How to Make an Elephant Cake

A few weeks ago I was looking online for inspiration for making an elephant cake and found there really aren’t that many available.  Sure, there is a plethora of nursery-styled ‘Jumbo the Elephant’ type cakes, but I wanted something more authentic.  The occasion was my father’s 80th birthday and the celebration was to be a […]

How to Make a Bus Cake with a Stiletto Shoe

When Arabella chose, ‘Priscilla, Queen of the Desert‘ as the theme for her 21st birthday party I knew I’d need to make an appropriate cake and thought about what best symbolised the movie/musical. The realisation came upon me that central to the movie is the bus named ‘Priscilla’ with its giant sparkling stiletto perched precariously […]

A Christening Cake

A few days after Christmas we had the Christening of Em’s little boy, Freddie.  The Christening had been delayed to allow for it to be in Sydney and so sadly, he had outgrown the Christening gown that has been in our family for five generations.  But he did look very smart in a white shirt […]

Christmas Trees and Christmas Cakes

Coming up is the big, tree-selling day and not wanting to be knocked over in the rush, I went down to see John the Italian greengrocer to kindly ask him to set me aside a tree. When I got there I saw he had a few scrawny and draught-affected looking trees that were knee-high to […]

Snowman Cake

Alfie is so skinny.  When he is in his swimsuit Arabella always says to him, ‘Can you cover up your skeleton?’ But he’s been this way since he was born.  In the hospital there were two babies that were over 10lbs, Alfie and a baby girl.   Apart from their weight they had little else […]

Festive Fruit and Nut Cake and…Morning Drama

Do you all have morning drama?  We have it in spades. This morning Arabella had a very important interview.  She had to be in the city and ready for her appointment by 9.30am.  That shouldn’t be a challenge.  But when she woke, first she had to go out for a takeaway coffee and then she […]

Pink Champagne Cake

Today is the last day in our 10-part series of recognising and sharing some of the recipes that have inspired, intrigued and challenged me from blogs I love.  I thought it would be good to finish the series with a bit of a celebration and there’s no better way than with a sparkle. I promised […]

A Dud Dachshund Cake

Not every day in the Hotly Spiced kitchen is a happy one.  In the lead-up to Arabella’s birthday party I set about making the cake she had requested, a dachshund.  What could go wrong! Pretty much everything. But not the baking-the-cakes part; that went very well except for being too heavy-handed with the tint.  I […]

A Cake of Joy

Prior to sculpting the Titanic cake, I had no idea of exactly how much cake I would need to make.  Just to be safe I made four very large cakes that were 30 x 40 cms (12 x 16 inches) and stored them in the freezer.  Running out of cake turned out to be not […]

How to Make a Titanic Birthday Cake

As soon as Archie announced the theme for his party, my mind raced to the cake and I knew instantly, there was no way of avoiding the issue.  It had to be the ship.  As daunting as this sounded, the good thing is a few years ago, a friend asked me to make a ship […]