Ruffled up

Yes, I ruflled up some cakes for my friend's parents anniversary and her SIL's birthday yesterday. Like, literally - but in a good way ;) I wanted to bring something different and fresh to the table this time. No flowers, i thought. So i googled for ideas and decided to try making these pretty ruffle cakes. It looks very vintage and elegant! (I just love it when they tell me to do whatever design i like and let me experience new stuff! <3 and="" buttercream="" chose="" colours.="" do="" don="" go="" in="" it="" just="" me="" p="" pink="" ruffles="" she="" somehow="" t="" the="" think="" to="" together="" told="" you="">

WIP.
Almost done.. see that cup at the back? He had witnessed some really ugly ruffles in the beginning (it's what i used for practice). They were ruffles, alright. Like really ruffled up! So ugly, I was so panic at the time, but then i realised i should have taken some photos of it just for laughs!

I learned to make the ruffles via youtube, by the way(click here for the video). It's not very complicated once you get the hang of it, all you need is some courage, calm nerves and lots of buttercream! There are so many ways you could dress up the top but since i didn't want to do any flowers, i stuck to the pleats. But you can actually add on rosettes, or pipe a large rose in the centre or whatever. I wasn't courageous enough since i had to make the other cake quite at the last minute and was too worried i would screw up and won't make it in time for the pick up. I'm happy (more like relieved actually) with how it turned out in the end because i really didn't have a backup plan. Hubby was very confident i could pull it off! I shouldn't listen to him so much, just to be safe next time.. -__-"

Pink ruffles close up

I can't get enough of it..

Aerial view

Ok, i'm done now :D

What do you do when you only have about 20 minutes to decorate 25 cupcakes, pack and hit the road?

Splash some colours into the buttercream, fold as fast as u possibly can, run to the cabinet and try to look for something that could save you from the stress of getting multiple bbms and calls asking where you are when your hands are busy holding the piping bag (in this case shiny, colourful Italian dragees saved me), throw those on the iced cupcakes, shake them a little just to make sure they don't fall off easily and personalise it to make the niece feel a little extra special. 

Then run upstairs, take a shower, put on clothes, shove some clothes and necessities into the bag and hit the highway! Oh yes, don't forget to reply the bbm. And answer the phone calls. And call out to the brother to reverse the car behind yours. The cupcakes too! It's good to have a reliable brother to help clean up that fortunate day! (Thank you G!) Happy belated Birthday, dear niece. I hope you enjoy the plain but right from the heart cupcakes! xoxo

p/s: mum asked why i didn't make the angry birds for the niece too? In 20 minutes???! I'd like to see her make them in 20 minutes!  

The end of 2010

I've had 2 batches made before the year end. First of, was my cousin's son 1st birthday. She had asked for a Barney cake like the one i did for a customer-friend in the previous post (i was secretly hoping so much that she would decide to make a sesame street theme).

And another 50 swirl cuppies for a wedding to be given to those who have helped in making the wedding happen. I've had a crazy November and this was done in early December. I have just started another business, so i was struggling, juggling time between baking and learning my way in this new business and fell sick in between, not knowing if i could survive both. It was going to be my last bake for a while.. or so i thought...... And unfortunately enough for me, the pictures were taken along with my stolen notebook :(

Here's one i got from the mum's fb page for the Barney cake:

Happy ONE year, little Ezran! :)

Fast car fan

Made this for our darling kid neighbour. He turned 9 this year and is a go-kart racer who is obviously an avid fan of fast machines like the brother and err, the mr. neighbour ;)

I wanted to get an F1 car cake pan at first but since i couldn't find any, i opted for the Nascar pan from ICCA instead. But the word Nascar was changed into his name, Naufal.

The cake was done in buttercream and board covered with fondant. It's not that i've done that many but from the few lot, this is by far the most challenging 2D cake i have worked on. Lot's of detailing.

Pretty pastels for the weekend wedding

For Fareeza & Fariq's wedding, i made 60 of these:

 .. and 16 of these:

The bride and her SIL both wanted buttercream to be given to their guests at the akad and for the hantaran. I hope i can get my hands on the picture of the hantaran cupcakes on the dulang soon. Congratulations to the newlyweds!

Think Pink

An order by an avid fan of the colour.

Single pink roses for herself

.. and the ones with purple & green scrolls for the celebrated.

Time flies.. Course 2 update!

..with Jo, our instructor.

I have just completed my Course 2 as we speak! :D It has been quite hectic, the past 1 month. Not so much on baking but i've been pre-occupied with other things.

