Sunday Star Times - Sunday mag interview

...and then after the Alt TV interview, that Sunday the interview Karla and I did for the Sunday Star Times came out. I haven't had a chance to scan the mag properly so for now its these kinda crappy photos:







We were stoked with how it turned out and it was a great showcase for the crafting revolution going on in NZ (and around the world) and great promotion for the upcoming Kraftbomb, not to mention Toggle, Trixie Delicious, Nut & Bee, Geek Freeks and the NZ Cupcake Queen.



Thanks to everyone who emailed and txt us both congratulating us on our appearance and thanks to Esther and Shelley from Toggle for promoting the featured artists on their website.

Alt TV interview!

It was a busy weekend for the NZCQ and Karla from Geek Freeks. Kraftbomb, the new craft show that we started together, is on this coming Sunday, so we had quite a few promotional things coming up.

Hot on the heels of our appearance in the Auckland City Harbour News, we had an interview on Alt TV on Saturday with the super rad Laura and Jess who host the Think! show.

Karla ended up having to work, tattooing at the Erotica show, so she couldn't make it. Which meant it was just the NZCQ representing the Kraftbomb girls solo. But I took Chris and George the pug along and George made his tv debut and was so well behaved on camera. I had a great time on the show, I gave away one of my "Eat Cake, Worship Satan" cross stitches and everyone, including the crew, got stuck into the cupcakes I brought along.

So for those of you who were watching and had to wait an extra hour because we told you the wrong time (oops) we are so sorry! But thanks for tuning in and supporting us. Raggle's Dad kindly dvd recorded the interview so hopefully I can figure a way to get it on YouTube for you to all have a giggle at ("mull-lions" was not my finest moment of having a kiwi accent!)

IronCupcake:Earth - Challenge 1 - CHILI PEPPER

As many of you know, I bravely signed up for the first ever Iron Cupcake Earth challenge. I am always in awe of the amazing cupcakes created during the now famous Iron Cupcake challenges started by Sandy the Milwaukee Cupcake Queen who has the rad blog No One Puts Cupcake In A Corner

So the first challenge ingredient was announced and it was Chili Pepper. Eek! I'm not a big chili person, so I struggle with getting it right when I use it in normal cooking dishes. Cupcakes and chili was going to be an interesting challenge for this baker!

So after an initial mini panic, I had a think about what I could do and of course, chili and chocolate cupcakes came to mind. But I figured this combo would prove to be popular and I needed to step up and meet the Iron Cupcake Earth challenge head on.

So I decided to do a fruit based cupcake. As random as this may seem, my inspiration came from the chili and lime flavour corn chips that Chris and I sometimes buy. These are incredibly tasty, so why not transfer all that yumminess to cupcakes.

I figured I'd need something else to help mellow out the chili, especially for wussy people like myself when it comes to hot stuff. So I decided to pop some chopped up tinned mango in, figuring it would make a great contrast to the chili and lime. Then to top it all off, creamy, delicious cream cheese and lime frosting, to help those tingling tastebuds calm down!

I must say, these cupcakes are quite exciting to eat and even a chili wussy like myself enjoyed them. You bite in and there is an awesome mixture in your mouth of creamy frosting, with that little lime zing to it, and then the cupcake with its mouth warming chili flavour, along with smooth, chunks of mango. Its a party for your mouth!

I'm currently typing up the recipe so I can officially enter my cupcake in the Iron Cupcake Earth Challenge. When its done, if any of you would like it, let me know and I can post it on here for you to try yourselves! If there is one thing I'd change next time, it'd be reducing the chili powder from 2 teaspoons to 1, however, that may just be me and my wussy mouth. My hubby Chris loves them and doesnt think they've very hot at all!

Here are a few pics of my adventure. Unfortunately I was so busy getting my bake on at the beginning there are no photos of mixing the ingredients before they went into the oven!

Two crucial ingredients:


Fresh out of the oven (spot the half eaten one I couldn't resist sampling!):


Lots of lime cream cheese frosting left over:


Icing them all:


A cross section of cupcake that shows the mango chunks:


George the pug with the final creation. It was killing him to not eat some!!



* Voting will begin on Sunday, August 31st at 12 noon at NO ONE PUTS CUPCAKE IN A CORNER and will be open through Thursday, September 4 at 12 noon. So make sure you pop by and vote for me!!

* Winner will be posted the night of August 4th, before 11:59 p.m.

* The next ingredient will be posted on Friday, September 5th.

* Visit IronCupcake:Earth to become a part of the excitement and join for the next challenge!

Prizes for Iron Cupcake Earth - Challenge 001 are awesome! I would love to finally get my hands on a Jessie Steele apron (and if I don't win I'm going to keep dropping hints to everyone for my big 30th birthday coming up in Nov!).

The prizes are kindly donated by one of my favourite ETSY artists, CAKESPY



and the 3 corporate sponsors:

JESSIE STEELE APRONS



CUPCAKE COURIER



and TASTE OF HOME

Melinda's wedding cupcakes

Melinda and her hubby to be, Duncan, are in Fiji as I write this, preparing for their wedding. These cupcakes were a going away pre wedding gift for the couple and for Melinda to share with her workmates.

Delicate vanilla mini cupcakes, topped with lemon frosting and silver cachous of various sizes. I also made 2 heart shaped cupcakes that are a bit larger than the standard size, and really are like mini cakes!

