Doraemon cupcakes...

I'm finally done with all the backlog posts and is able to update all on our latest creation! Firstly, I've decided to work on more flavours for my cakes and cupcakes and have tried out the red velvet recipe. The first try was a bit too sweet and therefore I have perfected the cake by lessening the sugar content in it and is ready to introduce it to all! And the first order came from Linda and she wanted to order Doraemon theme red velvet cupcakes. Previously I've tried handcrafting a 2D image of Doraemon as seen below but I'm not really pleased with it and was thinking of trying a 3D Doraemon instead.

My Melody. Doraemon. Rilakkuma.

Therefore I started searching online and I came upon an online blog which provided a tutorial on how to create 3D Doraemon figures. So I started my molding of the figures based on the tutorial step by step.

Started off by rolling the head, body, hands, legs in propotions.

Then fixing them together.

Then the bell, inserting a spaghetti into the body so that the head can be fixed onto it.

Finally the Doraemons are ready to be placed on the cupcakes.

At first, the heads of the Doraemon were created too small and they look malnourished. In the end I had to forego the small heads and replace them with bigger heads for them to look better and more like Doraemon. The end effect was good and the Doraemon look so cute! Many thanks to the tutorial!

The Doraemon nicely seated on the red velvet cupcakes.

The final set of Doraemon cupcakes.

This is another breakthrough for me as I've introduced a new recipe and changed my style of designing to suit the red velvet cupcakes. I used the cream cheese frosting to cover the cupcakes instead of my usual "preferred" fondant. But the end result looks really good and is different from my previous creation. I'm so motivated to work on more flavours and different styles of designing!

August will be a busy month for me where I have a few orders in place. Do stay tune and look forward to more of my new creations! I'm so excited for it and can't wait to work on those orders soon!

My Melody cupcakes...

This is another order from my friend. Really very grateful for all these supportive friends of mine! This time round, my uni and fyp mate, Josephine, is ordering a set of 21 my melody cupcakes for her little sis, Emily's, 21st birthday. I still remember attending her 21st birthday party in her house "not long ago" and now it is her sis's turn. How time flies! So here's the cupcakes!

My melody and rainbow/butterfly cupcakes.

Happy 21st Emily.

I handcrafted the melody faces therefore on closer look, they may not all look the same. However, I'm very pleased with this set of cupcakes where I think it is my best so far as it looks really neat and tidy and the colour theme matches nicely and is very sweet. I'm glad the sisters love it too!

Hellokitty and Candy Crush cupcakes...

This is another order from my Da Jie. If you have been following my blog or facebook page diligently, you would have realized that my sis have really provided me with a lot of chances to try out new themes and design and for me to gain more experience. Really thankful to her! So this time round is another set of hello kitty cupcakes and also a set of candy crush cupcakes. I have done a few hello kitty related cakes/cupcakes by now and was thinking of having some changes to the design. Therefore, here is the set of hello kitty cupcakes.

For Claire.

I've changed the ribbon on kitty's head to flowers and brushed pink lustre dust on the cupcakes for some glossy and shiny effect. In addition, I took away kitty's black whiskers and imprinted the stripes on the face instead. However, it did not show up very clearly.

For the candy crush cupcakes, as I have previous experience with making the candies, it was quite an easy process in making them again. I brushed the alphabets with purple lustre dust to make it have a glossy and shiny effect too.

For Evonne.

Therefore, the two sets of cupcakes are completed!

Despicable me minion cake...

With the coming out of Despicable Me 2, the craze for the minions start again! From the big minion at the Cathays to the Mac happy meal toy, everybody is crazy over them. I personally loves them too and have watched the movie. I still remember the "gelato" and the "underwear" and stuffs. It was so comical and cute. Therefore, I wanted to try my hands on making some despicable me related cake or cupcakes too. Thankfully, my Da Jie gave me the chance where she wanted to celebrate her friend, Weili's birthday with a despicable me cake. Therefore, I started off with my creation!

Mee doh mee doh mee doh.

To create the height of the minion, I baked two 5" round cake and layered them together. However, without experience in covering cake with such a height, it was quite a mess when I covered it with fondant and the bottom was untidy. Luckily I have the minion working blue suit to cover the untidiness and stuffs. Also, to create a rounded head, I did not level off my cake which had rise unevenly. But then again, because of that, the minion head looks uneven. I shall make it a point to level it off the next time. In addition, I used the silver paint to paint the spectacles of the minion but the silver colour is not very prominent. I shall use the silver spray to get the metallic silver colour next time. All in all, it was quite a successful first attempt but there is still lots of room for improvements where I can already pinpoint a few when I was doing it. But at least it is still recognizable as a minion right? Hahaha.

