Spencer, our now 4 year old, set Chris a mammoth challenge this year for his birthday cake.

A standing up, three dimensional transformer (No less). We tried to change his mind or at least Chris did, (I thought it would be an awesome challenge) but we could not  sway him to a less difficult cake.

The transformer took Chris over 15 hours to construct and less then 10 seconds to demolish.

Car cakes have become Chris’ speciality and last week’s F1 Ferrari was such a hit, the 70 year old birthday boy did not want to cut it.

I know it has been said a million times but simple things are often the best.

A couple of years ago we made an elaborately simple ( strange I know ) cake for the beautiful Alison.

We created small gift boxes in brown with ivory ribbons and ivory boxes with brown ribbons in chocolate mud with white chocolate ganache and stacked them on a hand made stand - visually this was stunning and simple.

So for her 30th Alison came up with another beauty

The cake is based on Alison’s favourite perfume box and again is an ode to style and simplicity - I am sure Coco would be proud.

After a hectic wedding season it is great fun to stretch Chris’ creative skills beyond tiered cakes and showcase his amazing sculpturing ability.

Earlier this year we were approached by an Egyptologist to create a cake for his 30th Birthday, he had very specific ideas about what he wanted, which is fabulous as with lots of information and collaboration the resulting work is always amazing.

Chris created a Sphinx with the head of Tutankhamun. The body of the sphinx was a marbled white and dark chocolate mudcake to emulate sandstone and the head was hand sculptured styrofoam covered and decorated in fondant icing and painted gold.

Thank you to Ron for the fabulous brief and I hope you had a great 30th

Chris and I have been really fortunate to work with some very creative people and we always have such a fun time coming up with designs for features in magazines.

Check out the superb winter edition of Wedding Style Guide for fantastic ideas and inspiration and a great big THANK YOU for all your support. We were so thrilled to have three of our original cakes featured in this edition.

The Wedding Style Guide blog is also a fantastic design resource

Thank you to the girls who attended the madhatter class last weekend.

Yet again Chris was delighted with the cakes the girls produced. A special mention has to go to Ineke who prepped sugar roses, balls, bees, flowers and letters at home before the class to add to the finished product.

Come along to our next madhatter class on August 14th & 15th and be challenged with this unusual cake.

Check out our new winter schedule which includes and intensive weekend beginners class and special advanced cakes. Please email Alisa at enquiries@cakeoccasions.com.au to book in

THE BASICS

2 DAY BASICS INTENSIVE - ROUND GIFT BOX & SQUARE - BEGINNERS - $600

Saturday 11th September 10am - 4pm

Sunday 12th September 10 am-4pm

INTERMEDIATE 2T ROUND $400

Sunday 25th July 2010

ADVANCED 2T SQUARE $450

Sunday 8th August 2010

SPECIALTY CLASSES - EXPERIENCE NECESSARY

2T ROUND MADHATTER - $500

Saturday & Sunday August 14th (10am - 4pm) & 15th (10am - 2pm)

SPOTS, STRIPES, BUTTERFLIES, ROUND AND SQUARE 2T - $500

Saturday & Sunday July 17th- 18th 2010

Last week I featured cakes inspired by vintage glamour and the elegance of using old school colours such as white and ivory. One of those cakes was featured on the Sydney Morning Herald website in a story about the lovely couple Kim & Guy and their amazing wedding.

Photos of the wedding and our cake are here

photos from Sydney Morning Herald Life & Style , photos by Nadine Saacks

With Mother’s day fast approaching why not buy buy mum a gift voucher to one of our classes or even book both of you into one of our classes and have a great bonding session over chocolate and cake.

Chris can even custom design a class for a group of keen cake design enthusiasts

See our classes page for more details of dates and times

Chris and I were really excited to have two of our cakes featured on Polka Dot Bride last Thursday.

Ms Polka wrote a post about black and white cakes and our cakes were featured next to some of Australia’s finest cake designers

Yesterday our family celebrated the baptism of our youngest son Jasper.

After much longing to create an Amy Atlas styled event - I had the invitations, the location and the colour palette but unfortunately not the time or the inclination for all the small details, like the endless hours of colour arranging and putting sweets in bags. Chris is the details man and I am the big picture.

My moto for party planning is OUT SOURCE, OUT SOURCE, OUT SOURCE.

We still stuck with our original colour theme of white, aqua and red. We ditched the beautiful harbour garden party and headed for a kid friendly pub in Rozelle Ruby L’otel , the kids were begging us to stay.

As a friend said at the end of the day - if you have a beautiful cake you have a party.