Cake pics and dinner at Gambaro's

My blog has sadly been neglected the last few months. I'd like to say it's because I've been busy, but in all honesty, I haven't been that busy at all. I've been baking but nothing too exciting. Just a few treats (bribes?) for my parents and their employees in exchange for work on my car. I did make a pretty cute cake for my husband as a Valentines Day treat, but I intended to take photos step by step and completely forgot about it.

Chocolate cake with a cute
 little pink heart hidden inside

But now we're in March and this weekend saw the birthday of my gorgeous, sweet sister in law. Our family did it's usual thing and went out to dinner, this time to Gambaro's in Brisbane. It's a bit of a favourite restaurant, every one seems to enjoy the menu.

Balloon bouquet for the birthday girl,
 inside one was a gift card!

Well, all except me, sadly I'm the only one in the family who isn't a seafood lover. I just wish there were a few more non-seafood options! I know it's a seafood restaurant  but there's only so much seafood I can handle. Two courses of it is too much for me, but the only non seafood choice for main is a steak. And well, I can get a steak at the pub, if you know what I mean.  A steak just doesn't seem fancy when every one else is ordering lovely, well thought out meals. I'm hoping their menu changes before we go back there again. Their old menu, which is the one on their website, had a delicious lamb dish. I know they had a smaller menu while they were renovating and now that the renovations have finished I'm crossing my fingers they go back to the larger menu. And bring back the cocktail menu too! Oh! And bring back the crepes on the dessert menu too!

After dinner we went back to my brother and sister in laws house. We are always too full after dinner to have cake, but I planned for that. I made a cake for her, and with the extra batter had whipped up a few cupcakes for mum and dad to take home. I wanted her and my brother to have enough cake to take to work or share with friends. I think her sister and two nephews were visiting today so I'm hoping she got to play the favourite auntie and spoil the nephews with lots of birthday cake!

Chocolate cake with a cherry tree with one sweet little owl.

The cake itself was chocolate and it was covered in a dark chocolate ganache. The filling was caramel, made the old fashioned way of boiling a can of condensed milk and then when cool mixing in some whipped cream. (Oh boy did I baby sit that can of condensed milk, I think I topped up the stock pot every 15mins, I was not going to have that can explode and cover my kitchen with hot sticky caramel!)

The decorations are all fondant, my local spotlight was out of white fondant so I bought a different brand from Woolworths. Which I really regret. It was super soft, sticky and a pain to work with. It sweated so much! The decorations you see are the second attempt. I had the cake all ready on Friday night, but when I woke up Saturday morning they had melted. I nearly cried! But this tree looks so much nicer than the first one so it was worth it. The owl looks nicer too, the first one looked a bit plumper and more like a cat, whereas this one is definitely owl shaped. 

Closer look at Mrs Owl

But the minute I put a lid on the cake carrier it would start to sweat again. I'm sad to say that when I gave the cake to my sister in law it had started to get a bit sticky again. The luster dust that I'd used on the flowers was no longer sparkly and it looked just a bit wet. Ugh. Not using that brand of fondant ever again. 

Luckily everyone said they couldn't tell that the fondant was sticky, but I could. Oh well, lesson learnt!

Next up is my birthday, but because it's just a few days before Easter we're going to celebrate in April instead. Just to space it all out a bit. I'll still make a cake for my husband and I to have on my birthday, but I'll make a larger one for when I family come to visit too. Plus there's Easter baking as well! I still don't know what I'll do for Easter, maybe some cake pops and a cheesecake.