Cupcake Obsession

(*sorry cake above was cut by the birthday girl before i managed to grab this photo :p)

Today is a very special day for a special someone…. it’s my husband’s grandma’s (aka Mama’s) birthday! She is turning 88 this year and to look at her, you wouldn’t even think she’s a year over 60! Her vivacious character, booming voice and sharp mind make her someone to reckon with. :) Plus do you know she successfully plays the stock market!!! She’s the only grandma i know that actually plays the stock market and consistently makes money at it!! haha… She trades better than most people i know come to think of it Mama… how about some stock tips!!

Well.. as this was her 88th birthday, I wanted to surprise her with a special birthday cake. As I knew that one of her biggest passions is her garden, it was easy enough for me to decide on the theme of the cake. But i wanted to go a step further an include some subtle elements into the cake that makes it uniquely her cake. First off, it was to include the specific flowers or plants in her garden into the cake. Her favourites included ferns, ixora’s, and one of her favourite plants, the Anthurium. In addition she has a wooden bench that she usually sits on to admire and appreciate her own flower garden. Every now and then, her favourite pet, Tyra, would join her. Tyra’s a little Jack Russell that just never seemed to grow. I would describe her as one tiny, sly, evil and scheming and dog i tell you. You can literally see her thinking up her little schemes with just one look from her. I will see if i can get a picture posted up of what she looks like so you can see what i mean :p Shucks.. couldn’t find any.. put here’s a picture of the real Mama holding Tyra

Well, based on all the elements, i decided to make a 2 tier cake, with grandma sitting on the top of the cake on her bench with Tyra in her arms and her being surrounded by all her glorious flowers on the bottom tiers. After confirming the design, i began work on the flowers and my little miniature grandma figurine or “mini Mama”. As i know that Mama usually wears baju’s and has a bright red one with white flowers splashed all over it, i decided to make my mini Mama wearing that baju. I then added the little details such as her accessories like her little jade bangle, watch,  earrings and rings.  Once those were completed, i started on the bench, and added some wood prints on the bench to give it that woody look. This in itself took 2 days for me to complete. Thinking everything was all set, i left them out to dry.. lo and behold it started raining.. and raining and raining for 3 days consecutively!!!! Aww man…. i could see my little figurine starting to sink into itself with the high humidity.. wahhh!!!! Praying for the sun to come out or at least for it to stop raining, i kept my fingers crossed the next few days and finally it stopped raining and though there was no sun, the humidity did lighten up a little allowing my little “mini Mama” to dry. Whew!! Here’s a close up picture of my completed mini Mama.. so does it look anything like the photo above?

So now i only had left to bake the cakes, tort them, frost them and cover them in fondant, which though it sounds easy, takes me about 1 day to complete. The part i hate most, kneading the colour into a huge chunk of fondant… it’s a serious work out on the arms and wrists!! haha.. oh well.. at least i get to work off some of the calories that comes from eating the chunks left from levelling the cake :p

Well.. after all that work, this was the final product. Mama was very happy when she saw it and you can see her in the picture below pointing out all the little things that made the mini Mama recognisable as her Happy Birthday Mama!!! And may you have many more to come

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Well.. to start off this post, i just had to say that this past week has been a pretty slow week for me and the continued economic slowdown has been depressing me as well as my cakes apparently.. this was a chocolate cake i baked the other day.. apparently my mood was affecting my baking so that the cake ended up not rising and sinking ever so slightly in the middle… aargggh!!! :( Luckily it was just for us to eat at home so it wasn’t too bad :p

However, the week was soon looking up after I received an e-mail from Ko Chen. Ko Chen had stumbled across my cakes while surfing the net and asked if i could make her daughter’s 1st birthday cake for her. She had loved the pyjama themed cake I made for Valerie and wanted me to make Natalie’s 1st birthday cake for her. She even provided me with a picture of the cake she wanted!! Wow!! I was so impressed since it’s not easy looking after a 1 year old, working and still having to look for cake ideas on the net!!

