Trading men with little birds

You know a person is skeptical of your work when he or she insisted on pictures or a sample before ordering. Well, i don't blame them. I want my cake to turn out beautifully for my functions too! I would also be nervous to find out that it would be something that was never been done before. But most of my customers are my close friends/relatives who trusts me so, i'm very grateful.

Back to the story, my aunt wanted cuppies for the grandson's aqiqah ceremony. She had at first asked for the Mr. Men & Little Miss cupcakes (50 pieces) after viewing my blog. And i know that that would require A LOT of time and a whole lot of work. I almost cried blood making that the last time! But it was for a specific MMLM themed party. And not to say that my aunt would not pay for all the pain, but i was thinking of how to break it gently to her that i did not have the time, if she could be nice enough to let me change the theme since she said she just wanted something "pretty" for the kids. Cantik was her exact word. Pressure was already mounting right after hearing that.

In the end i finally gathered enough courage to nicely ask if i could change it to something else. I was anxious for her reply, knowing that she lacks in the confidence area. But when she said ok and included the word "sayang" in her reply i went right ahead with the prep! No looking back! Haha. She asked if it was my first set of angry birds during delivery and when i replied yes, she said, "Nasib baik jadi!"

Now, the reason why i had to make the change is, MMLM each has unique hair, different limbs, accessories etc. So it involves lots and lots and lots of colours, cutting and shaping and what not. Unless of course, only a few characters were selected for the MMLM. The angry birds on the other hand is simpler because one, they have lesser character (although, i avoid the green pigs to steer away from any issues.. heheh), and two, i could use the same body parts for the different characters - so less moulding process and less colours involved too. So dear aunt, if you're reading this i hope you understand and happy for the not-so-happy birds. If it helps, they cost lesser too ;) But thank you  for the opportunity and most of all, for the vote of confidence! Hehehe.

Apparently the blue birds are not so popular. The red ones were almost gone by the time i wanted to take a picture at the cupcake stand.

I am currently waiting for some pictures from the host. Was rushing out after i was done with them.

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!  

Mr. Men and Lil Miss cupcakes

This was for little Rayyan's birthday party, the day after he celebrated with the Thomas cake. I was to come up with 50 cupcakes of the characters from Mr. Men and Lil Miss. Lots of cutting, moulding and assembling required. I desperately need neck, back and foot massage now. Huhuhu..

a close up

WIP - some assembling required

Also need to get as much good sleep and recharge before having to prepare for Raya Haji (which is only 3 days away now) and start baking again soon after that... Hectic month, yo!

Selamat Hari Raya Aidil Adha to all muslims out there.
 
** wishing mak a blessed Aidil Adha in Mecca. Hope all is well with her over there. Amin. 

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!

Barney bearing gifts

I received a particular Barney themed cake order loooooong before the kid's birthday. Last year to be exact. But the thing is, the mum haven't decided on the date of the birthday do. And not long after i have agreed to an order from another customer-friend, the mum dropped me the bomb. It falls on the same day!!! Luckily enough, the Barney party was to be held down south so collection has to be made a day earlier. And the other function was at night. So, i didn't have to cancel anyone. Phew!!

Barney and the friend's figurines (i don't know the name. Not a fan of Barney's :p) was sculpted based on photos of the characters. Made a banner to be placed at the back of the 2 figurines and some pressies to complete the whole look too. And since i have another order, i thought the safest and best way (to save time) to decorate the cupcakes is by using edible image. And, voila!

The major challenge this time was the weather. It was so humid, (it was raining, but was darn hot the whole day) the fondant turned soft so quickly that i couldn't get a smooth finishing on some parts of the cake. Urgh.. stress! :(
Time to think about installing an aircond in the back room.... Hmm.

Happy Birthday, Rayyan darling!!

p/s. Thanks mum, for lending me a helping hand. And ayah, for lending mum to me ;)

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.

Friend's E-day cupcakes

My first fondant cupcakes.
Freshly made, of course.

A friend of mine is getting hitched! :D

The cupcakes were made according to the theme colour - Black, Silver & (deep) Purple. I was going for ready made flowers at first, given i've no experience or whatsoever in crafting sugar flowers. But since i couldn't find any, i then tried dusting food colour to white ones but wasn't very happy with the end result (pix below). So in the end, i decided to give myself a try on making roses as seen on David of Cakin' Crazy video on youtube. Not as refined, but i was quite happy with it :)

There was some drama happening while in progress, (at 3.30am.. yep) but luckily, everything worked out in the end.

Also made the tier for the dulang.

The before & after dusting work.
Not really a success.

Testing on the tier.. kind of Alice in Wonderland-ish i think..

Ready to go..

CONGRATULATIONS, Farra & Edy!

My 1st fondant cake for Zahra's 1st (animal themed) birthday

My ultimate project to date. My cousin's daughter turned 1, 2 weeks ago and i was given the responsibility to come up with an animal themed cake.

The cake is covered with fondant and decorated with gumpaste animal figurines while the animal faces for the cupcakes are made of buttercream. I was going to make the cake yellow, but since the cousin wanted to make sure it's girlish, i went for the utmost girlish colour, a pastel pink instead. I was also hoping to find a Giraffe print wrapper for the tiers but had to settle for stripes as i couldn't find any.

I was lucky enough that Animal figurine cupcakes course was included in Cake Connection's schedule that month! We did, i mean we were supposed to make 6 figurines in class but i came home with 2 invisible ones. Paige Fong was the talented instructor for the class. Her immaculate attention to detail very much impressed me and she's just the kind of instructor anyone could have hoped for. She even helped me with questions in my attempt at home (to make the 2 animals i didn't have time for in class) via email. Thanks, Paige!
(Check out her impressive work of art here).

