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.