Congratulations Melinda and Duncan!

cupcake order - birthday cookies & cream

An order of Cookies & Cream cupcakes for a customers flatmate! The smell of these cupcakes was amazing while I was in the car delivering the order.

just for fun

In case you were all getting sick of cupcakes and craft shows, here's some fun stuff:

Cake Wrecks

If you haven't visited this site yet, do yourself a favour and visit RIGHT NOW! It makes me chuckle every time and hope that I never, ever make it on there. How could so many, so called professional cake decorators get so many cakes, so wrong!

My personal favourite is this beauty - the anti sexual harassment cake!



Face Your Manga

This site seems to be sweeping through Flickr so of course I gave in and had to Manga'ize myself and Chris. I think we turned out pretty good as Manga characters:

Kraftbomb is nearly here

Our article about Kraftbomb came out this Wednesday in the Auckland City Harbour News. I didn't actually know what day it was coming out, so it was thanks to a Flickr friend for the headsup!

You can read the online version here!

Keep an eye out for the Sunday Star Times "Sunday" magazine on the 24th August too

Kraftbomb is on Sunday 31st August, 1-4pm at the Grey Lynn Community Centre

cupcake order - Jungle cupcakes for Laith

Hot on the heels of Craftwerk came an order on Friday from an Australian lady who was visiting NZ to see family and her nephews birthday!

It was a last minute crazy rush, but I managed to bake and decorate the cupcakes on the Friday afternoon, hoon to town to meet my girlfriends for a much needed catch up dinner (with cupcakes in tow) and then a late night dash out to Papakura to drop off the cupcakes for the early morning party the next day. Phew!

But it was so worth it! We decided on Perky Nana cupcakes with banana flavoured frosting for Laith's jungle themed birthday. I decorated half as tigers and half as monkeys!




And according to Susan (who is quite the cupcake connoisseur back home in Sydney) they were delicious and rated very high on the cupcake Richter scale!!

Thanks and happy birthday to Laith :-)

Another Craftwerk has been and gone!

Craftwerk was back at its usual home of St Kevins Arcade on the 14th August and boy was it a busy night. Soooo many people! The place was buzzing with talk and music. I took along 4 dozen cupcakes and they all sold out in a couple of hours. Phew. We had a great night, although it was a bit loud at times and I tend to get overwhelmed in really busy, noisy situations!




The plan was to make 6 dozen cupcakes, but I got an order for the Kate Sylvester store opening in Newmarket also on Thursday night, so that limited my baking time a bit. But the Craftwerk cupcakes were still a hit - 2 dozen jaffa (some with the always popular choccie skull and crossbones) and 2 dozen Mt Dew topped with Nerds (those badass babies will always be thanks to Natalie) plus the 48 minis for the order.

Unfortunately we were so busy, I forgot to take photos of the Mt Dew cupcakes for Craftwerk and the store opening cupcake order too (although I'm working on getting some from the lovely Nicola who placed the order). I even forgot to take a photo of our stall all set up, complete with our new pink and white polka dot table cloth - just like my business cards!!

So instead, here is a photo of the NZCQ with one of my Craftwerk purchases, a super cute "Happy Aorta" plushie by Geek Freeks.



I also purchased a very cute Nut and Bee notepad and got to catch up with lots of lovely Craftwerk regulars like Alida, Sharon and Kimberlee. I hardly got to get out from behind our table because it was so packed, so I missed on visiting alot of my favourite stalls and didn't get to buy many goodies or chat much.

cupcake order - Mountain Dew cupcakes

I was contacted by Kate who wanted some cupcakes for her friends birthday. She went with Mountain Dew and they turned out great!




Thanks Kate :-)

The Cupcake Project in the Sunday Star Times

As well as my cupcake baking, I also run a small art project called The Cupcake Project.

I was so excited when my dear friend Adria texted me last weekend to let me know that my wee art project had been featured in the Sunday Star Times' Sunday magazine. Woohoo!

Apparently The Cupcake Project is "Going Up" baby!

cupcake queens take holidays...

...and when they do, they bake cakes! I've been baking ALOT lately, lots of orders coming in plus we had Craftwerk and Kraftbomb is coming up in 2 weeks.

So I took a little baking holiday and made a banana cake! I've been making this one since I was a kid and its so easy and dare I say, idiot proof hehe. Chris and I kept half and the other half went to my parents.

Lily's birthday cupcakes

Lily is the cute as a button daughter of my friend Natalie, aka Sugar Lemon Sweetheart.

For her recent birthday I made a batch of chocolate cupcakes with cookies and cream frosting, topped with edible animals. Unfortunately I was rushing that day so I didn't take many photos, but here they are:

cupcake tattoo on Pink Ink

Many of you know that I have a super sweet cupcakhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gife tattooed on my back, done by my good friend and super rad tattooist !

I was stoked that Pink Ink featured my cupcake tattoo

Kraftbomb is coming!!!

For those of you hanging out to buy some NZ Cupcake Queen cupcakes, now is your chance!

I've teamed up with the kickass Karla (aka the lady behind my amazing cupcake tattoo!) to put on a new craft show for the peeps in Auckland.

The first Kraftbomb will be on Sunday 31st August, 1-4pm at the Grey Lynn Community Centre (Garden Room) at 510 Richmond Road, Grey Lynn.

Its looking to be an awesome day with lots of rad vendors selling the best in quirky crafts with a modern twist. We'll have crafts and cupcakes for sale, acoustic music by the lovely Anna Kaye, a raffle with goodies supplied by the vendors, craft table to keep the kids (and the big kids too) occupied plus a huge fenced playground outside. Plus the awesome folks at Toggle have teamed up with us to sponsor the event!

Come along and enjoy the explosion of crafty goodness of Kraftbomb!!