Happy Birthday Weili! Hope the minion have worked its wonder and help to make your birthday wonderful!

Baby face cake for baby Aiden...

I have always wanted to do some baby-related cakes but till now I have not received any orders for those yet. Therefore, a chance arrived when I'm having a family gathering and my few months old nephew, Aiden, will be there too. So, I decided to make a cake for him to celebrate his arrival into our family.

I want milk!

This is really a very simple and fast cake and I realized making faces with cake is quite an enjoyable task. Look at the cutie pie with the cake!

The cake is bigger than his face!

His mother, Jacqueline, had a hard time posing him for the picture. But nevertheless, we had fun playing with him. He is a very smiley baby who loves to smile. Hope he grows up well and healthy!

Sheep cake...

Our first referral order is here and special thanks to Ni Chen for the referral! Her friend Sarah wanted to order a sheep cake and she decided on a 3D sheep rather than a 2D sheep. Therefore, I created this Shaun the sheep cake.

Shaun the sheep.

Actually I did not know that this sheep has a name. It just happened that when I searched online, most images of this sheep came up. Hahaha. Anyway, I had a hard time making the head of the sheep stick to the body and stay at that angle as the head is too heavy and it tends to tilt awkwardly to one side over time due to the weight. Therefore, I have to stuck something in between the head and the cake to hold on to the angle till the "glue" is dry. After some wait, the head is finally stable and the cake is completed!

Personalized face cake...

This is another order from my friend and this time round is my uni and grad trip friend, Weiling. She is the first few friends I know from NBS as we were from the same orientation group. Really glad to have met these friends from FOC and we are able to keep in contact since then. She's doing well now with a government job and one of her colleague is leaving her job, so she is ordering a farewell cake for her colleague. She sent me this photo of her colleague saying that she wanted a cake with a face like her colleague who somehow looks like Edna from Incredibles!

Do I look like Edna?

 If you have not watched Incredibles before and have no idea how Edna looks like. Here it is.

I think they are similar in some areas in terms of their hairstyle and the spectacles? So I decided to work on the hairstyle and the spectacles which is iconic.

The cake is done quite fast as it is quite easy. I was so excited to see how the cake will look like beside her colleague and Weiling sent me this photo when they had the farewell celebration on the next day.

Do we look alike?

However, the farewell party ended up with the cake not being eaten as the rest of the colleagues are not willing and think it is a pity to cut off her "face". Hahaha. Nevertheless, they still love the cake!

Policeman cake...

This is an order from my sec sch cca junior, Shu Min. I still remember the days where we go for Chinese Orchestra practices and performances together. As we are the only two who play Zhong Hu, we got very close and really had fun during practices and performances. Those were the days. Enough of the past, now she's a nice and fine lady and is working hard for her studies and career too. I'm so happy for her. So, she wanted a policeman cake to celebrate her client's birthday where her client is a policeman. Therefore, here is the cake!

Happy birthday Mr Policeman!

So the must-haves for a policeman includes the gun, the baton, the cap, and the handcuffs! I've used the silver spray to spray the cake and the hand cuffs in metallic silver. For the gun, I've used the silver paint to paint a portion of it in silver. And therefore, the policeman cake is complete!

Mickey mouse clubhouse cupcakes...

I've always like Disney characters since young and probably my mummy was the greatest influence behind it cause she loves them and will always buy mickey mouse or other disney characters related stuff for us. Now, even my nephew loves mickey mouse and have been watching mickey mouse clubhouse since young, I have watched the show a few times with him and it is really quite educational in a sense for young kids to learn about shapes or tools or whatever as there is a theme for each episode. Enough said, when Hui Zhen requested for a mickey mouse clubhouse theme cupcakes for her son, Daymas, 3rd birthday, I thought it will be fun to make it! She actually requested for the order a few months before the actual date and her initial requested theme was either a dragon dance theme (which her son likes) or a mickey mouse clubhouse theme. I have to admit dragon dance is really challenging and after racking my brains, I'm unable to come up with any designs. Therefore, I created the mickey mouse clubhouse theme cupcakes for her instead.

