After a looonnngg breakkk...!

For those who have been following my blog more than a year ago...would have realised I pretty much disappeared from baking! No more flour smears, buttery fingers, sugar drops and food colouring... so what happened? Well... I became a mummy! :) I gave birth to a beautiful Muffin in November 2011 and she has been sucha joy in our lives. So much has happened since and I guess I shall spare you readers the details...

So here's the new mummy ba(n)ker, juggling everything with 2 hands.. but hey.. you just can't stop a baker from her mixer! :)

After a looonng 1.5 yrs break, I finally cleaned up my good ol' Kenwood and the magic begins again ....

So what was my first order? A lovely cake for a good friend of mine who gave birth to a beautiful girl - Keira. Lovely name isn't it? :) She celebrated her 1st month with her pretty mummy and family.. and of course a sweet lil' cake just done up for her!

It took quite a bit of getting used to baking for the first time after sucha long while. All the stars had to be aligned before I even attempted to bake. (fellow baking mummies would probably understand why)! I think being a mummy has also made me terribly efficient.. cos surprisingly I did up this cake in just about 3 hours! Hurray to mummies out there ! 

Happy first month Keira! 

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Little Bunny in Blue

It was Little Matthew's first month celebration and his mummy requested for the theme of baby blue and white. She gave me some pretty cute ideas like little bunnies, baby shoes, sweets etc. Basically a baby blue and white theme which would make all hearts melt :)

So after a couple of discussions and tossing around of ideas.. I finally decided on the designs of the cupcakes. She needed a total of 60 cupcakes and I just couldn't wait to get my hands in the sugar paste!

Here's a few snapshots of the cupcakes...

Next came the exciting part of choosing ribbons! :) I visited a wholesale ribbon shop in Arab Street and almost went crazy! The variety of colours, designs and textures was just mind-boggling. Felt just like a kid in a candy store all over again! :) 

Matthew's mummy chose the baby blue ribbon with white polka dots and that was the winner at the end of the day!

I packed the cupcakes in boxes of 12 each, wrapped each lovingly with a simple bow, topped it up with a personal message and it was all ready to be delivered!

Happy 1st Month Little Matthew!

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Disney Clubhouse!

I realised every generation has their own favourite cartoon. I remembered mine was the Little Pony, Little Twin Stars, Cabbage Patch Kids, oh yes.. and even Captain Planet! :) 

Little children these days adore a totally different generation of cartoon characters - Barney & Friends (Check out my Barney cake), Doraemon, Dora and many more. 

Well, one cartoon character that transcended time and definitely touched every little kids' imagination over the last few decades was.. Mickey Mouse. But of course, with each generation comes a new look and a new fantasy story that fires the imagination. 

So when I got the cake order for Disney Clubhouse, my interest was piqued. I've not heard of that cartoon and the more I googled it, the more I loved the vibrant colours and characters - Mickey, Minnie, Daisy, Donald, Pluto and my favourite Goofy! 

No cake comes without a challenge.. for an established character like Mickey and friends I always believe that it makes sense to purchase cake toppers and not attempt to mould the characters. Any slight difference would just spoil the magic of the character. So after 2 weeks of searching around the island for small plastic toppers, I simply gave up and turned to eBay. Finally found the perfect ones and immediately requested for them to be shipped over. 

Found a really cute pink polka-dotted wrapper to cover the cake board as well! This cake was rather huge with 12' base and 9' top. A pretty heavy cake that fed about 50 at the party. 

The little girl was so excited when she saw the cake delivered and the smile on her face was just priceless.

That's why I like making cakes - such happiness is just priceless :) 

Happy Birthday and enjoy your Disney Clubhouse toys little girl!

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Pandas in their magical wafer forest

This week's birthday girl was a big fan of pandas! I had initially thought of making a little forest area with little pandas around but figured it might make the cake look a bit messy.

So after much deliberation - I decided to make a Panda family.. Papa, Mama and 3 little panda girls :)

Next came the challenge of creating the "bamboo" habitat! I experimented with Pocky sticks, Cigarette biscuit sticks, even cheese bread sticks.. but none looked authentic enough.  

Finally, I found some chocolate wafers from a local biscuit shop, broke them up into uneven pieces and lined them up around the  cake. Next I made some gumpaste leaves, twisted them up a tad to make it look more natural and boy...was I happy with the outcome!

So here we have - a panda family in their very own forest. :) I hope the little girl likes the cake! 

