Noah in the Bath

Want to make your very own Noah-in-the-Bath? Head on to Learn Cake Decorating Online for my tutorial. Yes! My tutorial got featured!! How awesome is that?

http://www.learncakedecoratingonline.com/noah-bath-cake-topper/

Cupcake Day is round the corner

Due to the frantic monitoring report, we've deferred our RSPCA Cupcake Day till Monday, 3 Sept. We have cupcake orders totalling 200. Emma and Alex are busy baking cupcakes this weekend and I've prepped the cake boxes all ready for cupcake deliveries on Monday, my 200 fondant puppies are ready to leave home.... awww..... (sniff!)

Multicultural Multicoloured puppies!

100 multicultural multicoloured puppies. Psychedelic! It's been a busy sweatshop weekend.

And, 2 "knitted" bunnies to add to my knitting collection for Alex. Can you see their button eyes?

Multicultural puppies - watermelon malamutes

Watermelon pink malamutes to add to my multicultural puppies collection.

Multicultural puppies!

The start of my range of multicultural puppies, starting with orange puppies tonight. Will be making heaps of different coloured puppies this weekend so watch this space.

Also making hearts to go with each puppy. The best heart cutters are the PME ones. This one is the smallest from a set of 3 sizes. PME is a UK-brand of cake decorating tools. Bloody expensive but very good quality. Well worth the extra expense. PME cutters make very clean cuts, so less time spent in smoothing out the edges.

21 puppies tonight

I made 21 Bull Terrier puppies tonight. This completes the number of fondant toppers needed to go with the 188 cupcakes ordered by work colleagues. Delivery on our designated RSPCA Cupcake Day on 3 September 2012. Now I have just 100 more puppies to make for Glenn.

How to run your own sweat shop

It's my day off today so I made another 60 puppies, bringing my weekend total to more than 200 fondant puppies. That has got to be a record! Feels like a sweat shop. So, if you feel like running your own sweat shop and make fondant puppies by the masses, follow my instructions...

To fit out my sweat shop, I invested in a sculpting knife, a ball tool, a carving tool, brush, sugar flower glue, silicon chocolate mould, and of course, fondant.

Oh, and don't forget, some black non-pareils...

Step 1: Start with an upturned silicon chocolate mould. As the mould is floppy, I rest it on a plastic lid.

Step 2: Make a whole bunch of puppy arms (refer to my earlier blog on the basics) and perch them on the mould to shape the arms so that when you place them on your cupcakes, the puppies will look like they're hugging the tops of the cakes. I make 24 at a time because that's how many my silicon mould holds.

Step 2: Make 24 oval shaped heads. I'm making a bunch of St Bernard puppies, so I use Bakels chocolate fondant to get a dark brown colour for the heads.

Step 3: Add a small strip of white fondant on each head.

Step 4: Make 24 pairs of ears using the same chocolate fondant.

Step 5: Attach a white fondant muzzle to each puppy head, like this.

Step 6: Make 2 holes on each head for the eyes.

Step 7: Attach the heads to the arms.

Step 8: Attach the ears.

Step 9: Add noses and eyes (this is where the black non-pareils come in handy).

Step 10: And you've finished 24 St Bernard fondant puppies. Much quicker than making each individually.

Some Bull Terriers...

167 puppies this weekend!

I made 77 more puppies today - 52 Beagles and 25 Dalmatians. In total I've made 227 puppies. This weekend alone I made 167 puppies.... wow! 

Dalmatians minus the spots. Glenn has offered to help add the spots, which means one less thing for me to do. Glenn is also going to help with making the red hearts, another one less thing to do.

No time to rest on my laurels yet. There are still another 150 more puppies to make, but no more tonight coz I'm tired now. Sweat shop is closed, off to bed.

50 puppies yesterday

I managed to make 50 puppies yesterday, which isn't a big achievement, considering it was Saturday so I should have had all day to make more. I suppose could've made more but I was whisked off to the DEEWR winter ball. So I made only 50 puppies - 25 St Bernards, and 25 Dalmations. I hope to achieve a better number today... we'll see...

Another 40

Finished another 40 puppies tonight - Malamutes and Bloodhounds. Took me 4 hours, tired now, off to bed!

Puppies puppies puppies!

60 puppy cupcake toppers done, 240 more to go! Yes, two hundred and forty.... for now! So far, I have orders totalling up to 200 cupcakes from work and another 100 from Glenn's work. Looks like I'm going to be very busy making puppies and more puppies!

Donate to a worthy cause: http://www.fundraise.rspcacupcakeday.com.au/cat_herderers

Bath time!

Here're my two boys having a bath - Zo and Noah. I made these as Thank You gestures to Paul Walters of Aussie Pooch Mobile coz he comes round once a month to give them and Ripley their baths. They smell and feel so good after that. Paul's been grooming and washing them since they're little babies. Ripley's now 4 years old, Zo just turned 3 and Noah's turning 4 in October. Thank you Paul!

Hello Pita and Binboy!

Yes, I think I've gone quite mad. I've assigned names to my sugar puppies! Meet Pita the Purple Pitbull and Binboy the rubbish-loving Bull Terrier. Haha. I made these as showcase pieces to promote cupcakes for the RSPCA Cupcake Day fundraising. Binboy and Pita are strong advocates against BSL (breed specific legislation). Till now, the scariest things they've ever done are raiding the rubbish bin and grocery bag. Watch this space, I think. There'll be more "Adventures of Pita and Binboy."

As always, I get carried away and forget to take any progress pics of Binboy, but here're some pics of Pita. Start with a bar of Kellogg's LCM breakfast bar. Make sure it's the original plain one.

Cut the LCM bar in half and stack them. Roll out some green fondant and wrap the LCM to resemble a green grocery bag. Make it flop and crinkle like fabric to add realism. I also added piping on the sides and attached that little hoop that supermarket checkout chicks use to hang the bag at the checkout. Yes, I'm anal retentive! Various angles of the bag...

 Roll out some brown fondant to cover the exposed LCM.

Add Pita the Pitbull and some carrots.

Add more details - green stems on the carrots.

Add a pineapple coz who goes grocery shopping just to buy a bagful of carrots... hmmm... actually, I DO know someone who once bought 10 kilos of carrots but that's another blog!

Two carrots outside the bag adds to the realism.

Don't forget bag handles!

Here's Pita's buddy, Binboy...

Don't you agree they look good enough NOT to eat!