In the jungle...

A friend of mine wanted some cupcakes for her son to bring to school for his birthday, and also a cake to celebrate with the family that night.

She chose a safari theme and sent me a few pictures she got off the internet for inspiration. The cupcake design was inspired by Cupcake Pantry's lovely Safari Cupcakes which you can see on Flickr here.

These are the cuppies I made, but unfortunately my friend told me that they melted and began dripping down the sides towards the evening!! *horror* (they were needed for school the next morning)

I'm always worried about stuff like this happening, so I try to hand over my creations as last minute as possible. This is because when they're with me, I make sure the temperature and humidity is just right. I place them directly under an air-conditioner, and the temperature must not be too cold, around 27*C. I also place containers of silica gel near them, so excess moisture is absorbed. And sometimes if it gets too cold or too hot, I have to play it by ear and adjust the temperature. I can't expect my customers to be as obsessive as me, so the best way is to hand over the cakes and cupcakes right before the celebration!

Anyway, it may have been that the weather was way too hot that day, or the fresh cream that I used had too high a water content and turned the fondant soggy??? Once again, I do not really know. Fondant is so temperamental, it's just so frustrating! It can look all nice and matte and stable, then in an instant start sweating and getting gloppy!!

To be on the safe side, I shall just stick to buttercream from now on... The hot and humid weather here really is the worst possible kind for fondant *sigh*

I felt so bad about the cuppies, and I'm glad at least the cake turned out well. Everything was perfect except for a bit of sagging in the fondant covering. But, that was just a minor blemish.

The animals and leaves and the no.3 are made of gumpaste. I used wire to raise the elephant's trunk and also to provide support for the no.3. I am so afraid of my pieces falling apart once it's with the customer, that I will use as much reinforcement as necessary, in the form of wires and bamboo sticks.

Oh yes, I got to try out one of the gadgets I bought from my trip to Singapore recently! I am in love with my new alphabet cutters!!! They have an ejector function, so no more incessant tap, tap, tapping!!!

Fondant cake decorators out there will know exactly what I mean. For most alphabet cutters, you have to cut them and then they will be stuck in the cutter and what you have to do is to tap, tap, tap and tap it again until the small pieces of fondant come loose. Trust me, it's no fun. So anyway, these new cutters have an ejector  piece at the back, and all you have to do is press it and viola, the pieces come out so easily!  

*happy happy*

 All packed and ready to go!

Keroppi cupcakes

I made some cupcakes and cake balls for our church sale. I decided to do cake balls because I had tonnes of leftover cake scraps in the freezer and cake balls are a great and yummy way to use them up!

All you have to do is mix your cake scraps with leftover frosting and mash them all up to form a 'dough' which you roll into balls and coat with sprinkles or melted chocolate or candy coating or even cocoa powder or icing sugar. I made rum balls before using cake scraps and melted butter instead,  here and they were sinfully delicious!

You can make them and just place them on small paper cups, or you could push lollipop sticks into them, thus turning them into cake pops! Cake pops are all the rage now, ever since they were made popular by the ever creative Bakerella!

Anyway the ones I made for the church sale were kid-friendly and did not contain alcohol. They were chocolate and strawberry flavoured and rolled in chocolate rice and colourful sprinkles respectively.

For the cupcakes, I was inspired by this picture I took off the internet, of candies in Keroppi tins.

I made chocolate cupcakes and topped them with discs of fondant in green, pink and blue. For the eyes, I cut small circles of white fondant and their mouths were made of thinly rolled strips of black fondant. I used even smaller circles of black and pink fondant for the cheeks and pupils.

The design was simple yet effective. Just the way I like it!

Big Purple Dinosaur

I knew I would be doing this guy sooner or later! :)

A good friend of mine wanted a Barney cake, any Barney cake, as long as it had Barney on it, for her adorable little boy who was turning 2 and obviously a Barney fan!

So I couldn't wait to try out another Debbie Brown design. This time it was a carved Barney cake with three mini 'gift' cakes.

I started out with two 8" square American chocolate cakes and cut out the gifts and Barney's body. I then covered them in fondant. Barney's arms, feet and head as well as the gift bows are wholly gumpaste.

Everything turned out pretty good initially. Then, one arm which was supposed to be held up collapsed, so I just stuck both arms to his sides instead. Then I think the weight of the arms was too much for the purple fondant covering that it began to sag!!! *horror!!*

It was also a very wet and rainy day, so the gumpaste gift bows began softening and losing their shape as well! Barney ended up looking like a middle-aged man with a saggy beer gut!! Also, his arms were lengthening and reaching his legs!! I put the air-cond on and prayed really hard then! I felt so bad to hand over a saggy Barney to the little birthday boy!!

I was stressed out the whole day, hoping that Barney's skin wouldn't fall apart before the birthday boy cut the cake! Thank goodness my friend reported that there was no further damage! I still feel so bad though. I am a bit of a perfectionist and I want my 'customers' to have nothing less than perfection. I don't know what exactly went wrong, it's most likely the weather, but I will have to try this again until I get it right!

I do love his eyes though...

Valentine's day 2011

So I got three orders for Valentine's Day; two from paying customers, and another from my own little brother in Singapore who wanted to give his girlfriend, who was in town, something special.

One customer just wanted the forever Friends bears without the cake, as a present for her Hubby. So I did the figurines and placed them on a white square plate instead.

Another customer made a request for Valentine's day cuppies. It was a last minute order, so these were done in a bit of a rush. They turned out quite nice though, if I should say so myself! :)

As for Little Brother, he was more specific and sent me a diagram of what he wanted.

It was a cake with a cat and duck on it and a single stalk of rose between them... like so:

Aren't they cute??

