blueberry & lemon cake with sour cream glaze

"Hey, Alanna, will you put up that recipe for the lemon and blueberry cake?"

"Why, yes, Sally. Yes, I can."

You know it's a good thing when people ask for the recipe. If you're not convinced just by the demand, my question to you is this: how delicious would you like your house to smell? 100 deliciouses? Okay. Now bake this cake. It is one of those fragrant, buttery, homely cakes that you'll want to eat out of the hot tin with a fork. But don't do that, because it needs to cool down and be turned out to be iced, and everyone (especially my mother) knows that icing is the best part.

a wedding: serena & dave

Check it! A bright and breezy wedding with rich corals, pale green gum and soft peach dahlias. I had the loveliest time meeting up with Serena for her wedding - thanks for letting me be a part of your day!

Images by Apple Tree Road Photography.
Oh, and there's totally a cake after the jump ; )

whipped dark chocolate ganache

I was baking wedding cakes with my friend Hanna the other day and we were stacking some {secret} caramel mud cakes with layers of white chocolate ganache when we realised the ganache we had made was far too runny to support the weight of the cake. "Oh well, we'll have to make some more", I thought; right as Hanna declared "It's okay, I'll just whip it."So she whipped it... and it was amazing!

Whaaaaaa? I didn't know that was a thing!

Anyway, now I do, and now I want to use it on every cake because it is rich, fluffy and oh so spreadable. I thought I should share it with you, in case any of you lovely people have missed this little phenomenon as well!

a wedding: xenia & simeon

Sometimes my involvement with a wedding is just being there to do whatever bits a pieces need doing on the day. This was one of those weddings, and it was such a joy to be able to hang out at the brides house on the morning of the wedding, making flower crowns & buttonholes, drawing up a seating chart, eating pastries and being a part of the joyous buzz.

[Hopefully] by now you'll recognise the incredible handiwork of my photographer friend & genius, Linda Truong. She just has this way of capturing tender moments, rich colours and dreamy light.

Oh! And I made a cake and covered it in flowers. The mother of the bride bought all the flowers for this wedding by choosing colours that she thought best encapsulated the personality of her daughter - how sweet is that?!

There are tonne more photos after the jump.

hazelnut & chocolate pie

Winter is here, y'all! It is my favourite season in Sydney - it is sunny and crisp and I love it. The chilly air will inevitably make you feel like eating pie. So I thought I'd help you out and give you a delicious pie recipe that you should most definitely make for dessert tonight.

When I think of hazelnut & chocolate together I immediately think 'nutella', and while I love nutella, this pie really doesn't taste much like it. Instead it is a fudgey chocolate filling, with chunks of crunchy hazelnuts inside a short hazelnut crust that is flaky and buttery. Sounds great, right? You'll forgive the not-nutellaness of it, I promise.

Click on for the recipe!

chocolate, marmalade & ginger cake

Feel like something gingery? Something chocolatey? Or maybe some marmalade? I wrote another guest blog over at Life & Co and baked together all these wonderful ingredients - you should pop over there and check out Nia's lovely corner of the internet and bake yourself a cake.

a wedding: susie & jonno

A cake and some flowers that I had the pleasure of working on for this lovely couple.

Photos by Rachel Muller (have a look at her page to see some fun photos she takes of confetti!)