"Myiesha's 4th Birthday"

My niece, Myiesha celebrated her 4th birthday last Sunday and my mom had organised a small family lunch to celebrate the occasion. My daughter and I decided to surprise Myiesha with a birthday cake. Since Myiesha is so into "My Littlest Pet Shop" figurines, I decided to make her a cake with these figures on them. Hannah is also into these cute animal figures and I asked her to choose 2 or 3 for me to replicate in sugarpaste.

The pets took longer than I initially thought to make because: 

1) I started late - almost 10 pm

2) I had no idea which one to make

3) I was still tired and recovering from the 230 cupcakes that I just completed and delivered the day before!!!

So, I wasn't really my energetic self but since the lunch was the next day, I had to somehow finish at least 3/4 of the cake decoration. I did manage to get my sugar figures done and the cake covered with fondant by the time I stopped at 1.30 am. I was glad coz I didn't really have much time the next day! 

I made Myiesha a banana cake since she loves banana and the cake is frosted with vanilla buttercream. My mom was very happy with Myiesha's cake and I was quite satisfied with the result. I had to ask Hannah if my figures looked almost the same as her toys and she gave me the thumbs up!! Phew!! She did warned me before I started making the cake that the pets had very detailed eyes and that I had to follow or my pet won't be the same. And so I did... This was how my cake looked like :)

The whole view of Lil M's cake

One of the birdie LPS pet

The cake looks so bright and cheerful 

  Happy 4th Birthday, my dearest Myiesha... Mama Lin loves you, sweetie :)

"Ninjago for Hussein"

My bestie, Sheila wanted me to make for her youngest son, Hussein a cake and 30 cupcakes to celebrate his 6th birthday last week. This was a very simple cake as she just wanted me to put the edible image on the cake. Since Hussein is so into Ninjago, Sheila had him choose his favourite images and I had these images printed into edible form.

The cake and cupcakes were made of rich chocolate with vanilla buttercream.

The main cake with brown sugaras requested by the birthday boy

Close-up of the Ninjago image

The cupcakes for the celebration in school

The cupcakes in 2 cupcake wrappers in red and black

I hope Hussein had a great celebration in school and also at home with his family... Happy 6th Birthday Hussein...

"Cupcakes, cupcakes and more cupcakes!!!"

I was commissioned by my good friend from Jakarta, Elona, to make 230 individually packed cupcakes as gifts for guests attending her mom-in-law's 80th birthday celebration. At first, when I accepted this order, I thought this would be easy enough. After all, I've made numerous cupcakes with buttercream frosting and it was always relatively easy for me. Boy, was I wrong!! I never expected to spend more time than I actually planned to finish up all 230 cupcakes. Luckily, I had baked more than 230 pcs and bought more than 230 boxes as unexpected things or situation always happen when you're pressured to meet the dateline.

The baking process went quite smoothly despite that I had to run to the store in the middle of baking because my maid forgot to mention that I ran out of baking soda!!! Of all the things!!! That set back my flow of baking for a while. Frosting and making flower patterns as the cupcake deco was easy but if you had to do it all by yourself, it can be very tiring! As I'm such a perfectionist, the process took longer than I expected it to be. Still, I managed to finish icing all the cakes and by the time I started putting all the cupcakes in the individual boxes, it was already pass my 5.00 pm dateline. Since Elona had a wedding to attend that night, I promised her that I would deliver to her the cupcakes. I finally finish at 10.00 pm and had them all delivered to her by 11.00 pm that night. By then, I was so exhausted and my back was about to break in two!!! Moral of the story is I must get myself a more reliable assistant that I could delegate some of the tasks. Being a one woman show is no joke!! 

Am glad to say that I'm very happy with my final product. The cupcakes are what I envisioned them to be and most of all, Elona was very pleased with her order.

The final product of my individually packed cupcakes and ready to be delivered to Elona's

Close-up of the boxes... I chose polka-dot ribbons in 5 colours

The cupcakes had the flower theme decoration and I made the colour combination the same as the 5 colours that I had chosen for the ribbons.

These are the 5 designs I used for the cupcakes. I had to make 46 cupcakes for each design

A close-up of the individually packed cupcakes in 5 different colour ribbons

I am happy and thankful that despite the hiccups I faced in the process of completing this order, I still managed to finish it and am very pleased with the results :)

"Taking A Break From Cakes"

I have been taking a break from making cakes since early March. It has been really nice just lazing around during weekends and spending time with my family. I've even managed to squeeze in going to the gym (which I have not gone for the last 8 months!!!) and taking a short trip to Penang with my hubby.

However, I did manage to make a few bakes for my family and friends. Starting with my version of cake balls or cake pops...

Cake balls made of rich chocolate cake coated with dark chocolate ganache

The cake balls from 1st row on the left is coated with crushed Hanuta wafers, 2nd row is coated with almonds and white chocolate and 3rd row is coated with milo

I also made bread pudding with bananas and walnuts... This bread pudding was inspired by Andy Bates. Watched his show on tv and I decided to try it out... Turns out to be so good especially eaten with vanilla ice-cream.

My Andy Bates inspired bread pudding with bananas and walnut

Eaten with vanilla ice-cream

Going on a roll here, I decided to make puri for dinner one night and made my own dhal and chicken curry to go with it. Puri is the fried version of chapati and is made from atta flour or whole wheat flour. Puri is actually very easy to make. Just need to add hot oil and water to the atta flour and mix until it forms a dough. Then make small balls from the dough and then roll the small balls to form a flat round pastry. Fry these round pastries one by one in hot oil. This was how my puri turned out :)

Absolutely delicious. My daughter had 3 helpings and requested that I fry more puri for lunch the next day

I also managed to make some donuts for tea one weekend. I made my donuts in 3 forms, sugar coated, chocolate glazed and peanut butter with chocolate glaze.

Another bestseller in my home... My kids loved them...

Lastly, I made an apple crumble pie for dessert...

The only photo I have of my apple pie... Eating my last bit with vanilla ice-cream

I enjoyed my time in the last weeks, baking other stuff besides cakes. I look forward to these kind of breaks... This week, my break is over and I have loads of cake baking to do... Will upload and update soon... Until then, take care peeps :)