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Hi all, I’ve finally managed to get my online cake topper tutorial up and running! So if you are interested, do drop by to take a look here… and if you’re interested just follow my instructions to get your own copy of the tutorial now!
My first, in what i hope will be my first in a series of tutorials, is a Little Lion Cake Topper Tutorial which i hope everyone will be able to enjoy. The simple to follow instructions accompanied with a multitude of step by step pictures provide you with an easy guide to make your own little cake topper! Best of all, anyone can attempt to make this! You don’t need any pre-requsites or completion of any cake decorating courses to attempt to make a Lion topper of your own. Best of all.. you can do it in the comfort of your own home!
If you have any feedback with regards to the tutorials or even requests for any new tutorials, feel free to contact me on my Contact Page. I look forward to hearing from all of you! Thanks for everyone’s support!
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This post is coming super late and yes i know Valentine’s was like nearly 3 weeks ago!!! I know i know.. haha.. so sorry.. i had to find some time to sort out all my pictures, re-size them, etc before i could get my posts up :p
Anyway, this was my special valentine celebration with my hubby this year which i’d thought i’d share with all of you 
This was actually very similar to the very first Valentine’s Day i celebrated with him where instead of going out to celebrate Valentine’s Day he had invited me over to his place instead and said that he’d cook me a special Valentine’s Day meal. When i arrived, i was expecting him to be in a mad rush trying to get everything ready and with his hair stuck on end and a big mess on his shirt. Instead what i found when i arrived was a beautifully cooked steak with a side of mash potatoes, all laid out on a romantically candle-lit table for 2!!! He had even taken the effort to a lay a table cloth over the table!!! After the romantic dinner for 2, he then led me from the table, asked me to close my eyes and led me to my Valentine’s Day present which was a big Forever Friends Sugar Bear holding a bouquet of roses… and… to top off the whole evening, he seranaded me to a love song with the accompaniment of his guitar…. wasn’t he romantic!!!
This year, i think my hubby wanted to recapture our first Valentine’s Day experience all over again and we decided to cook our own special meal. What was on the menu, well… a delicious crouton salad, roasted lamb in an aromatic rosemary and herb sauce, fried olive rice, and for dessert, sinfully rich milk chocolate mousse.
We decided to cheat with the salad and just bought the individualised packeted salads from Cold Storage, and while hubby cooked the roasted lamb, i tackled the fried olive rice and chocolate mousse. The dinner was a really sinful affair and we both were stuffed at the end of the meal. As for the chocolate mousse, it was a sinfully rich dessert that just melted on the tongue…
I do hope to share the recipes for everything in one of my posts later on once i get everything properly organised.. but for now.. there’s only the pictures for you to drool over!!
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As everyone knows, Chinese New Year is just around the corner and we will be ushering in the Year of the Ox this year.
As usual, i’ve been baking up a storm in my kitchen with the usual CNY fare such as pineapple tarts and almond cookies of course!!!! As you can see i tried to be arty in some of my shots but wasn’t very successful.. haha At any rate, if anyone’s interested in ordering these delicious CNY goodies, feel free to drop me an e-mail or a sms
I can never get enough of these goodies and you can be assured that i made sure that each pineapple tart is filled with plump and succulent pineapple filling. You can be sure that none of my tarts or almond cookies are stingy with the filling since i myself dislike store bought pineapple tarts whose filling is sooo miserly that all you can taste is their pastry which not only is hard as a rock but which has butter flavouring added with an over-generous hand.. gross!!!
As for the almond cookies, with each bite well.. need i say more, i think the pictures speak for themselves.. see all those yummy chunks of almonds that are in the cookie! Yummy, delicious. Only problem is that with these you can never stop at just one so don’t blame me if post CNY you realised you’ve gained weight after eating these babies haha..
Here’s wishing everyone a very Prosperous Chinese New Year and hopefully the coming of the Ox year will bring a good year to the stock market!
