"Mickey's Surprise"

I had a big order last weekend, 7th July 2012. This was for Ridthuan's or fondly known as Riri, 2nd birthday. Juwita, (daughter of Johor MB, Dato' Abdul Ghani Othman) wanted a Mickey and gang theme for the cake. We had discussed about this order about a month prior to Riri's birthday. The theme was finally set 2 weeks before the birthday and Juwita chose 4 of her son's favourite characters.

I had a big task ahead of me as I had to make 4 sugar figurines, namely, Mickey, Minnie, Pluto & Donald. A daunting task ahead and I was so worried I couldn't finish the cake on time. Since I work full time, I had to take leave on Friday to complete the cake in order for the early pick-up on Saturday. It took me 1 1/2 days to complete this cake. The cake was a 2-tiered cake, chocolate with dark chocolate ganache at the bottom tier and French vanilla with vanilla icing and white chocolate ganache at the top tier. I sketched the design of the cake earlier and I wanted to execute the cake exactly like my sketch.

I guess it looked easy enough but actually it was very, very challenging! I wanted my figurines to look the same as in the cartoon. I didn't want my Mickey to look like Mighty Mouse!!! So, I had to make sure the characters look realistic. Since I'm a perfectionist, I took a long time to complete each figure! I am so thankful that it didn't rain at all that 2 days and the sugar could harden easily.

This was my masterpiece and am very, very proud that I managed to complete the cake on time!!

This was what Juwita had to say about my cake, "Not only was it feast for the eyes, it was super yummy too. Thank you so much, everyone's eyes popped when they saw the cake!"... Awwww.... thanks so much Juwita. It was my pleasure :)

"Dino Train Cupcakes"

One of my oldest and dearest friend, Azlina, ordered these Dino Train cupcakes for her son, Adam's 3rd birthday celebration. Originally, the order was supposed to be a cake but she changed her mind and asked me to make cupcakes instead. As usual for me, I've never heard of Dino Train before this and neither have my kids. I had to google and look it up as how am I supposed to make the cuppies without knowing what's it all about, right???

So, I finally found out that its a Jim Henson (of the Muppets fame) creation of dinasours and trains and so on. Very cute actually. This was an easy order as Azlina wanted me to print out the edible images instead of making the sugar modelling (phew to that!!!). The dinasours would have been challenging to make and time was not on my side. 

At the same time that week, Tenby organised Olympics Day at school and I had to bake bread pudding as contribution for Hannah's class. Each class had to represent a past host nation and Hannah's class was The Netherlands. Since bread is one of the main food staples in Holland, I was told to make bread pudding by the teachers. Well, I guess that's easy enough considering I didn't have much else to contribute!!

My only contribution for Hannah's class, the bread pudding (left corner) with white chocolate sauce. According to Hannah, it was so good that there were no leftovers!! Amin to that!

Now that part was over, I could concentrate on Adam's cupcakes. The cupcakes had 3 colours mainly, green, orange and blue. I chose the images to have it custom made by my faithful edible image supplier. The cupcakes turned out alright and I must say its not one of my best efforts. I much preferred to make cupcakes or cakes that require certain challenges when executing them. Ta da, this is how the cupcakes looked like :)

Adam was so happy when he saw the dinos and Azlina loved the deco

Thanks again for the order my trusted and loyal friend. Will surely miss you when you move to Papua New Guinea at the end of the year. Happy 3rd Birthday, Adam....

xoxoxo

Auntie Elinna

"Choux Pastry Class with David Lee"

I've always wanted to learn how to make choux (pronounced like "shoe") pastry the correct way. So, when I received a message  from Artisan informing me of this class, I was very happy that I finally get a chance to learn how to make the choux pastry. Choux pastry is actually a pastry that can be transformed into many kind of desserts such as cream puffs, eclairs, churros, profiteroles and so on. The most important is the basic. You get it right with the basics and you're good to go!

So, I learned 4 types of desserts that day, which are cream puffs, eclairs, swans (not so keen on making, because its tedious!!!) and Paris Brest. I so love how David transforms a simple recipe into fantastic desserts just by making fantastic fillings!!! His pastry cream varieties are to die for especially the praline flavour. Am actually excited to try and make some for my family. My kids love these pastries and have been bugging me for months to make them. 

This is how the basic choux pastry is done. Its different from other pastry dough as with choux pastry you have to cook the flour and butter first before adding the eggs

The pastry is then piped  onto trays to make them into the different varieties, i.e. cream puffs and eclairs like the one above

This is the Paris Brest all ready. It has the praline pastry cream filling

Our ready made eclairs. Looks good ya. It tastes as awesome as it looks!!!

Our Swans with chantilly cream and strawberries

Last but not least, our cream puffs with chocolate topping

This will definitely be one of the items that I'll offer under Pink Ellies soon. Its definitely a popular dessert for kids and adults.