Christmas cake and cupcakes for my own Christmas Party!! :)

This Christmas my parents decided to have a little Christmas Party and invite all my cousins, uncles and auntie’s over to their place for Christmas. Since my parents are also getting a little old, my cousin suggested that instead of having my mom cook up a big feast, we’d have a pot luck. So after much discussion, it was decided that my mom would make her yummy pomelo prawn salad, and her yummy beef goulash with store bought ham and turkey while my cousin brought a deliciously sinful shepard’s pie. My aunt’s arrived early to my mom’s place and made ondeh ondeh and aglia olio. I know know.. the ondeh ondeh is a bit out of place.. but apparently they were influenced by the recent Peranakan chinese drama currently showing and well.. my aunt was just in the mood to try her hand at making it  

I brought chicken crepes filled with gooey parmesan cheese that oozed with every bite you take, and of course, the cakes and cupcakes And just in case the kids didn’t have enough to eat, i also went to Ikea and got myself a bag of meatballs with the sauce which is one of my favourite things to eat at Ikea, and my mom also made some fried wanton :)

By the time i arrived at my mom’s place, my aunts were in the midst of completing their ondeh ondeh.. unfortunately for me, i saw what they were making and opened my big mouth to ask.. Oh.. is that pigs in a blanket? How is it that the ondeh ondeh can look even remotely like pigs in a blanket you might ask.. well, the skin of the ondeh ondeh was pink!!! and looked exactly like ham!! Apparently i wasn’t the only one that thought it was a savoury food cos through out the night, several others also asked if it was ham.. haha.. but that aside, the ondeh ondeh did taste pretty good

The food was quickly snapped up and unfortunately for me.. i didn’t have time to take a photo of the spread before everyone dug in. :p

So once the food was devoured and the table was cleared, my Christmas cake and cupcakes made their debut Everyone oohed and aahed over the decorations but no one had the heart to eat the decorations so i ended up bringing them home as a keepsake  I added a little twist to the santa cupcakes which i’m not sure if anyone understood.. haha.. i got the idea while surfing the web and if you look at the santa cupcakes slightly hidden in the background of the picture below, you will notice that you only see santa’s 2 legs sticking straight up into the air :p That was suppose to signify Santa getting stuck in the chimmey.. I thought they looked pretty funny. Of course i also cheated a little with the cupcakes and bought some ready made santa’s and used them as toppers.

All in all the party was a great success and everyone went home with a full belly I hope everyone had as great a Christmas as i did. Merry Christmas everyone!!!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Christmas ornament cupcakes!!!

As Christmas drew nearer, my hubby started wondering what to give his colleagues as presents… as such, I asked if I could make cupcakes for them. However, I wanted something different from a normal christmas cupcake and started looking for ideas on the internet hoping for some inspiration.

Guess what!!! I found someone who had made christmas ornament cupcakes!!! What’s that you might ask.. well, it’s a cupcake that looks exactly like a christmas ornament or a christmas ball. Most of the cupcakes I had seen placed a dome shaped cupcake on top of a cupcake base and decorated the dome to look like a christmas ornament. I thought that was really really cool, but wanted to take it a step further by making the cupcake totally round rather than having it sit on a cupcake base. To do this, I had to make several cupcakes which had a totally round base rather than the usual flat cupcake base. To do this, I couldn’t use my normal cupcake pans, so I started searching for ways to bake a dome shaped cupcake.. luckily for me I found a silicon half sphere baking tray at Poon Huat!! Yay!!!

Since I love chocolate cupcakes and I have a fantastic chocolate cupcake recipe, I decided to bake chocolate half sphere cupcakes :p I then joined 2 halves of the sphere using buttercream icing to form a round ball.. this was what they looked like after joining them.

 Don’t they look cute This was followed by slathering the whole chocolate ball with buttercream icing, followed by a layer of fondant. To make the christmas ornament cupcakes look realistic, I also made little tops for the cupcakes using fondant.. I then left everything to dry..

 As you can probably tell from the pictures above, I had a really difficult time getting the balls to look totally smooth and round, hopefully they won’t be too obvious after adding on the decorations.. I can’t wait for them to dry so that I can start decorating them

To make the balls look like christmas ornaments, I dusted the balls with luster dust and also pasted on the little caps which I had did earlier on. This was was followed by using icing to pipe on the designs on the ball. This was the fun part! After the icing had dried, I then dusted the designs with luster dust for the final time and let them dry.. these were what they looked like.. don’t they look fantastic… I thought they really looked like christmas ornaments don’t you?

To be frank.. my first attempt at making these were a total flop.. I had so much problems with the fondant especially… it kept bubbling under the skin. After several attempts, I finally figured out what the problem was and finally solved the bubbling problem.. but I have to admit, the beautifully completed christmas ornament cupcakes came a little too late for a christmas present… oh well.. at least my hubby managed to give it to his colleagues for a boxing day present instead Here’s some close up shots of the completed cupcakes…

My favourite is the snowflake cupcake…

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Setting up my christmas tree

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…

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!