6 basic designs for the order.

The mickey mouse clubhouse is the one on the top left corner if you have not seen any mickey mouse clubhouse episodes before. The one in the top middle is the mouseketools which will provide 4 tools during the episode to help mickey mouse and friends to solve the difficulties they face along the way. Luckily she's satisfied with the designs and gave the green light to use them for the actual order a few months later.

Final design with the words requested by Hui Zhen.

Hui Zhen was very sweet to msg me, saying that the kids enjoyed the cupcakes. Thanks for the order!

Candy Crush cake for a special someone...

A special someone's birthday falls on the month of June and that is my beloved Er jie! I've been thinking of what kind of cake to prepare for her and lucky for me, she's been into the candy crush game recently and is rather good at it. I know of a lot of my friends who is into candy crush as well so I decided to make a candy crush cake to dedicate to all these people! Firstly, I started making all the candies and tadah, my candy crush game is out!

Level 999. Can you break it?

I have tried a few rounds of candy crush and I have to admit I'm not really good at it and therefore have stopped playing since there. Therefore, to come up with this game board, I have to ask the expert. and that is my sis, for help. I cut up the board in squares so that I can place the candies evenly and then I placed the candies on the "board". But even the expert says that this level that I have created is hard to break. Haha. I guess I have done it up too freely. Nevertheless, my sis loves the cake and we had a fun celebration with it.

Happy Birthday my dearest sis!

Candy crushed!

Chocolate pig cake...

This order is from Weiting where she sent me a picture of pigs swimming in choc mud and requested for the same. Her order was simple where she just want exactly the same design where the main idea is the pigs swimming in the mud like choc. And here it goes.

The pigs having a nice mud bath.

This is a very chocolatey cake where it is all made of chocolate. I guess the pigs may have an overdose of chocolate. Haha. Due to logistic issues, at first I wanted to use fondant to mold the sides instead of the usual kit kat as it may melt under hot weather. However, Weiting prefer to use kit kat instead and therefore the sides are all wrapped in kit kat. The assembling was quite an issue as the kit kat could not stick very well to the cake and I had a hard time putting them together and tying it with a ribbon. The pigs are quite easy to mold and they do look like they are having a great time in their choc mud bath. The chocolate pig cake is done!

Princess castle cake...

This is a castle cake requested by the parents for their daughter Sophie's 6th birthday. As usual, little girls' fantasies are always being a princess and stuffs. Being "young at heart", I still love the disney princesses a lot. Hahaha. Therefore, I started building my castle hoping a prince will appear and knock on the door!

So the inverted cones are ice cream cones dipped in chocolate and den rainbow chocolate rice to achieve the colourful effect. The assemble of the cake is much easier now with experience from previous 2-tier cakes. However, there is still room for improvement and will work towards perfecting the 2-tier cakes!

Sophie's parents bought the princess figurines and placed it on top of the cake and it fits perfectly!

The princesses waiting for their princes at the top of the castle.

Thanks Daryl for ordering this cake and hope Sophie had a blast at her princess party!

Everton FC Soccer cupcakes...

An order from my Da Jie again and this time round is an order for her colleague, Daryl, who is an Everton FC fan. For your information, I'm not a soccer fan and of course I've not heard of Everton FC. But as usual, google is my best friend and I got to know the logo of the FC and decided to craft it as a design. The jerseys and soccer ball is a must-have and the 1878 is apparently something related to Everton FC thus I've included it in the design as well!

Wanna have a kick at it?

Hope Daryl likes it!

Another Hello Kitty cupcake order...

This is yet another Hello Kitty order and ever since Jembakes started, Hello Kitty is the most requested character design! This time round, it is a simple order where Sheryl wants to have the hello kitty design same as the one I've previously done before. Having prior experience and without the need to think of a new design, this order is quickly done. However, I changed the colour scheme a bit to make it have a different look from the previous one so that each order is unique and customized.

A pink and white theme for a sweeter look.

Look at the girls having fun with the cupcakes! Hope they enjoyed it!

Hello Kitty Mini 2-tier cake...

