Shirt Cake

Shanee wanted a cake for her daddy and the most typically ordered ones are of cause shirt cakes. This is my first attempt at a shirt cake and although I feel that the it did manage to look like a shirt cake, it was badly done. especially the collar part as my fondant just started working up. I had to piece the collar up like a puzzle and make do without a piece of paper with the actual picture to help me through. :( Do leave me comments on your thoughts and what could have been done to make it better.

Till' my next Kitchen Adventure, God Bless!

Happy Birthday, Girl!

Anna's sister had her birthday 2 weeks ago but somehow only now Anna decided to get her a birthday cake. :p

She decided on cupcakes finally instead of petit fours and she wanted something special and pretty. I knew she likes something unusual so I gave her a garden theme. Her sister's favourite colours would be pink so we alternated the pink with dark choc frosting and I placed fondant accents on the cupcakes. Some had cute flowers, some had little bumble bees and others had dragon flies and butterflies. Here are the pictures. :)

She was so happy with it being plain as well after she saw how pretty the plain swirls were.

But ofcuz after we laid on the pretty little insects - she couldnt have wanted it any other way.

Top view of the final product.

The garden theme came out pretty succesful. Well, till' my next Kitchen Adventure, God Bless!

Cutest Doggie Cuppies!

Back from a long weekend off due to the Deepavali season, so I have not had the chance to blog on my latest creations. Well here is one. I thought it is a must to put this pics up because I felt personally it was one of my best so far.

Shanee's manager wanted cupcakes and she gave me this design she took off the internet. I took that and being a newbie, it was rather brave of me to take on the challenge. But nevermind that, I got home and got started. ;)

Here's the outcome :)

What did I tell ya'?? Pretty cute eh?

Till my next Kitchen Adventure. :)))

God Bless.

Happy Birthday Shaalen!

Shanee's little niece turned one yesterday and I was asked to bake a cake. It was my first time baking a cake for a little baby so I gave the birthday girls mum a few pics which I thought would be pretty and fitting enough for a 1 year old girl. One was finaly selected and I got to work on it - the downside to all this is, I had ONE day! That means after work if I start - I would basically have less then 10 hours to work on it. So I decided to get a move on the cake soonest possible and as soon as I reached home I started on the batter. They wanted a rich butter cake so out came my mother's family recipe that has been past down generation to generation. I wonder if my daughter or son plan on being a pastry chef or will this butter cake recipe die with me? hmm.. 'cake' for thought. :)

Anyways back to my current story.

While the cake baked, I made my marshmallow fondant and started working on the flower petals. I did not have the exact molds so I pressed the fondant into my tart mould and as soon as I got the flower print, I hand molded them to make it look real enough. As for the darker pink flowers, I took some fondant and made tiny circles then placed them on my sponge and with the back of my spoon, I pressed it down to get that lovely petal effect. I put those together and filled the center with a lighter pink flower made from round balls and I then placed a little green ball in the center.

The topper was actually a ladybug - but it does not really look like your regular garden ladybug. It looked like an animated little bug you would find in your Play House Disney cartoons! But I found it soo cute anyway! I made the feet into a long snack that was about 1.5 cm thick and cut 4 even sizes of about 2 inches long. I placed them together and draped a 2" round sheet (light pink fondant) on it to form a shell. Then with the darker pink, I made small round shapes and placed it on the shell. The head was made from a green ball and I made the eyes and the mouth and stuck it into the body with 2 toothpicks. as for the antenna I took smaller slivers from the tooth pick, wrapped it in white fondant and stuck it on.

Her name was placed on individual hearts and lined up in front of the cake. 'Happy Birthday' was written on the cake board around the sides in pink.

By the time I draped the cake with the fondant and started decorating it, it was 5.15am! TIRED but very satisfied, I said a little prayer, blessed the cake and blessed the little birthday girl and into the cake box it went. The next day I delivered it and I hope everyone was happy with it! :)

Till' my next kitchen adventure, God bless.