Happy Birthday little panda fan! :)

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Monkeying around with Texas Hold'em!

This week's order was a rather interesting one. The initial order for the cake was for a "monkey" cake as the wife who ordered the cake endearingly calls her hubby - Monkey! So as I was conceptualising the cake..I thought of having 3 monkeys, coconut trees, similar to the safari theme which I did earlier. However, it felt kinda dull to just have a plain monkey cake.. so I asked her more about what her hubby likes to do.. and walah! Since he liked to play Texas Hold'em -  I thought, why not do a cake with Monkeys playing Texas Hold'em? :) 

So I got all excited and started doing some mini poker cards (complete with a royal flush sequence!), some mini casino chips and how can we forget.. bananas for the monkeys! 

Dotted the cake with some party balloons behind the monkeys and the cake became one happy safari casino! 

Also, notice the monkeys' expressions? :) See no evil, Speak no evil, Hear no evil! Hee, the mantra of all monkeys playing Texas Hold'em! 

Happy Monkey Day Ben! 

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Vroom Vroom with McQueen !

To be honest... prior to last weekend, I had absolutely no idea who Lightning McQueen was... not till I got a request for a McQueen cake for 3 year old Skylar! I googled McQueen and realised.. wow there is a huge following on this little cute red car who appeared in the file Cars 2. Read more about him here ! :)

So I needed a little inspiration for the cake and thus I googled for pictures to ensure I had an accurate look and feel before I started to mould the car. I love the little details like the tyres, logos, headlines etc which made the McQueen car unique.

I decided on a desert backdrop as I had seen some pictures of McQueen racing through mountainous terrains.

Notice the colourful "rocks" that line the base of the cake. Interestingly, I found those chocolate rocks in a supermarket recently and it was perfect in creating that desert backdrop! 

I'm hope little Skylar enjoyed his cake.. Happy Birthday Skylar! 

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Wedding cake : Lace in full bloom

Oh where do I start for this weekend's order ? The bride was an absolutely lovely lady who chose the theme of pastel pink, green and lace for her wedding theme. She had a unique taste for something simple yet elegant and whimsical at the same time. I love such challenges as it gives me a chance to really stretch my imagination and come up with a cake which meets the bride's expectations! So after several discussion via emails, messages and exchange of photographs - I finally figured out how to put the whole theme together.

I made a full lace wedding cake which was inspired by a Martha Stewart cake which the bride sent me. Making the two tier itself was a challenge as it was one of the biggest carrot cakes I've made so far - a full 10kg+. So I experimented with different dimensions and finally figured the most efficient way to stack the cakes without it falling over! Thoroughly challenging but yet hugely satisfying when I finally baked and assembled the cake!

I wanted to keep it in simple pure white as the lace details were intricate enough to make the cake stand out in its own beauty.

 

I made 3 full bloom roses to top the cake - simple with a touch of whimsical-ness and romanticism. Love it! 

To further complement the cake, I made 20 mini cakes which also brought out the theme of pastel green, pink and lace. These were also extremely time consuming as each mini cake had to be wrapped in marzipan and fondant thus doubling the assembly time. Each mini cake was also topped with a similar full bloom mini rose, but this time - each was hand painted in edible peach pink gloss powder.

The pastel green ribbon you see around the base of the mini cake was also a challenge to find. I took a long while to find the ribbon but I'm glad I finally did! The ribbon is a rich pastel green colour, dotted with pastel pink edges and when you remove the ribbon, it's pastel pink on the other side. I always believe that little details go a long way!

This was an exciting weekend for me and I hope all of you enjoyed the pictures as much as I did making it.

Here's wishing the couple a blissful, wonderful marriage filled with lots of love, passion and laughter!

P/s: For those who are passionate about lace details, do visit an online cake decorating store I discovered recently - Decorate The Cake. The owner Melissa was a really sweet lady who rushed out the mould I requested for and delivered it promptly in time for the cake!

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Barnyard Animals !

For this week's order, little Isabelle's mummy left it to my "imagination" to create any cake. Only request was for it to be "girly" and cute. I love it when I get to do any cake I fancy.. and so I decided on the theme of Barnyard Animals. 

I made a little bo-peep, a sweet pink cow and a miniature horsey. With every animal I completed, it just brought a smile on my face cos they were just so adorable! I wanted to create a cute barnyard party atmosphere so I added cute little ducks, tiny balloons and of course, a rainbow :)

Oh yes, and a little chicken perched on top of the horse barn! I love the "girly" look of the cake, esp with the pastel shades of pink, purple, green and yellow.

