A Golden Celebration

Half a century ago, a wonderful marriage began when two fine people joined as one at a modest wedding.

Fifty years later, their proud children wanted to honour their parent’s great achievement and hosted a wonderful 50th Golden Anniversary Party. 

What better way to commemorate this special day than with a tower of golden cupcakes and a signature cake.

 

 Nicolette baked these vanilla cupcakes and cake with much love, frosted them with butter cream, filled them with caramel butter cream and decorated them with gold dusted flowers and cheerful sunflowers.

Not only did they taste divine but when the daughter of the anniversary couple saw the tower, she shed a little tear at the thought of how delighted her parents would be.

A half century of marriage deserves beautiful speciality cupcakes and cake such as these.

Om nom nom nom, me eat cookie

Best known for his voracious appetite, Cookie Monster from Sesame Street entertains many children.

Cookie Monster’s favourite cookie is the chocolate chip cookie and he devours them with much gusto. However, he teaches young children that although cookies are a “sometime snack”, he also likes fruits and vegetables.

But moms, birthday time is no time for fruits and vegetables and every child can indulge on their birthday.

Nicolette created Cookie Monster cupcakes for a children's party this past week and boy did the kids go...

Om nom nom nom, me want cupcake...

Country Style Brunch

What better way to enjoy a September birthday than to have a country style brunch in the warm spring sun, under oak trees on a wine farm. It is also quite fitting when the birthday boy is a country boy at heart.

Playing on this theme, Nicolette and I planned away with grass baskets, enamel crockery, wooden cutlery, copper pots, hessian and gingham.

As it was country style we used fresh spring flowers from the farm which consisted of sweet smelling lupines and lilies delicately plonked into steel buckets.

We scattered the garden with old farm implements to set the mood and guests could enjoy the rural atmosphere sitting outside on hay bale chairs.

To ensure our city friends had a good hearty brunch we served scrambled eggs, wors en pap, not forgetting the smoor with farm style whole wheat bread.  We offered a scrumptious rusk and crunchie jar, along with muffins to be enjoyed with a steaming cup of coffee.

Nicolette once again out did herself and spoilt the guests with a charming farm cake that not only tasted divine but without a doubt, looked fabulous.

We hope our birthday boy had a great day and we wish him a fantastic year ahead.

Cheese and Wine Party

This past weekend we hosted a Cheese and Wine Party for Nicolette's husband's birthday.

We all enjoyed good food, wine and company in a beautiful setting. As you can see from the collage, guests were truly treated and no wonder the last guests only left in the early hours of the morning.

Playful Puppies

Rottweiler Theme Cake

Nicolette's fingers have been working their magic once again and created these adorable little Rottweiler puppies playing around their mother.

Ladybirds in the Garden

A few weeks ago Nicolette and I attended a Fondant Modelling Class.

Now the first question you are probably asking is, “what is fondant?”

Fondant is a sweet sugar paste used in candies and icings. It is completely edible and allows one to create beautiful cake toppers.

This past weekend Nicolette created gorgeous ladybug cupcakes for a birthday party.

And isn’t this cow just simply too cute.

Little Bird Baby Shower

A baby shower is always an exciting time as you help the new mom-to-be prepare for the arrival of her little treasure.

As this was a very special baby shower (for Camilla's sister-in-law), we had to think of a very special theme.

We decided to arrange the shower around a bird theme, symbolising the beginning of new life and how a parent looks after their young till they are ready to fly away from the nest. And of course, we had to use pink for our anticipated little girl.

Nicolette made delicate bird cages with a fluttering felt bird to hang from the ceiling.

Of course we needed beautiful flowers for the soon-to-be-mom that she could take home after the shower. And isn’t it a nice idea to include a little doll pram for her daughter to play with when she is a little bigger.

We hosted a brunch and offered a combination of sweet and savoury treats.

 The centre of the attention on the table was definitely the chocolate mousse cake.

A definite winner was the soft caramel centred chocolate cookies of which we just simply cannot share the recipe with you.

A not so edible cake but even more useful is a diaper cake. You can even hide extras like dummies, soaps, small bottles of cream and face clothes in between the nappies to create some variety and add a dash of colour.

A nice idea we had was for each guest to fill out a Baby Wish List and then once complete, hang it on the Wishing Tree. This created a whimsical fairy aspect to the baby shower and gave the guests something to do while we waited for our future mom to arrive.

At long last our expecting mom arrived and was happily surprised. Even her husband, peeking round the corner, was surpised.

And isn’t this a cute t-shirt for our special dad. I still can’t believe my brother is going to become a dad.

I didn’t know it was possible to love someone before you even met them and I cannot wait for my little princess niece to arrive. I can only imagine what our future parents must feel.

A parting message for our little birdie that will be born on 23 July 2011:

“You are only new to this world, so just take my hand & we’ll tip-toe to the edge & there we shall look at how beautiful it all is, until you are ready to take flight.”