Big Blue Bow

After a long hiatus, my oven is back at work last month. I was all nervous to bake again for afraid that i might have lost umm, whatever i have learnt in classes before and was praying hard that the oven and mixer still work. (Thank God they did!)

It was for another engagement hantaran - a six inch round cake with a Big Blue Bow. The theme colour and design was chosen by the eldest sister who was also the one who did all the pretty hantaran stuff. Congratulations to the lovebirds. I was told that the Groom's dad was a big fan!

What's with 8th January?

This is a non-current post. By 8th January, i meant the 8th day of 2011. Yes, it has been that long! (same goes with the last post, and i still have some stuff laying on the shelf!).

So back to 8th January 2010, I received FOUR orders for that particular date and i felt bad that i had to say NO to the rest but 1. First off, it's due to time constraints. I know, i know.. tell me what's new, right? I was going to go on a break from baking until i get things settled down a bit with my other business but i had to oblige for one particular order when it was for a close cousin's engagement.

But to be fair, and before you accuse me of any favouritism or nepotism, he had asked FIRST. So there. I could have made it for at least another order but the thing is, i also had to go for a short trip to Kuching on 8th Jan too hence, it was the only one commissioned being accepted. A thousand apologies. Turning down orders isn't the best feeling in the world. I think one person was even kind of pissed with me too! ;'(

I was told to make a small hantaran cake since it will be transported via air all the way to Kelantan. White was the chosen colour, the rest was up to me.

I had to opt for a store-bought sugar flowers despite having attended a class for this particular reason because some scum decided to smash my car window for the new year's eve celebration and left me crippled with no car for some time to do the necessary shopping and prepping and that had successfully killed my spirit to produce my own peonies. Thank goodness the cousin and mum of the groom-to-be were okay with that.

Congratulations to Hisham & Sabrina!

I had to flatten the petals to fit into the box for transport (top pix). 

cornelli lace that i wanted to do for my wedding cake in the Wilton class.  Also did some crimping on this one too.

Covering Course 3

Some of the things we did in Course 3.
Clockwise: Royal icing flowers (lily, morning glory, primrose & poinsettia),
Ruffle garland, Brush embroidery and Drop string aka swags & overlapping drop string that are quite scary to do.

Also in the syllabus are covering and adorning a 6" square mock cake with fondant, making the Wilton roses - also in fondant (will post the pixes soon), and learning the tiered cake construction in which we will apply in our next lesson (the last one, yay!). We will have to bring 2 tiered wedding cakes/mock ups covered with fondant to be decorated and assembled in the 2-hour class.

I am currently out of town and will only be back 2 days before class, so I honestly hope i can manage. I want to make an effort but at the same time, time will not be on my side so i guess, i will have to think of a design that is interesting yet not too complicated. Well, good luck to me.

Nadhirah's Butterfly cake

My dearest friend celebrated her daughter's birthday, yesterday. She had asked for me to make a butterfly cake for her cutie pie. The butterflies and lettering for the baby's name was done using patchwork cutters. 2 words: NOT easy! (There's always new challenges each time, but i guess i have to count my blessings when things pan out rather well eventually.) Alhamdulillah.. :)
And i was so grateful that my brother's maid was around to help especially with the after cleaning! Make that a double Thanks be to God! Hehehe..

The cutesies with the cake.

Happy Birthday, little one!
Hope you had a great time hitting 1 year! :)

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! :)]