Great Australian birthday cakes you need to bake

Jazmine’s teamed up with her mother-in-law, Wendy, and the result is a nicely weighted book packed with tips that will help even the experienced cake decorator. It’s filled with iconic Australian cake designs, an abundance of instructions, some very handy templates and plenty of tips. All of this comes neatly packaged alongside some delicious recipes from award winning author, baker and TV presenter, Dean Brettschneider.

“Graphic design and cake decorating go hand in hand for me,” Jazmine told Best Recipes. She explained that the majority of her designs first come together on the screen just like her graphic design work.

Jazmine still makes cakes to order, and relishes in the challenge of creating something tailored to a customer. “It means I have made some out of the box cakes that I never would have thought about,” she said.

Although the cakes in her book look MasterChef worthy, Jazmine is just like the rest of us. At times, she’s been known to send her husband, Josh, on a late-night dash for additional ingredients, and has had the odd disaster here and there.

“My biggest disaster was probably arriving at my best friend’s 23rd birthday with a two-tiered sprinkle bow cake (similar to in the book) and as we parked the car on a steep hill, the jolt from the hand brake sent the entire cake sliding into my lap,” Jazmine said.

It’s reassuring to think that even the professionals have little disasters from time to time. After all, it’s all about how you recover from them that really matters!

Jazmine’s book has some really detailed instructions for various forms of cake decorating, but she was willing to share her top three tips with us.

1. Don’t try to ice a hot cake, not even a warm one. Just let it cool, there is nothing worse than your hard work sliding down the side as it melts.
    
2.  If in doubt always make a little more icing than you think you need. It’s so much easier to store or eat the leftovers than try to make another batch exactly the same colour.
    
3. Allow yourself heaps of time. Go slow and be patient. Getting the perfect edges or surface just takes time and practice.

That last one is really important. Nobody likes to waste all that time baking and prepping only to rush the final finish and produce a sub-par cake!

We tried our hand at the Murray the Sheep cake from The Great Australian Birthday Cake Book.

I think we did pretty good.

For more inspiration, check out our Cake recipes collection.