To all the hello kitty fans out there, this is another order for hello kitty and another breakthrough for Jembakes too! To celebrate his wife's birthday, Weiwen ordered a Hello Kitty cake for her as she is a hello kitty fan. He wanted a 2-tier cake but as his party is only catered to a small crowd, he did not want a big 2-tier cake. Therefore, after much discussion, we decided to try on a 4" and 6" cake with two different flavours for each layer. He also wanted to write chi words on the cake which is another challenge for me as writing words on cake have never been my forte, and now it is chi words somemore. Nevertheless, I tried working it out with buttercream icing instead of the previously used edible markers which did not work out very well. After much practicing and tidying my handwriting, the end results works out better than I expected!

Daniel and Kitty hugging each other tightly and ready to be placed on the cake and the scroll to write the chi words on.

I molded Daniel and Kitty using the fondant and gumpaste mixture. Please pardon the "grown a bit fatter" couple, I will mold it slimmer next time.

Daniel and Kitty which represents the husband and wife, specially requested by Weiwen to include Daniel on the cake.

The mini 2-tier cake is really cute in size and good for small parties. Check out the party below:

The little boy who can't wait to eat the cake.

The happy couple! Happy birthday Candy!

Strawberry shortcakes...

This is another order from my always supportive Da Jie where she is ordering a set of strawberry shortcake cupcakes. But as we know, strawberry shortcake has changed over the years and the girl has changed her attire and hat. Therefore, I was deciding between using the old or new look. As the cupcakes is for a little girl, I doubt she will know how the old strawberry shortcake looks like. However, for us, the new strawberry shortcake does not have the "feel" like it used to have before with its old outfit and iconic big straw hat. Therefore, I decided to come up with a combination of the two!

What's strawberry shortcake without a strawberry?

Hope the little girl likes it!

Barclays charity bake sale!

As the title suggests, Jembakes is all ready to contribute to charity! This is an opportunity provided by my Da Jie who works there and is involved in this event. Therefore, I prepared the cupcakes and design them with relevance to Barclays logo and stuffs.

48 cupcakes in all which raise up to $1000 for charity!

It was really hard to craft the barclays logo which looks like an eagle. Also, I tried to write the word "Barclays" on the cupcakes with buttercream icing. This is a set of cupcakes where I decided to go for simplicity and also to cater to a wider audience I gave it a more "neutral" design (also due to the fact that there is a lot to work with. haha). Really glad I got this chance to contribute back to society and hope more of this chances will come!

Angry bird cake...

This is an order all the way from London. Chiao Chyi wanted to order an Angry bird cake for her brother in Singapore for his birthday. A cake with love all the way from London. So sweet of her! So, everyone should be quite familiar with the birds and the pigs but due to the limitation of the small cake, I've decided to just put one of the birds on the cake and the pigs are placed at the bottom.

Do you feel like playing the game now?

The molding and decorating process of the cake was so enjoyable whereby the familiar tune of the game keeps ringing in my mind! Hope her brother likes the cake!

For beer lovers!

This is another quick order where it was ordered 2-3 days in advanced by Fiona and the design is more or less fixed and that is to be shaped like a beer! For all drinkers out there, this is a cake that won't get you drunk and is safe to eat as much as you can. As we all know, beer mug is quite tall, however, due to the limitations of the cake which is only one layer, the beer mug became flat and big instead.

I guess the uncles really love beer!

To create the foamy overflowing effect, I used buttercream icing with a big round tip to pipe the "foam". Although the effect is good, I hope it is not that hard to handle and cut the cake with the "foam" on it. Hopefully, if there is another chance, I will try my hands on a tall glass mug with a two layer cake instead!

Two-tier retro theme 21st Birthday cake...

A huge challenge came in when my sis's friend, Wenqing, wanted to order a 21st birthday cake for her husband's sister. The challenge here is she wants a 2-tier cake to cater to 20 odd ppl. At first I'm undecided whether I should take up the order as I have never done a real 2-tier cake before (with real cakes i mean) and I do not want to mess up people's party with a "cannot make it" cake. I know how important a 21st birthday party means to someone (i've been there not very long ago) and cake is of course the highlight and most important part of the party. What if I can't deliver the cake on that day? What if the cake cannot stand and collapse? But then again, I pushed aside these "what ifs" and took up the challenge. And special thanks to Wenqing who put her trust in me and provided lots of opinions and suggestions as to how she wants the cake to look like, the colour theme and stuffs, I like how she contributed a lots of ideas and the constructive discussions we had and how the final product came by with lots of contributions from her. I hope she do feel a sense of engagement too where she had a part in the final product.