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Posted 1 year, 2 months ago. 2 comments
Well.. i’m finally back from my long 3 week holiday from Europe!! Whew!!! First off.. a big thank you to everyone that was so patient with me for being so slow in returning their e-mails. As for those that e-mailed me but I was not able to do your orders… I’m so sorry.. but do keep me in mind for any future orders and i really hope to get the chance to do your orders next time round
Anyway.. the 3 week holiday was just a mad rush… other than the last few days of the trip, everything was just a big huge rush and i think it’s the most walking and exercise I’ve done for the longest time!!! I think i need a break after this holiday! We visited Barcelona, Naples, Florence, Dubrovnik, Venice, Athens, Rome, Santorini, Milan, Italian Lakes and a couple of other places which i can’t remember offhand at the moment! I have to say my favourite was the Italian Lakes… it was just gorgeous and being the lazy being that i am i probably loved it cos it was the only place where i could laze the day away and just take in the scenary.. hee hee.
The only thing i regret is that there just wasn’t enough time for me to really enjoy each of these places in full. A lot of times it was just a big huge rush from one place to another, with only sufficient time to only get a small taste of each place. Sigh… i guess i’ll have to go back to my favourite places individually again at a later date :p
But I have to say prices there are seriously high!!! Even just eating at tapas bars which are supposed to be the cheapest places to eat, i still found it way too expensive. Plus.. i guess being Singaporeans we’re all spoiled by the amount of variety of foods that are available here. I have to admit, by the 2nd week of the holiday i was starting to get tired of eating the food there as most of the time we ended up eating pizza, pasta or beef or sandwiches! haha… give me a good plate of chicken rice, nasi lemak or Char Kway Teow man!! However, i have to admit… their thin crust pizzas I had there was delicious. The pizza crust was super crispy and even a simple margherita pizza was fabulous.. nothing like the pizza’s we get in Singapore. I have to admit i also got addicted to the habit of having bread dipped in a mix of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, pepper and salt. Yummy. Plus.. hehe.. on my last day of the holiday i managed to get a recipe for meringue from a small family restaurant in Lake Maggiore that has been open since 1812!!! Oh wow.. haha.. they offered to let me stay for 2 months to learn how to make all their desserts!! Oh man.. if i had money i definitely would!
Well.. that’s about it for my holiday.. i’ll probably try and post some pics up later on. Right now.. i’m suffering from jet lag.. so see ya later ;p Oh.. and do forgive any typos or grammatical errors.. i’m seriously stoned out… i’ll do the editing again later.. hee hee
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Posted 1 year, 8 months ago. Add a comment
Hi all… thanks once again for your interest in my cupcakes and blog. Unfortunately, i will be away from Singapore from the 30th May to the 22 June 2008 and will sadly not be able to fill any cupcake orders during this period of time. However, i continue to look forward to hearing from you and you can continue to contact me via e-mail at serene@cupcakeobsession.com. However, i may take a while to get back to you during this period of time due to uncertainty of internet access. :p
Thanks once again for visiting my humble blog and feel free to leave your comments. I look forward to doing up all your new and exciting orders when i get back!!!
Cheers, Serene
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Posted 1 year, 9 months ago. Add a comment
Well… as promised these are the updated pictures of the assembled cake and a couple of my hubby eating the cake The cake was a hit!! Everyone gobbled it up within a couple of minutes. The only fault i could find with it was that the frosting was a little too sweet.. at least for me :p but my hubby loved it. Think the next time i do make this, i’ll reduce the amount of sugar in the frosting
Here’s the birthday boy making a wish, blowing out the candles and of course having his first bite of cake.. i thought the last pic of him eating the cake was hilarious!!!
Dinner was fantastic as well as my hubby’s parents just arrived back from Perth bringing back with them 2 giant lobsters and 2 huge snow crabs that were feeling quite frisky after their flight. Well.. they couldn’t escape the cooking pot and they were soon served up on a platter for our dinner… mwah ha ha….
These lobsters and crab was fabulously fresh.. we even had lobster sashimi… oh god!! Delicious!!!!
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Posted 1 year, 10 months ago. Add a comment
Well.. today is my birthday… sob sob.. finally hit the big 3-0… gawd!!!! Well.. i decided to spend this special day of mine doing whatever i wanted.. and that was to laze in bed, play with my dogs, watch tv and haha.. do a little reading and surfing the internet for new ideas and recipes.. what else!!
