Pearls of wisdom

For Opa's birthday how could the cake be anything other than a treat from Upper Cut Cake gal Jen's "backen" book? This perlentorte, made of sponge layered with blueberries mixed with fresh cream, was enjoyed by all the family (well at least by all those who didn't think blueberries, cream and sponge were yuck!)

(four layers of sponge each topped with a crunchy layer of cinnamon and almonds sandwiched together with a mixture of fresh cream and blueberries)

Triple lemon treat

Sweet people are great. Sweet cakes are yummy. But in people and baked goods alike, sometimes a little tang and tartness is just what's needed to take things up a notch. Happy birthday to "M", who is zesty in both personality and palate!

(White poppyseed cupcakes topped with a triple-lemon frosting - fresh lemon juice, lemon zest, and organic lemon yogurt - and lemon-shaped marzipan cutouts; by Upper Cut Cakes gal "E".)

Day-to-Night cupcakes

Many ladies are familiar with the "Day-to-Night outfits" subgenre of the fashion article world. These articles promote versatile items of clothing that can be toned down for daytime/work wear or glammed up for an evening on the town with a quick switch of accessories, shoes, etc. Today's post features equally versatile cupcakes!

Sporting decorations made of chocolate rolled fondant and royal icing, these chocolate and yellow cake cupcakes were recently sold as a game-day fundraiser for the University of Stirling's American Football team.


Later that evening, the few remaining cupcakes received a quick makeover of royal icing dots and silver dragees. Just in time to become dessert for the neighbors during the inaugural week of our meal exchange!


(Chocolate cake and yellow cake, both topped with a dense chocolate buttercream layer; decorations of rolled chocolate fondant, royal icing, and silver-coloured dragees.)

Bumps to babies

The last time Jen met up with the ante natal group there were 3 bumps and just the anticipation and excitement of babies. This time there were 3 little bundles of joy: two pink and one blue playing a Whose line is it anywayesque game of sleep, cry, alert. Welcome to the world baby girl J & baby boy E!


To mark the occasion Jen baked celebratory cupcakes with a balloon motif representing each of the babies. More conscious of artificial colours now she's a mother, Jen decided to go back to a previous idea and used fresh raspberry juice to colour the pink balloon instead of red food colouring.


Still working on the naturally occurring blue - suggestions welcome!

(vanilla cupcake with raspberry jam filling, piped vanilla buttercream and fondant balloon decoration finished with writing icing details)