Kangaroos and Cupcakes

Not bad eh?

Well hello, cupcake kittens! It has been waaaaay too long since my last post, and I know I always say that (I also know it's wrong to use 'and' following a comma, so sue me) but I have been busy with a little bit of a relocation! In the last month I've packed my life into one suitcase and traveled to the city of Cairns in Queensland, Australia! There are countless reasons why I've done this, none of which I'm going to go into here, but just in case you were wondering: This is a temporary relocation and I will be back to supply MeowCakes soon enough! In the meantime, the cupcake craze has made it to Tropical North Queensland and I've already had a few fun(and not-so-fun) cake adventures here in the land down under. Since it seems that I can't escape baking for people, I decided to temporarily revamp MeowCakes and continue to update the Facebook page and blog from Australia. The only reason it has taken this long, is that I've only just moved into my new home and been able to hook my laptop up to an internet connection.

Since I've been in Cairns, I've done a little cupcaking here and there which has, eventually, worked out fine. I managed to tweak my secret recipe to work with a fan forced oven, 90% humidity, and slightly different ingredients...what I didn't bargain for was just how much of an effect the weather had on things. While my cupcakes worked out fine, a wedding cake project I over-optimistically took on was my first real cake disaster since starting MeowCakes. From start to finish, every single step of this cake went wrong- I cried five times while making it, finally got it all assembled, secured, and looking half decent, only to have it collapse in transit. Ideally, it would be assembled on-site obviously but that was impossible in this situation and just added to forces working against this cake. From having to hide cake layers in the freezer to escape the heat and the ants, to gumpaste flowers and beads that refused to harden in the humid air, to fondant that I could not keep from ripping as it covered the cakes and store-bought black detail icing that was in reality GREEN, this project was doomed from the get-go. The only saving grace was that the bride is a lovely gem of a woman who laughed off the complete shambles I had made of her wedding cake and had an amazing day anyway. In light of this traumatizing cake experience, I've decided that I'm strictly a cupcake girl while in Cairns, to avoid another humidity-fueled disaster and also to protect my own sanity.

I love bows on cupcakes probably more than any other topper.

This picture looks like it was taken in 1975, but really I just have an iPhone
3GS and the lighting was bad, which means retro quality photos. Sigh.

A gumpaste rose that hardened as it was supposed to, then RESOFTENED
in the humidity, which I have never seen or dealt with before. Eek!

Even after hours of stress, sweat, and tears this cake wasn't up to my
standard- but in the end there was so much moisture it collapsed anyway.
Moral of the story- don't bake in the tropics, get air conditioning.

Just to remind myself what my work is like in normal
weather conditions, I need to finish with this shot of
a purple wedding tier  of raspberry cheesecake cupcakes
that I squeezed in the day before my flight!