As this was a weekday, my hubby and me had decided before hand that we’d celebrate my birthday this weekend rather than today.. so you can imagine my surprise when the doorbell rang this evening and i opened the door to find a delivery man holding a nice big bunch of roses for me…. Isn’t he sweet… my hubby of course.. not the delivery man :p The roses were gorgeous and stupid me forgot to take a photo of the flowers in its wrapping before i plopped them into the vase.. but lucky for me i did grab the camera to take some photos of the flowers in the vase… this bouquet of roses is actually called “one and only” according to my hubby.. the name is actually represented by the sole white rose surrounded by the large group of red roses.. haha.. unfortunately you can’t really see the white rose in the picture unless you focus on the top right hand corner of the picture where you can see the white rose just peeking out Aren’t the flowers just gorgeous…
Apparently the roses above weren’t to be my only surprise today… my hubby actually came home later with a cake!!The cake is a nice chocolate cake with a kit-kat base topped with gooey chocolate ganache… doesn’t it sound yummy already! Well.. of course we couldn’t eat it first… we had to have dinner.. and for today, i didn’t cook, we went to our nearby Redhill market and bought the best curry rice!! If you haven’t tried the curry rice from the Redhill market you absolutely have to! Their curry rice is just the best in the world.. and don’t worry if you can’t eat spicy.. it isn’t hot or spicy at all and its just great for me as i can’t take hot! And yes, I’m still Singaporean even despite this fact :p
Well, to tell you a bit more about this fantastic stall, this curry rice stall is not run by an Indian or Malay but by a chinese couple who are always super generous with their portions. Trust me when i tell you they are generous! My hubby can usually eat 4 packets of chicken rice at one go.. and for this stall, he just orders extra rice which is more than enough to fill his bottomless pit i call his stomache Well, to go on about this stall, they will usually add a huge bowl of rice and fried chinese cabbage which is nice and soft, then cover this whole mixture with their curry sauce until everything is just soaked with the sauce. Once that is done, they will ask what you want to add to the rice. They have a huge variety of accompaniments which include a crispy deep fried pork chop (my personal favourite), a great huge pork mince ball (my hubby’s absolute favourite), satay pork, fatty pork in dark sauce, sotong, fish, fishcake, fried eggs, etc… They continually change they’re accompaniments as each one is finished… so you never know what’s available until you get there!! The thing i find most funny is the fact that everytime we order food from this stall, the auntie always asks my hubby if his order is for 2 people! Haha.. and she always gives us 2 spoons even if my hubby orders only a packet for himself.. that’s how much food my hubby orders!
Well, needless to say after we finished that delicious dinner (of which my hubby actually finished 1/2 of my portion since i can’t finish it) we were actually too full up to eat the cake… but as soon as 11 o’clock rolled around, we could resist the cake no more and quickly took it out to eat. Here are some of the pictures we took of the cake before we cut it up.
Here’s a picture of the flowers, the cake, my hubby and me.. and of course.. who could forget my little schnauzer, Jasper who wanted to take a lick at the cake before i stopped him.. naughty boy..
Well.. that’s my 30th birthday celebration… sigh… i’m so over the hill… haha
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Posted 1 year, 11 months ago. 1 comment
Well, as christmas is just round the corner, I decided to set up the christmas tree over the weekend. So, I went off to the store room to locate the christmas tree and decorations that we had packed away last year… after a long, dusty search, I finally located the christmas tree, decorations and christmas lights. My hubby being tired from work, wasn’t much of a help as he was busy snoring away on the couch, and despite my repeated attempts to wake him up.. other than eliciting several grunts from him, he lay more or less dead to the world on the couch. Sigh..
Jasper, my schnauzer on the other hand, was wide awake and busy poking his little nose into every single little box I took out from the store room, and was busy making a nuisance of himself by jumping around and running around me tripping me up. I believe he thought that I’d gotten him some new toy or treat to play with and was super excited at the thought. His attentions to the boxes did not make things go much easier.. the little rascal.
After dragging the boxes close enough to where the christmas tree would go, I started to unpack the broken down christmas tree. For every tree branch I took out, Jasper bit them and tried to start a tug of war with me… after many scoldings, he finally understood that I wasn’t playing with him, so he now entertained himself with the tree branches I had laid out neatly on the floor to be assembled into the christmas tree. The little fake pine leaves that had fallen off were just the thing for Jasper’s attention, and soon enough I caught him licking up bits of the fallen pine leaves and trying to chew on them. At this point in time, I tried again to wake my husband up, but again, other than getting a couple of snorts and yeah yeah’s… he was soon back in dreamland and snoring away..