I am packed this whole two weeks of October with orders and in all the midst of baking and baking and more baking i get a phone call from Malkit asking me to come over to her place because the whole family including my mum (who i have not seen for 2 weeks straight by the way) is in kl. So i told her to give me some time to finish up my baking and i'l try be there soonest. while baking i had extra cupcakes then what i initially prepared for so i decided to make some lovely designs for them as a little gift for when i visit them later in the day (actually i wanted to add on more variations to my cupcake designs.. hehe).

i decided to make something pretty and i knew my litle nephew would want something fun so i decided to make a few fun ones and some pretty ones which the ladies would appreciate.

here are some of the designs i made.

Cute little elmos and cookie monsters

Could you tell me how to get... how to get to Sesame Street? :)

Elmo!

My nephew was excited but it was the father that could not contain the joy when he saw these fellars!

Something for halloween?

Simple butter creme design.

Something prettier for the ladies. The flowers were made with marshmallow fondant.

Here are the flower cupcakes and the simple and classic yellow swirl cuppie with colourful sprinkles (far right) all lined up in a row.

Till' my next kitchen adventure! God bless!

Red and Pink Cupcakes

A regular customer of mine had messaged me on FB with a request of 16 cupcakes and she wanted a simple design for her cupcakes. So I set out to thinking for 'simple' ideas and simple should be easy right? But no - I just could not find anything in my overloaded brain that was simple enough! So I got on facebook and she had given me an idea of what she liked from my FB 'Cupcake Craze' album. Simple plain red and hot pink cupcakes with a little white flower in the middle. So red and Hot pink it was!

You'd think simple design with a simple enough cupcake recipe - it should all go smooth and well and easy right? Not exactly - my first batch was a flop! It wasn't because I got my recipe wrong or anything but halfway through baking - the hubby calls and says he is stranded with no transportation home! What do I do? Leave the house with the cupcakes unattended! Yes! Yes! I know! Careless and rresponsible but honestly - there was a timer and everything and I really could not wait till' it was done before I fetched him cuz' that would take tooooooo long. So I set the timer at roughly 15 mins and left the house (I thought 15 mins was enough because the cupcakes were in individual cups and not a whole cake tin so I did not want to risk burning them by setting a longer time!).

Wen I came back - my dark rich choc moist cupcakes were 'screwed'! It had sunken into the bottom because the cooking process of 15 mins were not enough and so when I tried to rebake it - it just did not work out right. Well, what else was left for the poor darlings but the 'trash can fate'... "NOOOO! Not the trash can fate!!!" screamed the actually rather guilty-instead-of-sincerely-concerned hubby. I looked at my cuppies and said a little apology under my breath and goodbye it was.

Out came the butter, sugar, flour, cocoa, eggs and the rest and another batch was whipped up in under 10 mins. This time I made sure it went right. And the results - satisfyingly good. :)





































Till my next Kitchen adventure - God bless. :)

Kamasutra Cupcakes :)

Who said the 'Kamasutra' could only be expressed in the bedroom? :) Here are some cupcakes I made a while back with 'Kamasutra' positions on it. Had not had the time to post it up so here's a whole blog on em'!

As usual, I needed to consult my friends for ideas and 2 ideas came about in our discussions - Roadsigns and 'Kamasutra' positions. Both were fairly good ideas but roadsigns would mean that I will need to work with fondant again and I really just wanted a simpler option like a plain coloured butter cream icing. So in the end I decided to go with the Kamasutra positions.

These cupcakes I felt were a real charmer especially when bought for the hubby or wifey that has been away for far too long on a business trip - or it can just simply be a dessert with a touch of humour for that kinky best friend of yours. Well whaetver the occasion, enjoy! :p



Positions (Clockwise): Vienese Oyster, Lovers wrap, Sixty nine and Butterfly




Positions (Clockwise): Blow job, Reverse cowgirl, Doggie and Wheel Barrow




This was the simplest to do - haha.