It all started with this drawing that she sent me where she wanted a 3-tier retro theme cake at first. This is really too much a challenge for me for my 1st attempt thus I suggested a 2-tier cake with cupcakes at the side to cater to the amount of ppl at the party.

She is really good at drawing and the use of colours.

Besides this drawing, she sent me a few other cakes online which is more of a retro theme and provided me with more ideas. Therefore, I tried my hands on conceptualizing the design and drawing it out for the first time. Pardon my poor drawing skills.

Wanted to have circles and rounds for the retro theme.

Now that the design part is done, the harder part now is the assembling of the cakes. I heard theory before and I have done it on dummy before (Ulyss's princess cake), but to do it on real cakes, I'm not sure if it will work on my first attempt. Therefore, I decided to try it out a week before the actual delivery date and also to let her comment and do any changes to the design.

My first 2-tier cake attempt.

So the process of making a 2-tier cake goes like this. I baked a 8" and 10" cake respectively and bought pillars and base to support the top tier cake. Although my choc fudge cake is a dense cake that is good to hold any designs, I'm not confident that it is able to hold another cake on its own. So to play it safe, I inserted three pillars into the bottom tier cake and then transferred the top tier cake onto it. And I bought silver spray to spray it on the cake and the ribbon as she wanted silver as part of the colour theme. The attempt was successful and the cake is able to hold and not collapse! And therefore, I'm more confident to work on the actual product after some feedback and changes given from Wenqing.

The final product!

She did not want orange to be in the colour scheme and therefore orange is taken out. And also she preferred small disco balls to flowers so I changed the design to disco ball where I bought glitters to brush on them to make them shine. I realised the ribbon is way too big for the first one so I made a smaller one for this cake which lies nicely on top of the top tier cake. And of course, we can't miss the 21 on top of the cake to show that it is a 21st birthday cake!

I'm glad she loved it in the end and the cake was a success! It was really a big project for me and a huge milestone for my cake decorating journey. With this success attempt, I'm more confident to try out more two-tier cakes in the future! Thanks Wenqing for giving me this opportunity and also for the patience and generous feedbacks given to perfect this cake!

A hats party...

My friend's birthday is in the month of April and while we were deciding what to do for the celebration and stuffs, my friend suggested a hats party at Marina Barrage where we can fly kite and have a picnic. Therefore, I came up with the idea of making a hat cake for her to suit the theme of the party.

My mummy say it looks like Feng Fei Fei's hat.

This hat is quite easy to make as I wanted it to have a rounded feel, therefore, I did not have to level off the top. In addition, I covered it with white fondant and brushed it with cranberry lustre dust which ends up with the colour you see in the picture which is bright and shimmering on closer look. It has a better effect than just dyeing the fondant pink where the colour will be dull and dead in a sense. As I wanted the hats to have some folds, I stucked tissue paper at parts of the sides to create the folds, and of course I have to wait till it hardens up and then the folds will stay.

The birthday girl with the cake.

A hats party where I'm the only one wearing a hat.

But then the hats party is quite a failure in the end when it started to rain and we have to find a wet weather plan. To top it off, I'm the only one turning up with a hat and therefore it does not looks like a hats party. And what's worse, the birthday girl actually thought that the hats cake is a shou tao???? Oh my oh my, my effort have all gone to waste. Do you guys think that it looks like shou tao? Hahaha.. But nevertheless, we still had fun having the picnic indoors and did some outdoor activities after the rain had stopped. Happy ??th Birthday Weiling!

Confession of a shopaholic...

I guess it is woman's nature to shop. Having been to a few overseas shopping trips this year, I have to confess I'm a shopaholic! So when I receive a set of shopping theme cupcakes order from my Da Jie, I was so excited to try it on. So first up I started with the molding of the cupcake toppers. When you think of shopping and woman, what can you think of?

Bag, lipstick, dress, paper bag and presents which comes with a huge price tag

It was so fun making this cupcake toppers and thinking of what kind of bag designs to mold into and stuffs. I have brushed some glitter on it and used the bright pink colour for most of the designs to make it have a glamorous and bright feel.

The set of "expensive" cupcakes by a shopaholic.

As this is a set of farewell cupcakes for my sis's colleague, therefore she requested the words on it. I hope this will be a hit among the ladies in the office!