And thanks to my current instructor, Joanne Fam who advised me due to my ordeal with the sticky fondant. You're a life saver!! :D (it's a lot easier to work with fondant in class as the room is air-conditioned..).

Meanwhile, here are 2 cupcakes i did in class.. the other 2 was taken before i had the chance to snap them.

Anyways, Happy 1st Birthday, dear Zahra!

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....).

Double double disaster

These were made and brought all the way to my hometown down south for my loyal customer. She did not specify any designs but she had a message for her sister to be put on the cuppies. I thought i'd try making ganache for the very first time and use white chocolate for the message writing like the ones i saw in Martha Stewart's Living magazine (pix below) - in the Valentine's day 2009 issue i purchased. Recipe here.

I was going to call it the double double choc cupcakes due to its choc contents (chocolate cake, with choc chips, choc ganache and white choc) but i now strongly should consider calling it double double the trouble or double double disaster chocolate cupcakes. Handling the melted white chocolate was too much a fuss and too darn messy, i finally gave up after a few miserable attempts and after the mess i made in my mum's kitchen. The 'roti jala' effect was the result of all this. Sorry i didn't deliver the message, babe (it was nasty, btw :P) but i do hope u guys enjoyed the (free) 'artsy' cuppies.. heheh.

** will try this again...

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!

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?

If first you don't succeed, try and try again!

The first few batches of chocolate cakes i made went rather smoothly with the exception of the very first one (for the Mr.). I got mixed up between the BAKING SODA and BAKING POWDER!

Mum was given the task to read me the ingredients and measurements while i put in all the stuff. So, it's either she said it wrong or i heard her/saw the label wrongly. I highly suspect it was my mother. Kidding. It must be the person who never had any baking experience, obviously. But in the end the cake was fine. Sli......ghtly dry but still good. The buttercream was sweet though.

And then it was time to bake my first vanilla butter cake. One poor soul -who happens to be the SIL wanted me to make a batch of butter cupcakes for her friend's birthday and something went awfully wrong. They all sank leaving a peak like this:


Sorry for the bad drawing. But back to the cakes, not only that it looked bad, it tasted equally horrible too! So that was my 1st real experience of cake tak jadi. I didn't have any contingencies this time because it was ordered at the last minute. So the SIL had to go get a cake from some other place as i couldn't manage to make another round.

Very frustrating it was. Then i tried another butter cake recipe i found at Wilton website on my second attempt and was (extra) vigilant with the ingredients this time too ;) and what do u know.. it was ay, okay! I don't know if it was the recipe but since the latter turned out good, i thought i should just stick to it until i find a better one. Finding the right recipe is NOT easy.

Here's the one i found at the site:

Butter Cake

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups butter, room temperature
• 2 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 5 eggs
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 3/4 teaspoon No Color Almond Extract
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup milk

Makes: About 7 1/2 cups cake batter.

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C). Spray pans with vegetable pan spray, or use Cake Release.

In mixer bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Mix in vanilla and almond flavor. Mix flour with baking powder and salt. Add flour mixture alternately with milk, starting with the flour; mix well. Pour into prepared pans.

Refer to baking chart, for baking times and temperatures for specific pans.

Cool 10 minutes in pan. Loosen sides and remove. Cool completely before decorating.

Caution: For fellow muslims, please note that ALL Wilton's extract and flavourings contains alcohol EXCEPT for the Clear Butter Flavour.

Extra info: I usually skip the almond extract because i am personally not a fan of the strong smell. But it's all up to you!

Here for more yummy recipes. Good luck! :)

The beginning is not the end

This kid's birthday was what had me started. After taking proper considerations (and ignoring a VARIETY of suggestions from both the mother and grandmother), i decided to go with what i had in mind all the while (Please DON'T do this to your customers!) - with some extra extra. The cartoon character was chosen by the mother, though - even before i attended the very first class, if i may add. Yes, it was that advance!

Elmo face cake plus little cupcakes and a dialogue bubble were eventually the end result.
(Novelty pans such as for this Elmo cake can be rented at International Centre of Cake Artistry - ICCA). The dialogue bubble can be done using the same cake pan, even when your oven is NOT working properly. No kidding! All you need to do is improvise! ;D Read about it here.

The mum seems happier here than the kid :)
Happy birthday, kiddo.
Elmo loves you!

Cakes make people happy...

... won't you agree? :)

Order! Order!

And the ball's rolling......

A repeat order from the friend, for her sister.
I was experimenting with bright hues but i wasn't happy with white as the base for the writing.

These were made for another loyal customer-friend for her friends who had been helpful on her engagement ceremony.
I named it a gift of 5 to 5 helpful friends :)

Made for the same customer who ordered the gift of 5 to 5 above.
It was for a relative's engagement.
She is crazy about the classic roses so i made them in 2 different colours.

(fyi, the colour was actually more intense (deep red), not as reflected here).
I was then told that they included the cupcakes in one of the dulang hantarans. Cool! :)
..and the separate box of 5 was for her own consumption ;)

These simple ones were made for a lil boy who have played a (small) role in helping me making one of the batches above.
A small token for my thanks. Next time i bake you a real one ok!
(I wasn't confident enough to make more for the rest of the family to have a bite.. hehe. Malu.)
(Oh, and before leaving, sempat dia 'pau' one of my sugar flowers to put on one of the cupcake! lol.)