Happy 2009

Wishing everyone a Happy New Year and happy holidays!

Happy caking!

Merry Christmas

I made some gingerbread cupcakes for a friend as a Christmas gift. To go well with the Christmas theme, I put snowman toppers made out of royal icing.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Kids have fun

Well, I am back from my mini break. During the break, baked a few cakes. One was a birthday cake for a client.

Baked a birthday cake for my daughter, Trishala. She didn't want a cake for her big day because she was sick of the smell of cakes. I don't blame her because every other day I have been baking cupcakes... She wanted me to make her jelly. And I did.

But I baked her a cake, anyway. The rest of the family will definitely want the tradition of cutting the birthday cake.

Made some cupcakes to give Sakthi who just moved into her new house.

Sakthi decided to do something for the kids for the holidays. She signed up my kids and her twins for a cupcake demo at Bagus. The demo was conducted by Chef Nirmala. There were about 60 kids. Yeah, that many! They had a good time during the demo. Pictures seen below are courtesy of Bagus.

Mini break

I will be taking a break from work from tomorrow until next Friday. That means I will be away from my PC. No online connection. Hope to have a good break with the family.

But I will not be taking a break from baking. Will still get the aroma of cakes... See ya after my break. Happy baking, caking, decorating!!!

Need a vacation

I have been feeling a bit under the weather lately. I think I need a vacation. No... I need a vacation. By the beach... doing absolutely nothing.

Hopefully, I can rest a bit next week when I take a break from work. My kids are bored... have to take them out some place for the holidays. I have planned some activities for them... Don't know where they get all that energy. It's like, where can I go next, what can I do next, next, next, next...

Right now I am thinking... it's ok, I don't need a vacation. Let me just have a day. A day to wake up when I wake up, have a nice breakfast, laze about and go back to bed... That will be the ultimate! At this point in time.

Let me stop myself before I go on and on.... here's the trifle that I made using the leftover cupcakes. Just two nights ago I told my husband that there is so much trifle in the fridge, maybe I should just distribute it. He told me not to cos he loves desserts and has to have some after dinner. I agreed.Yesterday, my kids did not go to my mom's place. And they managed to polish off most of the trifle, leaving only a few scoops for my husband. Leave a bunch of kids at home and what do they do? They finish up anything sugary. Sigh!!. How can I lock my fridge? Ideas, anyone?

Last week I made an orange cake. The customer was quite happy with his cake.. :) It was for his parents' 25th wedding anniversary.
Oh yes, this picture was taken of my new oven during one of the cupcake marathon sessions. The cupcakes are packaged in gold (below) and red boxes. It comes in three flavours; vanilla, gingerbread and chocolate, two cupcakes for each flavour. In total, there are six cupcakes in a box. It's a great gift for the festive season. Guaranteed yummy! Contact Cake Connection if you want to get your hands on these cupcakes!

My First Award

I just received an award, the Lemonade Award, for my blog. It was given to me by Bakelicious. Thank you Bakelicious!

This award is passed to bloggers for showing great Attitude and/or Gratitude.

In keeping with the tradition and spirit of the award, I am passing this award on to some other great blogs. So here they are:

Cake Connection - Your one-stop baking & cake decorating specialty store.

Aunty Yochana - Passing on the passion of baking...

The Sugar Lane - A self taught professional cake decorator.

Extra Icing - Lorraine Mckay is a cake maker, designer and demonstrator, teacher. Sugarpaste modelling is her speciality.

Cake Journal - A great way to share ones passion with the rest of the world.

Baking Project - Yasmin is a creative and talented cake decorator.

Here are the rules:
1. Put the logo on your blog or post.
2. Nominate at least 10 blogs which show great Attitude and/or Gratitude!
3. Link to your nominees within your post.
4. Let them know that they have received this award by commenting on their blog.
5. Share the love and link to this post and to the person from whom you received your award.

Cupcake marathon

In the past one week, I have made more cupcakes than I have ever made in my entire life. Cupcakes, cupcakes, cupcakes. I just can't eat another cupcake.

These cupcakes are for a project I am working on with Cake Connection. Since I am testing out my new oven, quite a bit of cupcakes didn't make it thru QC. Sigh. Trial and error!

So the ones that didn't make it thru QC, was still edible, were eaten by the family, neighbours, pigeons, dogs, and crows. And this, of course, is after making a really yummy trifle.

By now, everyone in my family is really fed up of eating cupcakes... Anyone out there got any ideas on what I can with extra cupcakes?

Busy time of the year

I still haven't had time to test my latest baby... my Eropa oven. Hope to do so today. Baked a chocolate cake last night. It's a birthday cake for my gym instructors' daughter's third birthday. It's a Minnie Mouse cake.

This morning my camera battery was out and I could not take a picture of this cake. Fortunately, I got my colleague to take a photo of the cake when I brought the cake to work. Thanks a million, Jinn. If you are wondering why I brought the cake to work, well, the gym is in my office.

I will be quite busy from next week until the first week of January 2009. Working on a project to supply cupcakes to Cake Connection. It's gonna be a busy holiday season.