Anyway after several discussions with her as to whether she should have a 2 tier cake or a 1 tier cake with cupcakes on the side, etc, Ko Chen finally decided on a 9″ cake with a little girl clutching Piglet and some complimenting cupcakes to finish it off. The reason for the Piglet, well it is Natalie’s favourite soft toy and she carries it whereever she goes so of course you had to have it on the topper right?! So after confirming the design with Ko Chen, I immediately started work on the cake topper. As usual I went on a hunt for ideas for a cute little girl topper and one of the first places i searched was to Lorraine McKay of course!!! Her cakes are a constant inspiration to me and I always hope that i would be able to someday make cakes as gorgeous as hers.  I’m still a long way off but i think I’m slowly getting better Guess what! I hit the jackpot on my first try.. Lorraine done a little girl topper that I thought would be perfect.. so using that as a model, i began modelling my own little Natalie clutching Piglet. This topper is, to date, the figurine with the most details I’ve ever attempted, and took me a good 3 days to complete to my satisfaction. So I was actually pretty happy with the way she turned out although i still think i need to improve on the face… :p

Oh and just for fun, i thought i’d show you a picture of how tall the little girl figurine is. That’s a Nivea lip gloss tube next to the little topper, and well.. i’d say she’s about the same size as that topper 

As for the cake itself, as I wanted it to look really sweet, and keep in line with Ko Chen’s request for flowers on the cake, I decided to use little flowers all around the border of the cake as well as having a matching border on the top of the cake. This was very time consuming to do as each individual flower had to be positioned on the cake exactly so to get the pattern and effect i wanted. Plus, to give the cake that extra shine, each individual flower had to be dusted with some luster dust to give it that nice glisten in the lights.

However, once everything was assembled i was very happy with the cake. And everything was even more worthwhile when i saw Ko Chen’s delighted expression with the cake I made. As for little Natalie, she was too distracted with my little schnauzer, Jasper, to look at the cake.. haha.. But all in all, seeing Ko Chen’s delight with the cake just made all the time and effort put into the cake worthwhile

Unfortunately for me, stupid little me forgot to take pictures of the little complimenting cupcakes i had made as well… they were on nutella cupcakes with piglet and little girls as toppers. Arrgghh.. Ko Chen do you have any pictures of the little cupcakes to share? :p

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First off for this post, i really have to thank a very special girl for helping me to spread the word about my cakes and recommending me to her friends. This person is Wenqi, who had the honour of being the first person who ordered my first offical cake from me. After seeing her cake, 2 of her other friends have also approached me to do their 21st birthday cakes for them. Valerie’s pyjama and cow themed cake was one and well… this is the other.

Joy, a friend of Wenqi’s contacted me shortly after Wenqi’s birthday and asked if i could do a birthday cake for her too. Her 21st birthday was coming up shortly and she wanted a unique and fantastic birthday cake to celebrate this special day. After having several discussions with her, she decided on doing an Angel themed cake. Her specific request was for a central Angel topper for the cake and have the Angel holding a rose. After some brainstorming, and to distinguish it from Wenqi’s cake, i also decided to do some cute little cherub as an accompaniment to the main Angel, which was to represent Joy, and of course the usual boatload of lots of clouds all around the cake

In addition to the cake, Joy also requested for a batch of cupcakes featuring 3 cherubs, 3 roses, and 3 dogs. The dog was to represent her little faithful companion

Anyway to make sure i could do up the main angel to look like Joy, Joy sent me a picture of herself and her dogs for me to see. I realise now that modelling a figure after someone specifically is actually really hard to do.. but i do hope that i succeeded at getting the angel to look just a little like Joy. Anyway.. her’s some other close up shots of the cherubs on the cake

As you can see, i decided to do all the cherubs in different positions for both the cake and the cupcake toppers. My favourite of all the cherubs on the cake, had to be the one with his tongue sticking out and making a monkey face. For the cherub cupcakes, my favourite was the one that was taking a snooze Don’t you think they’re just so cute?!

