So, this cake was for my cousins 21st, he told me he wanted an exact replica of his car. He tells me later on he was just joking, but he asked, he got!!!
Neil has spent a lot of time working on his car, and it is frikkin awesome, he is very, very proud of it!!
So again with this cake I had no idea where to start or how to do it, Tawa my sister in law came over and help me carve it, it was the first cake I had ever carved so we really were in no mans land. The two of us managed it okay in the end, although the shape was rather more like a chevy than a cortina!!!
It took about 3 days in total to complete it, the wheels took me 3 hours on their own!! I was determined every detail be correct, sure the fondant was a little lumpy and it wasn't perfect but it was very much appreciated and took about 3 weeks to eat!!

So I have always been a keen baker and when my brother and now sister in law were getting married, we started talking cakes, there was no way in hell they were paying hundreds of dollars for something I could make myself!!!!

So about 6 months before the wedding I started looking at cake decorating equipment and therein started an obsession that is still going 3 years later - do you have any idea of the pretties you can buy to decorate cakes??? I found this wonderful site

http://www.cakestuff.co.nz/zencart/

This woman is amazing, so incredibly helpful, nothing is too much trouble for her, if she doesn't have it, she will find it for you!!!

Anyway, on with the story, I started buying bits and pieces I thought I might need, then I found things I liked and bought them as well, half of them, I had no idea what they were for or how to use them, but they looked really pretty!!! In fact some of the things I bought back then I have only learnt to use recently!! I started with a small tool box of equipment and I currently have a room with four sets of drawers and two cupboards fully dedicated to stuff I just one day might need!

So before the wedding, there was the baby shower, I dusted off my pretties and decided I was going to do something spectacular, it took me about a week to make all the pieces and put together this cot. I was so proud of myself! So the decorating part worked well, then it came to the cake, I made it the night before, turns out someone changed the oven to grill (not naming anyone aye tawa) and I managed to grill the cake for a good hour, yes the top was rather black and the inside rather moist, but there was no time to bake another, so it just had to do.

This was the first cake I had ever covered in fondant so I followed the directions spread it with apricot jam and put the fondant on, but seriously, how the hell can you make it fit on the frikkin cake, I just could not do it, so I put the fondant over the top, cut around the edges, then put some more around the side, ending in a stunningly gorgeous join right at the top of the cake, that I then had to hide, so hide it I did!! My niece made some gorgeous wee bottles and booties out of fondant and they went on top of the cake as well. As you will see from the above photo, the cake itself, not so pretty, the taste, truly foul - but dear god that cot looked good!!

On with the story

So I started doing cakes not really having any clue what I was doing, to be honest I wing it mostly and hope like hell it works out, though now a year down the track I have a reasonable idea of what I am doing!!!
I struggled so hard to get my fondant right and to be honest somedays I still do, there are so many tricks to it and it was just a matter of finding what worked best for me, now that I have the glorious satin ice at my disposal I don't think I can go wrong!!

So the first cake I want to talk about is a very special cake, probably the most special cake I will ever do, it was for my dear friend tracy, her husband was tragically killed just over a year ago and there was a memorial service being held for him on the 1st anniversary of his death.
Now you know what it is like when you have a friend who is grieving, you feel absolutely hopeless and wish there was something you could do to help, well being as the one thing I can do well is cakes, I asked her if I could make a cake to commemorate his life.
She gave me a list of all the things he loved and my job was to put them all together in a cake that didn't look ridiculous - I think I succeeded!!
It was really hard and really nerve racking as I did not want to get wrong, imagine if she hated it!!
The top tier was caramel mudcake and perched on top was their family, also on the top layer were some of his favourites, diet coke, pizza and hamburgers, though there were no where near as many as I started with as their gorgeous children happened to be there when I was putting the cake together and managed to con a number of hamburgers and pizza slices out of me!! There was also an american and new zealand flag to signify both of his homes

The second tier was white chocolate mudcake. A huge love of his was movies with the odd tv show thrown in there! So we had the movie reels with x files, 24 and his all time favourites harry potter and star wars.

The bottom tier was coca cola cake and showed all of his work places and his favourite american football and ice hockey teams.

It was a real honour to be able to make this cake for tracy and her family and I hope I did her proud!!!

So here I am

I had a friend recently tell me I should write a blog about my cakes as some of them have interesting stories behind them - so I thought why on earth not!!!
I am a stay at home mum with 4 children, the eldest ones being 19 and almost 14 and the youngest being 3 and 18 months.
I find being a stay at home quite hard work, I find it hard to not have something I do for me, so needing something to do I starting thinking about what I was good at - turns out I didn't come up with a lot!!!
One night I watch Julie and Julia and I absolutely loved it and thought what a cool idea, I have literally hundreds of cookbooks with recipes I am always dying to try, so why not work my way through my books and give what I bake away.
So I started a facebook page, called it Devine Cakes and away I went, I started with making things people requested and then had competitions to give them away, people started asking me to make them cakes and cupcakes, so I thought why not?? Before I knew it I had a thriving little online business!!!
So that is the story of the birth of Devine Cakes and I promise you I will blog regularly and keep you up to date with what I am up to, my struggles being a mother and cake decorator and the stories behind some of my cakes