue of making the cake stable as well as pleasing to the eye and palate.  Check the photo page 5 for the latest.

August -I have just returned from a trip, first to the National Seminar of the Cake Decorator's Association in Adelaide.  This was great, five days of intensive tuition and a chance to see the competition cakes, bringing an equal response of awe and aspiration.  After that it was on to Melbourne for the 50 year reunion of our group commencing nursing at the Royal Children's Hospital.  My hospital badge cookies, on the photo page, were enthusiastically received as part of the celebration.

A horse birthday cake for a special girl involved making it allergy free so her close friend could enjoy it also.

A picture of the Royal Baby cookies was sent to the UK and then passed on to the editor of Hello magazine.  Grannie is going global!

I had great fun making a princess cake for a 40th birthday as a joke, the photo shows I tried to make it a bit elegant anyway. The princess in question was reported to have removed the tiara and worn it herself for the rest of the evening.  The cookies this week are Orangutans and are a preview of those I am making for an Orangutan Project fund raiser.  The St. George's cake is also featured on the back cover of the Tasmanian Anglican magazine.

July - Cookies in an electric range of colours and different royal icing techniques, namely tufting, marbling and flooding on hot air balloons.  Also of course there was the Royal Baby, including a baby carriage, and a Pirate Cake for a 5 year old boy, with the treasure chest lid made with a chocolate frame and filled with marshmallows.

For Dark Mofo, the Museum of Old and New Art Winter Solstice celebration,  there was the Red Queen and also red bikinis with the Mona logo.  The Mona facebook page picked up the idea and carried it to the image of severed body parts.  Actually I was thinking of the Nude Swim and the Prude Swim.  At over 550 likes I am not complaining.

When there was snow on the mountain, I took 30 colouring page snowman cookies to my 3 year old grandaughter's playgroup. The children decorated them with edible markers and sanding sugar snow.  They had great fun, and they proudly took them home in little cellophane packets.