Anyway, here’s a shout out to Joy wishing her a very Happy 21st Birthday and i do hope that she liked the cakes and cupcakes

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Do you guys remember me doing up a batch of cupcakes just recently for a little girl named Khairina? Well.. her mom threw her another little birthday party for just the family and asked if i could do another Little Mermaid cake for Khairina. Aren’t the little girls nowadays just so lucky!!! Like another other little girl i could mention, Khairina also had 2 parties to celebrate her birthday!!! Aren’t these girls just so lucky??!! I never had 2 parties in my day… i’m so envious!! What i remember of my birthday parties was usually a celebration at McDonalds or just a simple celebration at home with a cake. Never did we get 2 celebrations for our birthdays!!! Just think about the sugar high the little kids would be on from all the cake and candy.. haha. Gosh… the parties must be wild!! Hmm… now I wonder if children now not only get 2 parties but get to have 2 presents from everyone too!!! That’d be so great!! Haha…

Anyway… the cake order from from Joanne, Khairina’s mom, was of course very welcome as cakes are always fun to do and you have all that surface space on the cake to decorate and go crazy with. Very different from cupcakes… though i hasten to add that i do love decorating cupcakes as there is just something soothing about them. Oh well.. enough of my ramblings and on to the cake.

As Khairina loves Ariel, the Little Mermaid, Joanne asked if i could do a cake with Ariel, Sebastian and of course Flounder as toppers on the cake for her. As it was only to be a little party at home, they didn’t need too big a cake and had decided on a 7″ cake. Deciding on the main characters to add on the cake were simple enough, but i had to decide how to place the toppers and what they should look like. E.g. would Ariel be sitting? Standing? Lying down? etc. After searching on the internet for images and ideas, i finally decided to make Ariel lying on her tummy with her hands on her chin and a dreamy look on her face. Flounder and Sebastian would of course be placed just next to her giving her their usual advice In addition to the 3 main characters, i also made fillers for the cake like corals, starfish, etc to add on to the cake to give it the whole underwater look.

I was actually really happy with the way Ariel turned out since I’ve never done a figurine lying down before.. and though i had some trouble with her hair and had to redo it several times, i was very happy with the final look. So what do you guys think of the cake??

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Rosaline called me up the other day and asked if i could do some cupcakes for her to celebrate her baby’s 1st month. Of course being neighbours and her husband being my hubby’s ex-colleague i of course agreed.

After discussing with Rosaline, we finally decided that the design of the cupcakes would be the same as the previous ones i’d done here. I love making these cupcakes as i think the sweet pea design and baby booties are so cute

Anyway after doing up the cupcakes i decided to make a little cake to go along with the cupcakes as a gift to Alan and Rosaline. There are lots of ideas for baby shower cakes out there and many of them are just gorgeous.. but as i wanted to do something a little different and incorporate both the parents and baby in the cake theme, i finally decided to make 2 figurines to represent Alan and Rosaline, and Rosaline holding the baby Rachel in her arms.

As i also wanted to incorporate elements of the baby theme, i decided to place the figurines sitting at the side of the cake so i could decorate the top of the cake with the baby cradle and other baby things. This was how the final cake turned out.. i thought it looked quite cute and was really happy with how it turned out

Here’s a picture of Alan, Rosaline and baby Rachel with their cake Hmm… does anyone think that the figurines look anything like Alan and Rosaline?? haha….

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Wenqi’s friend Valerie contacted me soon after Wenqi’s birthday saying that she loved the cake i did for Wenqi and was wondering if i could make a cake for her birthday as well. I was ecstatic upon hearing this and told Valerie that of course i would be delighted to do her cake.

On our first discussion Valerie told me that she would really really love if i could do a cake with all the soot sprites/ soot balls as she loved them. Unfortunately after some discussion we agreed that visually if the cake was full of soot sprites it may not look very visually attractive. So we decided to go with her pyjama themed party to come up with cake ideas.

The initial idea we came up with was to do a girl in pyjamas with sheep around.. i.e. counting sheep.. but Valerie being the zany and off the wall girl that she is decided to that she wanted cows instead of sheep.. haha.. It was a zany idea.. but hey.. it’s cute right So we finally decided on doing a 9″ chocolate cake filled with chocolate buttercream and covered with fondant. The cake would be topped with a little girl in pyjamas holding a soot sprite and having cows surround her.

I thought this cake turned out fabulous and i was very very happy with the way the girl figurine came out considering it’s only my 3rd attempt at making a human figurine. I could see Valerie was very happy with the cake when she collected it and her surprised and happy exclamation made my day Happy birthday once again Valerie and thanks for giving me the opportunity to do the cake. It was great fun!!