Course 2 was more on flower making but this time we were taught using the royal icing instead of buttercream as well as learning the flooding technique with Colour flow.

It was rather less stressful this time round as we only had to bake for the very last class. The only major challenge we had to deal with was bringing the flowers to and from class without breaking them.

But even having had to bake just this once, i had to say goodbye to my plan on coming up with something of my own for the Course 2 graduation cake - i was thinking cream/pinkish for the basket weaving in the last lesson. Due to time constraints i had to simply use the royal icing provided during previous classes for my final flowers to decorate our basket - hence the strong colours. You'll see.. (Nothing to worry, though.. royal icing can be kept chilled or frozen for a long time! Elakkan pembaziran! ;)). And decided to stick with white for the basket afterall for afraid that there won't be enough buttercream, then i had to do another round of colour mixing, and then risking going home with basket only half woven... yada yada yada....
Plus as said, the colours from before were pretty intense. So it won't turn out as i wanted it to be anyways.

Now.. here comes the visuals!

Weaving in progress.. almost there.

The results from Course 2 lessons:

Top profile

All sorts of colourful flowers ina a variety of woven baskets.
Most of the class did roses.

Absolutely love love love the 2 tones!

Sweet daisy arrangement with apple blossoms and violets.

Love birds with a cluster of Victorian roses and brown daisies.

Vibrant chrysanthemums, pansies, primrose and violets in a cascading arrangement with (the compulsory) 2 birds by moi.
The only arrangement with the chrysanthemums.. (nak jugak mention.. heheh).
[I was lazy to add fresh leaves to fill in the gaps].

without the Colour flow birds

here's from a different angle..

[I am on another project now. Fondant cupcakes for a long time friend's engagement. Wish me luck! :)]

The end of Course 1

After 4 weeks, it's the end of Course 1. In the final lesson, we were to bring a plain frosted cake and 10 Wilton roses to class to decorate our "graduation" cake based on the course book.

Here are some photos of the cakes we did for our graduation:

I just love the mix of that white and mauve rose.
This particular lady is very good in mixing colours.
I should try it some time..

Mine.
Simple & fuss-free, just the way i like it.. for the obvious reasons heheh..
Whatever works for you, right?

Our instructor Joanne Fam aka Jo with yours truly.
Jo is a Chemical Process Engineer turned Cake Decorating Instructor.
She's also the founder of the Malaysian Cake Decorator's Club.
Very cool lady ;)
Oh, and she made a birthday cake for Kelly Clarkson's 28th birthday earlier this year too!
Visit her site here.

Happy cake for a happy person

We were told to bring a frosted 8" cake to class for decorating in our second lesson of Course 1. We learned the techniques for printing and writing, piping stars fill-in and borders and also pattern transfer.

I know i've done this several times before, but my hands were still shaking during the process. When doing this, PRESSURE CONTROL is key! I didn't have much time to do any writing or printing in class, so during dinner i asked my brothers if they knew anyone's celebrating their birthday the next day, then i can personalise the cake. And the lucky (or unlucky :p) person is...

The Happy Arif

The Arif Happy cake.
I thought i'd inject some fun to it by drawing a stick man.

(I later received a text from the celebrated, personally thanking me and said that he was indeed very happy. How nice :)).

** One good tip i learned is to add some piping gel into thin consistency buttercream for smoother writing and printing ;)

Butterless buttercream?? Hmm...

The first lesson at the Wilton Course 1 in ICCA was more on the theoretical side. It was mostly on the introduction of the tools that are used in cake decorating and how to use them, which includes how to fold a parchment paper (this is more ideal for melted chocolate so i shall try this for the writing on my double double disaster cupcakes!) and also how to make the decorators' icing aka buttercream as well as 3 different consistencies for different techniques.

The decorator's buttercream i learned here at the first lesson is something i find very interesting. First of all, it has NO BUTTER! I have been to several classes and have had several different views from different people in producing the buttercream but none that has absolutely no butter in it. From what i know, shortening are added to better hold the shapes of your designs apart from adding the meringue powder as explained in one of my earlier posts. Some even prefer to use 100% butter because it has more flavour.

But i have to say, this butterless buttercream is THE BEST so far! I find it less sweet even with the same amount of sugar i normally use in my buttercream (with butter) and is creamier too! And it is especially ideal if you want to produce super white frosting for wedding or christmas cakes (for the snow etc.). Also, if you want to get certain colours right, this is the kind of buttercream you would want to use.

Click here for the recipe.

The super white buttercream.

