Longevity cake for my grandma...

This post is dedicated to my grandmother who is celebrating her 80++ birthday this year (lost count of how old she is). As I've started on this baking business, as a matter of fact, I should be making the birthday cakes of all my loved ones from now on. In fact, I have actually tried making a cake for my grandma's birthday a few years back and it looks like this.

Tiramisu cake...

Pardon the poor decoration skills as back then I have not went for lessons and know nuts about the wonders of fondant and gum paste. Nevertheless, I still managed to whipped up quite a decent tiramisu cake and it is actually quite a big project for me as the cake is quite huge. But feedbacks were given saying that the cake is too dull and black which may not be that nice for an elderly's birthday. I didn't think of that while I was "decorating" and I used dark chocolate chips to lay out the word "shou" thinking that I was very "creative" but it turned out too dull. Oh well, we always have to learn from our mistake. Therefore, this time round, I make it a point that the cake must have red elements on it to make it lively and appropriate for the elderly.

Getting the decorations ready to be placed on the cake.

The main trunk on the cake which branches out to smaller branches with flowers and leaves on it. Actually, this is placed to cover up my mistake where my intention at first was to brush the whole cake in champagne lustre dust like how the base is done. However, I realised that it will take too much effort as the cake is big and the colour effect is not even. But I have already brushed a few strokes on the cake and therefore, to cover this, I came up with the trunk and place more flowers and leaves! LOL!

 

Learning from past experience, this time round I had my "shou" in red and gold!

And not to forget those longevity buns which signifies longevity and which I love to eat too. LOL!

And two big ones on top! I actually wanted to buy real longevity buns to place on top of the cake but was thinking that the colour may be off from the cake. So instead, this two "buns" are actually wrapped cupcakes which can be eaten as well!

Final product!

Check out the birthday celebration below!

The kids eyeing the cake!

The older generation.

The younger generation.

The youngest generation.

Happy Birthday Ah Ma!

Burberry bag cake...

This is an order from my cousin-in-law Jacqueline for her mother's birthday. While deciding what theme to make for her mother's cake, she suggested a burberry theme as her mother likes the brand. Therefore, we decided to go with a burberry bag cake.

This is quite a simple cake as well as the brand is very iconic for the colours and the stripes. Hope her mummy will get a real Burberry bag for her birthday instead of just a cake! LOL.

Carebear cake...

Joyce's birthday party part 2 requires a 10" carebear cake for her friends and teachers in school. However, Pey Ling and I had some miscommunication and they nearly had no cake on the birthday party. I had to rush out the cake on the very last minute and luckily, she had passed me the carebear figurines beforehand and therefore I can work out the decorations quickly. Despite the scares and the short time frame, I think the cake still came out well and the carebears look cute on the cake. On a side note, realised that this is another sky, rainbow and clouds theme which is similar to the Rainbow Dash cake I did earlier. LOL.

Carebears having fun!

Thanks Pey Ling for ordering the two cakes from us! Hope you liked both the cakes and Joyce enjoyed her parties!

Despicable Me Minions cupcakes...

As I've mention, Aug is a busy month for me with a few orders in line. This order is a sudden order from my grad trip friend, Wee Loon who happens to see the Minons cupcakes I am making for a charity sale coming soon in late Aug and thus wanted to order 75 of it for his colleagues as a farewell gift. This is a huge order where he requires them to be individually packed and is due within two days which also coincides with my other order as well. This is the first time I'm really working under time pressure where all the orders are due one after another. A real challenge has came for me. Nevertheless, once the order is confirmed, I started working out on the 3D minons cupcake toppers which is very time consuming. Luckily, I got the help of my mummy, my sis and her bf where we divided the workload and worked just like a factory line.

Minions body and hand.

Minions in the making.

Spot the bad minion in the crowd.

So after working hard and considering packaging and other factors, we have lowered the order to 50 cupcakes instead.

The minions on the cupcakes.

The bad among the good.

The baddies.

The individually wrapped cupcakes.

And therefore the 50 cupcakes are individually wrapped and is ready to be given as a gift. I made a few bad minions for my colleagues as well and they have not eaten the cupcakes at all, reason being they think it is a pity to eat the minions! LOL. I wonder should I be happy or sad about it? Will you eat the minions? Anyway, thanks Wee Loon for the order!