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Nicholas contacted me the other day and asked if i could do 2 cakes for her niece, Patrice, whose birthday would be on Saturday. The lucky little girl would be having 2 parties, one in the afternoon and another one in the evening. Isn’t she so lucky!!! 2 parties and 2 birthday cakes!!! Wow!!! I never got 2 cakes?! haha…

Anyhow, after speaking to Nic, who told me that her niece loves Lumpy from Pooh, the colour pink and Hello Kitty, Nic decided that one cake would be a Pooh and friends cake with Heffalump who is known as Lumpy to her niece and the other cake would be a Hello Kitty cake and of course it had to be pink!! Along with the 2 cakes, they also wanted some cupcakes to go with the cake.

I decided to make the pooh cake to resemble them having a little picnic with a mini birthday cake and presents to represent Patrice’s birthday. In addition to these, Nic and i also decided that we should add some balloons, bees, and butterflies to the cake so that these decorations could also be carried through to the cupcakes as well.

As for the Hello Kitty cake, Nic siad it had to be a white and pink themed cake, and as for the cupcakes, she decided on some rainbow cupcakes, flower cupcakes and heart cupcakes.

Hopefully these cupcakes and cakes make the this birthday girl a very very happy girl Happy birthday Patrice!!!

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Jolene e-mailed me the other day asking if i could do her birthday cake and some cupcakes to go with it as well. She had found a picture of the cake and cupcakes that she  wanted.. or at least the rough design and asked if i could do something similar for her. The design she wanted was simple but pretty and was basically a small cake with a female topper on the top with lots of colourful flowers all over the cake. The matching cupcakes were topped with swirls of frosting topped with matching flowers that matched the cake.

After looking through the photos of the cake and cupcakes she sent me, i told Jolene that it wouldn’t be a problem to do the cake. However, Jolene later mentioned that she didn’t really like the female topper and wouldn’t mind if i changed it up a bit although she did like the general design of the cake.

I was quite excited to do the cake as this was my official 2nd cake order.. plus i’d get to practice making my figurines!! Yay!! I love doing figurines although i still think that i have a long way to go to make them look more realistic. But i guess for this being my 2nd attempt, i thought the figurines looked pretty good

The cake i did for Jolene is a 6″ butter cake with buttercream frosting which was covered with a layer of fondant. This is my favourite buttercake recipe and i usually can’t stop eating it whenever i make it.. :p I just hope that Jolene liked the cake as well as i do. Unfortunately the buttercream which was suppose to crust, wasn’t co-operating well with me today due to the humidity and general cloudy weather. So I ended up with a buttercream that didn’t crust which caused me a little bit of trouble when i tried to smooth the fondant. Luckily it didn’t turn out too bad and i was able to start decorating the cake which is my favourite part

I think I’m getting better at making the figurines don’t you :). As for the cupcakes, these are my new and improved nutella cupcakes… with a little surprise inside (which is a whole spoonful of you guessed it! NUTELLA!! Yummy). The cupcakes were swirled with frosting and topped with little flower toppers. I thought they still looked a little plain with just the flower, so decided to add some sprinkles to it. Sprinkles are my all time favourite accessories as i think they really help me to jazz up anything with just a snap of my fingers. :) Trust me these cupcakes are to die for! My hubby swallowed 3 down at one go and he’s supposed to be on a diet!!! haha…

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Yan Xin and Peixin’s cousin’s girlfriend, Wenqi called me the other day asking if i could do a devil and angel themed cake and cupcakes for her 21st birthday. Yan Xin had ordered some birthday cupcakes from me for Peixin the other day so it was great to have an opportunity to make a cake for Wenqi :)

As it was Wenqi’s 21st birthday and hey… everyone only turns 21 right… she wanted a special birthday cake and some cupcakes to go with the cake. I was super excited when i got the call as this would be my first official cake order for me!! Yay!!