Left to my own devices, I had no choice but to constantly watch out for Jasper to ensure he didn’t swallow any of the pine leaves while in the midst of assembling of the tree… not an easy task I assure you. After much huffing and puffing, I finally managed to assemble the tree and was now left with the fun part.. the decorations. Jasper at this point in time was busy sniffing around under the tree and after a couple of attempts to bite the boughs of the tree, he finally gave up and settled down to watch what I would do next.
The opening of the lightings soon brought him to attention, and he was soon poking his head again into the box and trying to munch on whatever he could get his little teeth on.. I finally decided to leave the lights in the box, and carry the box with me while I circled the tree to put on the lights. Jasper initially followed me round the tree and a couple of times even tried to startle me by going round the tree and meeting me on the other side thinking it was a new game. However, with my non-response, he finally gave up and started sniffling at my husband whose outflung arm was just enough in his reach for his little teeth and tongue.
After getting on the lights, I opened up the boxes of decorations and began to position them in the tree for what I hoped would give the optimum impact. Jasper after being scolded by my hubby for disturbing his sleep, was not put off and soon came over to investigate. The little christmas balls on the lower branches were soon deemed to be his new play toys and he had most of them pulled off by the time I’d noticed what he was doing. Luckily other than a couple of brand new teeth marks on the balls, they were none the worse for wear.
Finally managed to get my hubby awake to do the final honours of placing the star at the top of the tree.. which I would have done, except for the fact that I was too short to do so. Once it was up, we turned off the hall lights and turned on the christmas tree… I couldn’t help but give a little sigh at the prettiness of the tree.. and of course in my devious little mind, I was now thinking of what presents I could hint to my husband to get for me, which would all go under the empty base of the christmas tree until christmas day.
After all what’s christmas without some presents right?
Here are the pics of the christmas tree… couldn’t seem to really take the pictures of the tree with the twinkling christmas lights.. but don’t you think the tree still looks great?
Here’s another picture…
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Posted 2 years, 3 months ago. 2 comments
The title actually perfectly expresses how i feel right at this moment. At the back of my mind I’m actually hearing a de de dum! as i actually type this out. Haha… to be frank, typing this first post actually feels weird, it feels as if the past 29 years are just a blur and only from this very instant with this single post does my life actually wink into existence out there in the world wide web. Hmm… food for thought…
Oh well… enough on that boring insight into my miniscule brain… and on to the hopefully more interesting stuff :p
Well, this blog to me is my first step in my journey on baking. Baking first caught my attention I guess when I was 5 and first tasted my mom’s home made Pandan Chiffon Cakes. I remember the rich aroma of pandan that filled the kitchen while it was being baked, and of course the wonderful taste and texture of the cake when I took my first bite. To this day, the Pandan Cake still remains a favourite of mine and brings back many fond memories every time I eat a piece. Unfortunately for me, my mom has since ceased baking the cake as she finds it a hassle, so I have to find satisfaction elsewhere.. sigh. Unfortunately I’ve never managed to find any that tasted as satisfying as the ones my mom used to make… I wonder why?
I wish I could say that this first taste gave me an epiphany and launced my obsession into baking.. but I have to say that for the next 7 years, nothing much changed until my first home economic class where we were taught to make a simple sponge cake, and were told that we would need to bake and decorate it for a test at the end of the year. Then and only then was my imagination caught! Hahaha.. surprisingly when I recently caught up with an old classmate of mine, she actually remembered the cake that i had baked and decorated into a bear. Surprise, surprise.
Unfortunately, after secondary school, my baking actually took a backseat to my studies and later my career, and only very recently have I made the decision to quit my job and give myself some time to actively pursue my interests in baking. Will this obsession bring me anywhere? Well, I guess like everyone else, I do hope that I would be able to make money while doing something I enjoy. However, whether or not this will actually happen, I guess it’s up to fate
So what how do I hope to proceed from here, well…. I hope to document my baking journey by posting up pictures and updates on my baking creations.
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Posted 2 years, 4 months ago. Add a comment