Another type of position.

The famous butterfly position.

Doggie Style

Reverse Cowgirl move

I dunno why but some of my cupcakes were acting up so this one went out of shape. This is actually more famously know as the 'Superman' position after that song by Soulja Boy.

All in all there were 9 positions. There's more but I only baked 9 cuppies because they were just samples to design for my portfolio. Didn't want to waste a big batch. :)

Till my next kitchen adventure, take care and God bless!

Emoticons??? Or cupcakes?

I had a bad day at the office and my tummy cramps were not helping the situation! My boss was really laying it hard on me and I needed to de-stress - unlike many who would prefer a good massage or facial - I needed to bake! Chatting with my cousin, we went thru ideas for my bake-my-stress-away mission and after a lot of discussions and some random but extremely wild ideas thrown out by my cousin, we both decided on emoticon cuppies. What better way to express my current situation and how I feel about it all. So I waited till the clock struck 6pm - and I CIOWED! Hit the road! SPED home! :p


Once at home - although still in a whole lot of pain, I mixed the cake batter and baked my cupcakes. Took out my marshmallow fondant - looked at my sheet to guide me on the facial expressions and started working hard on it. I was in really alot of pain this time and my cramps were hurting my feet and legs so I sat down while the hubby passed me everything I needed. He really is a darling... at times. :P :p :P!! Kidding - kidding! :)



Once the cuppies were baked, I allowed them to cool down and then I layered a thing layer of butter cream and draped the face over the cakes. Here's the end results.

After it was over, I took a nice long hot shower - and I was once again, stress-free! Sigh - it works all the time. :)

Polka Polka

Polka dots are always a hit! I was bored at home - and I thought why not make a polka dotted cake. Here are the pics of my simple 9" sheet cake. I decided on a simple plain butter cake and with Anna my cousin in mind (she is a polka dot freak!) I set to work.




Orange and pink makes a good combination.



















Top View

















A slice of cake.










Another angle of the cake.












I did really cute cupcakes too - but that'l be another posting. Please feel free to leave a comment ya? :)

Clam Shell Birthday Cake

I have been so busy with the baking lately that I have not had the time to create a blog. Well, about time I did then don't you think? :)



Last week, my godsister messaged me on Msn and she said she had seen the cakes I had posted on FB and she thought it be great to have me design a cake for her good friends birthday party. So I said, "Hey babe, I'm no pro but I'll see what I can do. Got a pic?" (its sort of like my verbal disclaimer so ppl know im not some big shot pro like Tracey from Something Special). So she passed me the visual and when I saw it I thought ...... can I? This is really difficult and the design part is up to me so thats even worse because my brother is the artist in the family - not me! But hey, if I don't dive in and start on these novelties, I would lose out alot on those happy faces when they see the outcome of the product. So I plucked up enough courage and I replied "Yeah sure! Of cause I can." Later, I smaked my forehead real hard! LOL.



To cut a long story short, I got to work. I thought of what would be best and how do I arrange it out and I finally decided to work with yellow and orange fondant for shells. I took out my Shell moulds (thanks to Shanee who got it for me for my birthday!) and I started moulding. I put a white pearl in the center and it some how did not have that 'wow' factor I was looking for so I had a yellow pearl for my orange shells and I alternated the same with my yellow shells. They looked cute, so I put those aside and I started on the main clamp. This was difficult as I had to hand sculpt it and its difficult to do that in a country thats known for its HUMIDITY (It is difficult to work with fondant under humid conditions)! So I sat under the aircond directly and some how I managed to pull through - barely perfect but it looked like a clam alright. I allowed that to sit and dry and I helped it stay held up with a pearl that had both the orange and yellow tones in it. That should make for a striking look I thought to my self. Well, pretty satisfied, I let those sit in the fridge to harden.