Newspaper article

My cakes and I were featured in a local Chinese newspaper here, earlier this month. I do not know how to read Chinese, but the pictures are nice! :)

Angelina Ballerina again!

This is the third post in a row featuring Angelina Ballerina! :) She is very popular indeed!

Anyway, a customer (Yes! A real paying customer who is not a friend, or a friend of a friend!!!) of mine wanted an Angelina Ballerina cake, but she also liked the one I made of a fairy sitting among flowers. So, I suggested Angelina sitting on a bed of flowers instead and she agreed. She also requested that I incorporate the colour purple.

I think I'm improving every time I make her. I'm still not very satisfied with her feet and ballet slippers, though. Will need to work more on that.

Anyone else fancy an Angelina Ballerina cake?? ;)

Angelina Ballerina cuppies

A friend of mine saw my Angelina Ballerina cake, from my previous post, and asked me to make one for her daughter's upcoming birthday. It was such short notice that I initially declined, but after some negotiating, I agreed on making simpler Angelina cupcakes for her instead.

At first, she said that just Angelina's head and some ballet shoes would do, since the cupcakes were small'ish'. But in the end I managed to make a small whole Angelina and it fit nicely on one of the cupcakes. I was thinking that a whole Angelina would make the little birthday girl much, much happier! :)

Angelina Ballerina

I recently got four of Debbie Brown's books from Singapore. This one is my favourite! It has all the cute children's characters in them.

I couldn't wait to try out one of her designs and the opportunity came when my niece Alaena celebrated her 6th birthday. She had just started ballet lessons the week before, so I thought an Angelina Ballerina cake would be perfect for her!

This is an orange cake with chocolate ganache filling. The cuppies are orange chocolate chip cake with chocolate ganache topping. All the decorations are fondant except for the cloud on top and Angelina. Those are made from gumpaste.

The cuppies were of course easier to make than the main cake. In her book, Debbie Brown gives ideas for a main cake and also mini cakes. I modified her mini cake designs for the cuppies.

The only thing that went wrong while making this cake, was that I stuck on the clouds too high on the sides of the cake. They were too heavy and dragged the fondant down on the sides. Notice the wrinkles at the bottom of the cake. I should have rolled the clouds thinner so they would not be too heavy, and also stuck them all the way at the bottom so some of their weight could rest on the cake board.

I really love this design. I think every little girl would be happy to have this for her birthday!

Oh yes! I also got to use my new non-toxic sparkle dust! What joy! :) I got a small little jar for RM29.90 from Cake Connection.

Triple Layer Cheesecake

The first cake for the year 2011 was a birthday cake for my nephew Marc. He turned 7 and I asked him what he wanted for his birthday cake. He requested for cheesecake with a Pikachu design.

Since cheesecakes are too soft to handle the weight of fondant, I had to either make it a 2D design, or just make a small 3D Pikachu.

I went with a simple 2D design, as I figured it would cover more area and also would take less time! I didn't have much time to decorate the cake, because I took up too much time making the cake!

The cake was a triple layer cheesecake. It had a coffee infused Digestive crust, followed by a chocolate cheese layer, then a white chocolate cheese layer and lastly a coffee cheese layer to top it off. The coffee layer called for Kahlua, but I didn't have any, so I used rum. The coffee flavour is quite strong, so the cake was a hit with the adults, but not so much with the kids!

I am not a coffee drinker, so I thought the cake was just okay and would prefer a fully chocolate one!! :) If you love coffee however, I think you would love this cake.

Here's the recipe below. There's a bit more work than usual, because of the layers, but the results are worth it.

Triple Layer Cheesecake

Ingredients

Ingredients for base:
200g Digestive biscuit crumbs
50g finely crushed cornflakes
30g soft brown sugar
125g butter
1 tbsp instant coffee powder dissolved in 1/2 tbsp hot water
100g melted cooking chocolate
Filling:
750g cream cheese (at room temperature)
120g caster sugar
30 g sifted corn flour
300ml whipping cream
4 large eggs
A: 100g melted cooking chocolate
     2 tbsp sifted cocoa powder
B: 100g melted white cooking chocolate
    1tsp vanilla essence 
C: 1 1/2 tbsp coffee powder dissolved in 1/2tbsp hot water
     1tbsp Kahlua (optional)

Method:
Melt butter in pan over low heat. Add in other ingredients for base and mix well.
Press mixture evenly into a 9" loose-base tin.
Brush melted chocolate onto base and chill till set.

Wrap bottom and side of tin in a layer of aluminium foil so that water from water bath will not seep in.
Preheat oven at 140*C.

Beat cheese, sugar and cornflour until smooth.
Add in cream and mix.
Lastly add in eggs and mix well.
Divide mixture into 3 portions.

Stir ingredients A into one portion and pour onto base.
Place tin in a larger tray filled with water one inch deep.
Bake for 30 mins.

Stir ingredients B into another portion.
Pour onto baked chocolate layer and bake 30 mins.

Stir ingredients C into last portion.
Pour onto baked white chocolate layer and bake 30 mins.

Turn off oven and leave cake inside with door closed to cool completely.
Cover cake and refrigerate for a minimum of 6 hours.

Thomas and Friends

I had a last order for the year; Thomas the Tank Engine cupcakes.

A friend wanted these for a nephew who was crazy about Thomas and his friends. Having 3 daughters and only one son, I am more familiar with Disney princesses and Barbie and Strawberry Shortcake, so I had to do some research on the net.

I found out that, of course, Thomas the blue engine was the favourite, and the green engine, Percy as well as the red one were quite popular too.

So, I made these three trains and also the fat controller whom I found to be so adorable.

I was told the birthday boy was very happy with the cupcakes and that's what makes me the happiest! :)