Then again, it really depends on your preference. I'd go back to half cup of butter (instead of 1 whole cup of shortening) just to achieve the ivory colour. Otherwise, 100% shortening is fine by me. It's cost efficient too! ;)

A busy, busy weekend..

It was the busiest weekend i've had in a while. Not only i had to bake a batch of 36s cupcakes and a whole 8" chocolate cake for a Teachers' Day celebration, an aunt requested for a birthday cake for her 24 year old son (bukan age sebenar.. tee hee). "Any kind will do", said the aunt. Another brave soul! :D

Since the cousin is barely a kid and the guests are mostly adults, i've made a simple cake with no elaborate designs to mark the cousin's birthday. I've been wanting to try out this Sicilian orange cake recipe ever since i came across it at this blog called Almost Bourdain but there was never a chance. It's either i have my usual cake orders or there's this other usual thing called 'laziness'. So i thought this would be the perfect time, especially it looked pretty simple too. (Did i mention i had to bake for the teachers?) :) So, i took 'anything' and turned into this:

Though, i think it would have tasted better if i have gotten my usual self-raising flour and used rather sourish oranges for the cake. Recipe here. Let's feast our eyes again, shall we?.. hehe.

Then later i made these. I've told the teacher friend that it will be a rushed job but she insisted. I only had time for simple designs due to the time constraint. I still have another cake to make as a homework for my class! S.T.R.E.S.S! :'(

(I'm not very happy with the results but sometimes, i think best to make peace and move on. So, moving on....).

More blossoms

I wanted to make something different using the techniques i've learned so far. And i wanted to say that this was actually inspired by Monet's garden, but you may not find any similarity to it i'm sure. But it is, to a certain extent, though i did not have the slightest idea of what flowers the artist was actually portraying in his painting nor i use similar colours as the painting, but it gave me an idea to make a bouquet rather than the usual individual flowers on one piece of cupcake. (Actually, i was reaching for purple to give that Monet feel to it but i accidentally took blue instead. I only realised it after i started mixing them. :P). And then decided to use yellow for the background for the writing. So the Monet-ness was definitely gone. Haha. But anyways, i think i should perhaps take the colour tone down a notch next time.

Happy Birthday, Eza & Thara! Hope you're happy with the cuppies, anyways.

A last minute request from a bride-to-be

She likes big flower designs in particular; the Chrysanthemums and Roses.
To be given to guests for dessert at the wedding, i think..

I finally got them chrysanthemums right! NO MORE TEPEE!!! Visual of the first chrysanthemum i did here.

See???? Here's a closer shot (tapi blur..) just to prove my point! ;P

Congratulations on your wedding, dear!

Sama tapi tak serupa

These Lightning Mc Queen cakes were also done using a rented pan from ICCA. I have done 2 Mc Queens so far and the second order was requested to be done no different from the first one.

But of course u can never produce the exact same thing, right?

(Done in Chocolate chip butter cake with buttercream and a candy bar for the writing/printing).

p/s: from my (little) experience, i notice that chocolate chip usage is not very ideal when using novelty cake pans. It makes it more difficult to release the cake from the pan.

Pink & ivory swirl roses just for Mum!

Done in between 101 things! Phew!
Rich buttercake.
Rich, because i made them using a rich man's butter - the expensive President :P
Happy Birthday, Mum!
Hope you liked it.

(pointless fact: the Mr. suggests for my mum to be referred as 'mum' or 'mummy' and his mum as 'mak' to save us from the question, "mak mana?" because we both call our mother 'mak'. Hehehe.. whatever! So now u know this cake is for which 'mak' :))

Sweet Sixteen

The most number of cupcakes i have ever done so far. EVER! 72 pieces altogether! I could hear my back screaming in agony when i was finally done. Luckily mum was around to help me with the after cleaning and thanks to my Thomas Sabo catalogue for the images. Hehehe..

Nak pengsan! I know what you must be thinking... what Thomas Sabo images?? Well, the catalogue was just to give me ideas and sort of a guide.
I think the printing should be thicker the next time. There's always room for improvement. Yes?

For the Big Brother

This was rather a challenging piece as my SIL has provided a Black & White image and nothing much i can go round to change that will make the cake more interesting.

In the end, i have chosen ivory for the base (no colour added to the buttercream), chocolate brown (using chocolate buttercream) for the design in order not to overpower the black & white image and red to add punch. It was of pure coincidence that i stumbled upon that cute candle to go with the cake. The customer said she likes it, so I think it came out alright afterall :)