Don't know why but thinking of all this baking makes me want to sing the Pat a Cake nursery rhyme. Since I can't sing it to you, I will just pen it down here:

Pat a cake, Pat a cake, baker's man
Bake me a cake as fast as you can;
Pat it and prick it and mark it with a 'B',
And put it in the oven for Baby and me.

Another dream fulfilled

My new baking partner has arrived! Yes, my Eropa electric oven is here. I ordered it this morning and by 2.35pm it arrived at my home. Woohoo!

All this while I had been using my (erm... my mom-inlaw's) faithful stove oven. (Hey, I am not abandoning you, my dear. You will always be my first love. Just thought you may need a helping hand.)

Just needed another oven to cope with my orders. I have been dreaming about this oven for the longest time but as usual I needed to justify my purchase. And now that time has finally come.

When the guys delivered it this afternoon, I was a little surprised by its size. I always imagined it slightly smaller.

That means I have a slight problem... don't know where to place it. At the moment, it will be at the dining area. Don't know what hubby and mom-inlaw might say. Well, I will cross the bridge when I get there. :)

Happy, happy, happy

I know this is a cake blog but I have to announce this to the whole world.... Trishala got 3As and 2Bs for her UPSR.

I am so happy for her. Woohoo!!!

Now back to cakes... On Monday, Trishala iced her cake. She wanted to use butter icing instead of buttercream that she learned. Buttercream is much lighter and easier to apply on a cake than butter icing. There is a different technique to apply butter icing. But I was not going to have an argument with her about it, so I left her to ice the cake.

I gave her the necessary tools and colours and the kitchen was hers. An hour later, when I came back, she told me that her cake was ugly. The cake looked like it was crumb coated. I had to explain to her that this icing was different and that I let her experience it on her own so that she will learn from it.

Told her that I would have warned her but instead we would have argued and she would end up thinking that I just didn't want her to ice the cake. She just smiled and we just left it that way.

I am glad she learned something. Here's her masterpiece:

The pattern on the cake says, We LOVE U, and according to my daughters, this cake was meant for me. Very sweet of them.

Good job, Trish!

Last Friday, my daughter attended her very first cake decorating class at Cake Connection. It was called Icing on the Cake. Since it was a working day, there were only three students including her.She was kinda proud and felt special because she was the only young student in the adult class.

She learned to bake an orange. She was taught how to ice the cake. The cake was then decorated the cake with sugar paste flowers.I must say, she did a pretty good job. She got to bring back the cake home. The orange cake was yummy. This class was a good experience for her.Later, she was bugging me to let her bake a cake. She wanted to try a different recipe and chose a recipe from my collection.

Today she will ice her cake on her own. She already has plans to bake a cake for the class party this Friday.... we'll see how that goes. :)

Here are two birthday cakes I made over the weekend:

Baked my own birthday cake

Baked and decorated another Deepavali cake. This was for Sakthi's kids' tuition teacher. I iced the top of the cake and left it half way to send my second daughter for piano lessons. When I came back, my eldest daughter 'helped' me smoothen it further. I was really furious as this was a client's order and she knew that. I had to redo the icing and that's when I decided that I should send her for basic cake making and deco class.

I promised to give her lessons when I did not have any orders. But looks like every other weekend I am busy with orders. I can't expect my 12-year-old to understand that and patiently wait for me to teach her. So that's when I decided to sign her up for the Icing on the Cake class at Cake Connection this Friday. :) I am really excited for her.

Remember the fruit cake that I was supposed to bake last week? I finally baked my rich sugee fruit cake for the house and it was yummy!!! I just cut a small piece to sample. The rest of the cake, I cut into four portions and wrapped them in aluminium foil and put them away in storage containers. I just want to glaze them with brandy once a week for about a month. It's going to be really good. Well, good things come to people who wait, so the saying goes...

If anyone wants the rich sugee fruit cake for Christmas, I am open for bookings now. :)

Over the weekend, I had to bake a cake for my birthday. Yes, I baked a cake for my birthday! But, I would like to say that I baked the cake for Sakthi as she shares the same birthday as me. I just 'tumpang' my name on the cake. It was the rich moist chocolate cake.

Cakes, cakes and more cakes

Deepavali celebration is finally over. The week before was baking, baking and more baking. During this time, I should be busy doing murukku and cookies for Deepavali but here I was making cakes to fulfill the orders I received. Not that I am complaining.

I hardly make stuff for Deepavali. I usually pinch my supply from my mom or order them. This year, I actually made pineapple tarts and ghee biscuits ... only because my friend, Sakthi, wanted to learn and make them for Deepavali.

Other than that, I was baking for other people. I only wanted to make the rich sugee fruit cake for the home but never got to make it for Deepavali as I had the orders.

I have been wanting to make this cake for months now ... I wanted to soak it in brandy for a month in time for Deepavali. Yummy!!! Still not too late for that. Last night, prepared the fruits and soaked them in brandy. Tonite I will make the cake. :) Finally...