 I textured the cake board as well and had little pink mushrooms to create a garden/farm theme.  

I thoroughly enjoyed creating this cake. Happy Birthday little Isabelle, hope you enjoyed your 1st year on our planet! 

 

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My Little Twin Stars

This week's order brought back lovely childhood memories - which girl born in the 70-80s can forget - Kiki and Lala! :) I remember having a heart shaped Little Twin Stars sticker book which I brought everywhere with pride.  Little Twin Stars pencil case, bags, hankies .. you name it, I think I had it!

So when the order for a Little Twin Stars cake came, it just brought a huge smile to my face ! Unfortunately I didn't have my SLR this weekend and so here's the best I could get of the cake with my iphone 4. The cake was for her little daughter's birthday, ohh.. how I which my mum had such a cake for me then.. I'd have gone crazy! :)

I took a while to figure out how to make the rainbow as my first attempt resulted with a wafer-thin rainbow that broke the minute I tried to stick it into the cake! I love the sweet pastel look of the cake, especially with the cute stars behind the rainbow. The two baby blue elephants were also my attempt to recreate the Little Twin Stars Zoo series. (Google if u don't believe me!)

OH I wonder when they will ever bring back My Little Twin Stars again.. cos I'll definitely be the first fan :)

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Happy Lunar New Year ! Gong Xi Fa Cai!

This week's blog title pretty much sums up what the cake's all about... 

It's that time of the year again when Chinese folks feast upon tons of pineapple tarts, crispy love letters, oily yummy roasted meat and lotsa mandarin oranges! It's the year of the rabbit and as the year starts ... here's wishing all my readers Gong Xi Fa Cai and may you and your families be blessed with lots of love, laughter, good health and prosperity! 

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Pretty Potty

This week's order was from my friend's hubby who was planning a surprise party for her! I asked him what he would like for his wife - he thought about it for many days... but he was still completely clueless!

So I tried to figure out what she likes, her hobbies etc.. well she's in the finance industry too, so I guess making her a money-related cake would really put her off (ha!). So I figured since she's been very enthusiastic about flowers, gardening and growing green fingers... a pot of white roses would be the perfect cake for her!

So I made some lovely white roses and little white flowers. Then made a flower pot shape cake topped with little hershey bits to give it a bit more of a realistic "soil" look.  Nothing describes it better than a picture so here goes ...

The surprise party was a small cosy one with just 6 of us, but I definitely enjoyed the food and company! And of course was happy when I saw the smile on the birthday girl's face as the cake was presented to her.

Happy Birthday FJ.. u're only 30 once and here's wishing you an awesome decade ahead!

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Oh my HERMES !

HERMES was the order of the day and this was a challenge indeed! The lady who ordered the cake for her mum wanted a very specific colour and type of HERMES bag.. Hermes Birkin in Matte Poro Crocodile in Blue Brighton !

So this is how it looks (once again had to get a reference from the internet as it is waayyy.. above what I can afford)

And this was how the cake turned out!

Love the orange box with the white trimmed ribbons! Similar to the earlier Gucci bag, the real challenge was to make the bag look like it's made of real leather! Just like treating real leather - I had to shine it with some shortening, dusted a little glitter powder and finally spray coated it with some edible gloss. And it took quite a few days to dry as it had a relatively solid body!

I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out and most importantly the birthday girl loved it! Looking forward to creating more whimsical requests!

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Jungle Adventure

A lovely cake order this weekend for little baby Luke's 1st Month celebration! I've noticed there seems to be a trend of mummies of little boys requesting for animal theme cakes. But I'm not complaining at all, cos I love to make little animals. :)

Jungle Adventure was the theme of the cake! I made a doe-eyed lion, a happy monkey, jumbo elephant and a curious little giraffe for the animals. Decorated the cake with lush greenery, mini flowers, mario-mushrooms, ladybugs and even a trail sign that points to the curious giraffe and doe-eyed lion!

The challenge in this cake was surprisingly not the animals, but in fact the trees! It took a while to figure out how to create the "fibre" like trunk and canopy like leaves. Also, I recently started experimenting with decoration of the cake board. Bought a couple of print mats and the effect is simply lovely! Definitely brings out a lot more texture in the overall design. Time to buy more new cake decoration toys!

 Happy 1st Month little Luke!

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