You would think that a devil and angel themed cake should be pretty easy to do right? Wrong!!! Trying to combine both a devil and angel on the cake was quite tough considering that Wenqi didn’t want too big a cake as the cake would be eaten only after a heavy dinner and would only be for about 15-20 “not very hungry people”. So.. doing a 2 tier cake was out of the question, leaving me with the problem of coming up with an idea as to how to combine both the devil and angel on a single cake. :p I decided to surf the net to see if i could find any ideas and whether it would get my creative juices flowing… conclusion… I COULDN’T FIND ANYTHING!!! ARGGHHH…

So after thinking long and hard, i decided the best would be to decorate the cake in 2 halves. A half for the angel theme and the other for the devil themed. As Wenqi also loved my 3d cupcakes she requested for some figurines to go on her cake as well.. so of course i had to do a devil and an angel to go on her cake As to how to arrange them, well.. i decided to make them sitting with their backs facing each other and decorating the respective side of the cake with their individual themes. For the devil side, i decided to decorate it with some chocolate pebbles and piping on some frosting in red and yellow to resemble fire. The angel side on the other hand would be decorated with some clouds and stars. This way, i could carry through both the stars and clouds to the angel themed cupcakes and the fire frosting to the devil themed cupcakes. So after finalising the cake design with Wenqi.. i excitedly started on the figurines for the cake. To give more dimensions to the stars as well as the figurines, i bought some edible glitter and brushed on the glitters onto the stars, and figurines.. i thought they worked out great and they looked great too!!!

To tell the truth, as this was my first official cake order, there were some moments where i was afraid that there would be some huge unforseen disaster that would cause me to not be able to deliver the cake to Wenqi on time… that would be a total disaster.. and on her birthday too!!! Yikes… i tell you.. i was having nightmares the night before the cake was due worried about all the things that could go wrong!!

Well.. in the end, i did encounter some problems such as my fondant cracking or sticking to the sheet everytime i tried rolling out the fondant large enough to cover the cake.. then the problem of joining the 2 different colours of fondant together that was suppose to represent the devil and angel side of the cake. In the end, i had to throw away my whole fondant and remake a new batch of fodant which luckily it worked out much better.

In the end everything worked out great… although my little pitchforks on the cupcakes did disintegrate due to the high humidity on the day of collection I think i will have to reinforce my thinner fondant creations in future if i need them to hold firm without support. Sigh.. i hate how the humidity here affects my fondant creations. Wenqi though was super understanding about the humidity problem.. and even though i had to remove the pitchforks from the cupcakes, i think the devil cupcakes were still gorgeous without them. Wenqi was also very happy when she collected the cakes and cupcakes. So overall everything was great.

Happy 21st birthday Wenqi!!! Hope you had a great 21st birthday!!

Oh and for those interested, the cake was a chocolate cake filled and frosted with chocolate buttercream filling then covered in fondant. The angel cupcakes were made with nutella swirled cupcakes and the devil cupcakes were made with my low fat healthy strawberry cupcakes Here’s a shot of my nutella cupcakes.. don’t they look yummy!

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I’ve been getting quite a few requests to make cakes recently.. but I’ve always shyed away from agreeing as i always think that my cake decorating skills are not up to par yet. Thus to date, i’ve only made cakes for my close family members. However, with the encouragement of my hubby and family members i finally decided to do a test cake to see if i could do a really beautiful cake.

I’ve always loved fondant covered cakes as i think they always look so professional and smooth… however, i was always hesistant to try covering a cake with fondant as i was worried about whether i could get it smooth and whether i’d get the problems that everyone seems to get such as wrinkly skin, bubbles under the fondant and well.. not being able to get the fondant smooth! I finally decided to try making one and decided to make a tiny 6″ cake just to see if i could do it. Hee.. lucky for me too that the cake would be just in time for our 1st wedding anniversary as well :p

I made a deliciously rich and sinful tasting butter cake that was super moist and yet had a beautiful crumb. This cake is unbelievable and i couldn’t stop eating the cake bits that i had to cut off after the cake was baked. My hubby was also hanging over my shoulder and after the first bite he finished off all the other bits that were cut off. Goes to show how good the cake tasted!

Well.. i frosted the cake and after that laid the fondant over everything and smoothed it down. I was very worried about the fondant tearing during the process but surprisingly the cake actually turned out quite nicely for a first attempt anyway

I’ve also cut a piece of the cake out just to show you how beautiful the cake crumb looks.. i’m just hoping you can see it from the picture :) Doesn’t it look delicious?!

Ok ok.. i know.. many of you are probably thinking.. hmm.. isn’t this suppose to be a wedding anniversary cake for myself.. and isn’t the theme a bit off… haha.. yeah but i did want something cute so.. hee too bad for hubby Anyway.. i don’t he really bothers about the decorations on the cake so long as the cake itself is yummy.. haha :o) so everyone’s happy

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