Here are the cakes that I made last week:

Sakthi's gals have been very enterprising. The got one of their classmates to order her birthday cake from them and made their classmates pay for some cup cakes. They promoted my cakes to their classmates. Thanks gals. Good job!
My friend, Hema, ordered some plain cup cakes for her family for Deepavali.Cake Connection had two birthday cake orders for me as well as a 'hantaran' cake. The flowers on the cakes are from Cake Connection except the flowers on the chocolate cake which I made.

The carnations on the 50th birthday cake is made out of royal icing and the roses on the hantaran cake is made out of sugar paste. You can get a beautiful variety of flowers from Cake Connection. They are so pretty that you will not have the heart to cut the cake.

This one's for the teacher

This is a cake for my kids' tuition teacher. Iced it last nite. We will give it to her when she comes for class today.

Happy birthday to you

Today my colleague celebrates her birthday. (I shall not reveal how young she is.) I decided to surprise her by turning up at her place this morning with some cup cakes. Made them last night. My son made her a card. Hope you have a memorable birthday, Manjeet!

Different kind of baking

Weekends seem to be the busiest time for me. My friend Sakthi wanted to make some cookies for Deepavali (this weekend). She wanted two cookies and we decided on ghee biscuits and pineapple jam tarts.

Since we baked them, I decided to write about it in my blog. Armed with all the ingredients, my daughter and I went over to Sakthi's place. I decided to make my cookies here as well.
We started off with the ghee biscuits. We finished making them quite fast. It was fast because we had six pairs of hand; sakthi and her two gals, her aunt, my daughter and myself.

The pineapple tarts were a bit tricky cos it needed a lot more work. We had to press out the dough and then roll it over the jam. The kids did most of them and they were much faster than the adults.

In fact, the gals enjoyed making it so much that they were seeing the $$$$ sign by the end of it all. They wanted to start a business doing jam tarts. They started making plans to market it and the whole works on how to set up their business.They were quite disappointed when we told them that they can only do this during the school holidays.

So much for the Deepavali cookies...

I also baked two cakes; a birthday cake for Chitra's mom and a company's 10th anniversary cake.
I found the anniversary cake very challenging. They wanted the company building on the cake. This is my first attempt at constructing a building out of cake. I covered the cake with fondant and then iced it.

The cake had an indent in the middle. Even with dowell rods, the building was slanting a bit.
Decorating this cake was not as easy as I thought, but one thing I know is that I gave it my best shot. Maybe next time I need more time to work on projects like these.

Stethoscope Cake

Robert just e-mailed the cake photos, the ones that I have been waiting for. Thanks, Robert. This is the 'medical' theme cake that I made beginning of this month. The photos that I took just disappeared into the twilight zone. So here it is.

My first gum paste project. :)

Gum paste shoe

I have been looking at various ideas to make cake decorating more personalised and interesting. And of course, without spending money. Yesterday I found time to make a shoe out of gum paste.

It is a very simple shoe. Didn't attempt to make it look elaborate cos I just wanted see if I could make it look like a shoe.

I followed the instructions and cut out the templates and then rolled and shaped the gum paste. It wasn't difficult to do.

If you don't want to cut out templates for the shoe, there are places that sell these moulds. And they are pricey.

Within an hour I finished making the shoe. Here's my masterpiece:As you can see, I have not taken away the support. The shoe is supposed dry for about four to five days depending on the weather. Only then can you remove the support.

Hope it stands on its own after drying. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Birthday weekend

My kids have been waiting for this weekend for so long and now it's finally over. Of course it's not without drama. I took pictures of the cake before and after they were iced.
Everything was going well as planned. I baked the cakes on Thursday and iced my daughter's Ariel cake on Friday morning. Friday evening after dinner about 10pm, I started icing my son's WALL.E cake.
When I was finally down to icing the background of the cake, I decided to stop and clean up, cos I wanted to make some cup cakes. We wanted to give them away to kids who were going to attend the party. I just wanted the kitchen clean for my next project.

So far so good.

As I finished cleaning up, I just turned towards the cake... I don't know how it happened... the cake fell and turned turtle on the floor. Oh my god!!!! Oh my god!!! It felt like my life flashed just before my very own eyes!

I need a cake, a cake, a cake, cake... was all I could think of. Or else I was going to have a very disappointed child the next day.

I just didn't know whether to cry or laugh. Laugh definitely not. I was so scared to see what was beneath the board. Didn't want to see it alone. Quickly ran to my room and called my husband. He helped me turn the cake back to position.

I thank the Mighty Lord that the cake did not break into pieces. But the icing was gone. My husband helped clean and mop the floor. Had to scrap off the smashed icing and start decorating all over again. No point in crying over spilt milk... err... icing. It felt like I had iced two cakes in a row by the time I finished. Too tired to bake the cup cakes after this.

Next morning, started on the cup cakes, this time without any unwanted incidents. :) The characters on the cup cakes were my kids' favourite TV characters: Disney Princesses, Spiderman, Cars and High School Musical. They turned out cute.

I thank my lucky stars that my kids were not around to see the disaster. This is the first time such a thing happened to me. Well, there is always a first time to everything... Next time I will be extra careful.