Rainbow Dash Cake...

This is an order from my sec sch friend Michelle who wanted to order a Rainbow Dash cake for her boss who likes rainbow dash. Now the question is, who is rainbow dash? Haha.. Seriously I have never heard of it so I went to google search it and tadah, it is actually one of the character of My Little Pony and it looks like this.

Her requirement is simple, she just wants Rainbow dash on the cake with a rainbow theme. Therefore, I bought a Rainbow dash figurine and placed it on the cake. This is a very simple and neat cake where I dyed the few rainbow colours and had them placed on a blue based cake to represent the sky and the rainbow with clouds on it as well.

Happy Birthday Eddie!

Hope her boss likes the cake and have fun with the Rainbow Dash toy!

Princess Cinderella Castle Cake...

An order came from my neighbour Pey Ling who's daughter, Joyce, is celebrating her 4th birthday. She actually wanted 2 cakes, one for her party at home and the other for her party in school. So for the birthday party at home, she wanted a Princess Cinderella theme and thus I suggested a castle cake for her (I once made a castle cake for Sophie's 6th birthday in my previous post). Therefore she decided on a 6" and 8" castle cake with a Cinderella figurine on top. As they preferred pastel colours, I've changed the colour theme to ivory and baby pink instead.

It actually took me quite some time to find the Cinderella figurine and this actually came with the mouse (I forgot her name) and is a collectible edition. This is really a cake that requires lots of effort and it took me 6 hours to complete the decoration. So for the decorations, I placed vines and flowers on the castle which is ivory based. I also placed a pillow under Cinderella's heel to prop it upright as it was looking downwards and I wanted to make it look straight instead. I hard a hard time making the base of the cone as it was too soft and is not able to harden. But thinking that the ice cream cone is not very heavy, the base should be able to withstand its weight. However I was wrong, hours after the cake was delivered, one of the cone actually came off as the base kind of soften and tilt to a side. I'm really apologetic but luckily the cone can be placed right back and the cake is still in a good shape thereafter. But this is really a good lesson learnt for me whereby next time I have to make sure that the base is sturdy enough to withstand the weight. I'm really sorry about it but luckily the party still went on smoothly. Thank god!

The mouse on the castle.

Happy Birthday Joyce!

Complimentary lemon cheese cupcakes!

Therefore part 1 of Joyce's 4th birthday party is done! Stay tuned for part 2 of her birthday!

Monkeys and crocodile cake...

This is an order from Jeremy who wants to celebrate the birthday of the Aug babies with his group of friends for 20 yrs since secondary school (you can roughly guess his age). Anyway, he was going around the theme of being ridiculous and illogical (crap) and there came about this idea of having a crocodile carrying two monkeys on its back. And to add on, the crocodile will be swimming in a pool instead. Ok, this really sounds like a crappy idea but it feels fun and challenging at the same time since the idea is totally out of the box and won't be able to come out from my "logical" mind. So I started out with the molding of the crocodile first.

I wanna bite you!

The body of the crocodile is quite easy to mold but the more tedious part is actually the teeth where I have to stick it on one by one. I left the spikes in the middle empty as the monkeys will sit on the body of the crocodile later on. I thought it looks rather cute and I'm quite happy with it. Next on are the monkeys. I actually went online to search for a tutorial on how to make the monkeys and following the steps, the monkeys are out. Thanks for the tutorial!

Don't the monkeys look cute but a bit retarded?

As Jeremy requested for female monkeys, thus I placed two ribbons on their hair to indicate their gender. And to make them look like best friends, I had their hands placed on each others' shoulders and also one of the monkey's hand on the crocodile's head. And that's it, the main leads of the cake are done!

Next up is the swimming pool which I just covered the cake in blue fondant and then placed white fondant across the side which I drew lines on it to make them look like white tiles. I also placed a ladder at the back of the pool which is blocked by the monkeys. And tadah, the cake is complete!

Monkeys happily sitting on the crocodile.

Best buddies forever!

The cake was a hit at the party and somehow the crocodile became a dinosaur! Oh my! But glad they like it and had fun!

Dinosaur or crocodile?