Next on the list was baking the cake. I needed to make my special choc moist cake so I set to doing that immediately. The cake was fairly large and the one batch I made had fit the entire 13" round cake tin perfectly (usualy this one batch can fit into a 9" square tin and a 6.5" round tin). No worries there, done and baked, I took it out, let it cool down and then started frosting it. I just did a basic crumb coat - which reminds me, I NEED TO GET A TURN TABLE! It was so difficult geting the frosting around the edges without having those lil turntables. After the first thin layer, I put the cake into the fridge to chill..... and I SLEPT - it was nearly 2am and I had work the next day at 8am!



The next day,I rushed back from the office and started immediaty on the cake. I needed to deliver it to the club at about 11pm and I had barely 1 1/2 hours to work on the cake (the jam in KL is horrible! It really really is getting worse!). I took my cake out, whipped up some fresh butter cream and I spreaded another layer onto the cake evenly. Back into the fridge it went to chill for a bit. Then it was time to work the marshmallow fondant. I decided in my head to cover the cake in white fondant and place the shells on it. But it looked plain in my imagination, so I decided to make blue waves to cover the sides for that extra colour. I rolled out a big sheet of white marshmallow fondant and I took my cake out from the fridge, smoothen out the edges, and draped my white marshmallow fondant onto the cake. Covered it as neatly as possible and since I did'nt have the fondant smoother thinghy's, I used my spatula instead. Once I was happy with that, I took the remaining white fondant and coloured it blue. I rolled it into a long snake and flattened it then tried my best to make the waves - and then I covered the sides with it gently trying my best not to break it as it was really really soft despite my aircond and fan running at full blast!



Once that was done, I placed my little clams on the cake and I sprinkled ground almonds on top to resemble sand. With blue icing I wrote "HAPPY BDAY LALA LIAW" and the cake was done. Or was it? It looked good but I thought something was missing. What could I add to make it even nicer - pearls? Could I maybe add in some pearls around the edges of the cake? Hmmmm... I stopped thinkin too much due to lack of time and the humidity problem, and I finally decided to roll out tiny pearls with my remaining orange and yellow fondant. Then I lined them up at the bottom of the cake - and yay! I was satisfied - partly, for it was not my satisfaction that I was in search off, it was the customer! So I prayed a silent prayer. Blessed the cake and into the box it went.



The very next day, I got another message on Msn. "Anne! The cake was awesome!!!!! Damn cun! And it was yummy!" I breath a sigh of relieve. I was so excited she was excited. My first fondant cake was a hit and now im FULLY satisfied. :)


Pics of the final outcome.

I had to take the pic with my mobile fon so its not so clear. You can see that the cracks were slowly starting to form - that was due to the temprature change and the fondant was between drying up and melting. If this happens to your fondant, just rub a little bit of shortening on it to hold it together then slowly smoothen it out. At the bottom, I lined the pearls around the edges.

The tiny clams. I took a paint brush and lightly brushed on some colour for the effect.

The sand is made from ground almonds. I just sprinkled some around the clam shells.

So all in all, it was good. Everyone loved it and I was glad they enjoyed it!

~A Bouquet of Cupcakes~

When people are in love, they buy flowers. When they have a friend who is not feeling well, they buy flowers. When its a special occasion, they buy flowers... where am I going with this? Wait for it.... ok, here goes -- Why buy a bouquet of flowers when you can present them with a bouquet of CUPCAKES!? Okie Okie, so you are still very confused. Then why don't I allow the pictures to do the talking?

Two toned Pink Carnation

Pretty Cupcakes all in a row

More shapes and colours..

A box of 6 'flowers' are RM 25 - colours are of your choice.

A box of 9 'flowers' are RM 38 - Colours of your choice.

There are three different flower patterns to choose from - Carnation, Begonia and Buttercup. Flavour of cakes are - Dark Moist Choc and Butter.

Do email me at a.manuel86@gmail.com for more information or to place your orders.

Till my next post - Take care and God Bless and HAPPY MERDEKA MALAYSIA!