Christmas Goodies

I made a few Christmas treats for my friends' orders and also for my children's classmates and teachers at ISB.

 

1) Mini Christmas tree cupcakes with a shiny gold star on the top. These cupcakes were ordered by Rose, whose daughter attends the Shrewsbury International School Bangkok was a having a Christmas party in school to mark the end of the school term. She wanted these Christmas trees as what represents the joy of Christmas more than these cute little trees with its colourful ornaments. I made the ornaments on the mini tress in gold and silver sugar beads with one thousand and one colourful pieces. The cupcakes are French vanilla flavoured with vanilla buttercream.

 

 

 

2) There was also another order of Christmas themed cupcakes in December. This time its by Meg, whose son also attends the same school as Rose's daughter but in different year levels. Meg's son, Rayyan also had a Christmas party in school. The cupcake design was inspired by snowflakes and snow. I made these really nice snowflake cut outs in two sizes and airbrushed them in pearl white to achieve the shimmery effect. I then airbrushed the icing on the cupcakes in icy blue to create a bluish tint to the icing base. I also enhanced the cupcake by adding silver and pearl sugar beads and a dusting of silver edible dust. The cupcakes are chocolate flavoured with vanilla buttercream.

 

 

 

3) For my finale Christmas goodies, I made French vanilla butter cookies for my children's teachers and friends in celebration of Christmas and the last day of Term 1. I decided to make the Christmas tree, star and snowflake themed cookies as they were the easiest to make! I was running short of time as it was a very busy week for me as I was running back and forth to school for events. I am glad I still managed to complete 32 cookies in time for my children to bring to school. I had individually packed them and completed each pack with a Christmas theme ribbon.

 

 

With these treats, I was done for year 2014. It was a difficult year for me. For one thing, I have slowed down a lot on my baking and cake making. I also had my carpel tunnel surgery in February 2014, my husband had a major neck operation in July due to his upper spine slip disc and after that in August, we all had to pack up and move to Bangkok. Uprooting my kids and enrolling them in a new school went quite smoothly but I had trouble occupying my days in a new country especially with the language barrier. However, I am still very thankful with all that have been bestowed upon me and my family. My new home now feels like home but no matter what my heart will still be in Malaysia. I do miss my house in KL and wish that I could bring my house here to Bangkok.

 

I hope that in 2015, the carpel tunnel on my right hand will improve and am able to create more beautiful cakes. I do have some difficulties with getting my baking supplies here in Bangkok as I am very used to dealing with my suppliers in KL. I guess I still am adjusting here plus I don't have a client base yet, Hopefully, Pink Ellies Novelty Cakes will continue to flourish in year 2015. Wish me luck, peeps...

 

xoxo

Elinna Bahrin

Bangkok, Thailand

Hannah's Owl

My daughter, Hannah celebrated her 10th birthday last October 14th. She shares the same birthday as her daddy, and that's why she will always be Daddy's Little Girl. Hannah has been pestering me to make her an owl theme birthday cake since the beginning of 2014 when she started going ga-ga over anything that are owls. I always look forward to making birthday cakes for my kids. I love their reaction when they see the finished product.

 

So, when we were in Kuala Lumpur last September for a visa renewal visit, Hannah and I found this cute owl paper clips at Typo. The owl paper clips were in light teal and white. Of course Hannah was so happy as teal is one of her favourite colours now. Since purple is another of her favourite colours, we both decided to make her birthday theme this year light purple, light teal and white.

 

I made butter cookies for her classmates and used the owl paper clip as my source of inspiration. I had the fondant owls painted white at its eyebrows and tummy. The cookies turned out great and Hannah's classmates were very happy with her birthday treat.

  

Hand painting the sugar owls in edible white paint

The purple and teal owls

The butter cookie with the owl and the owl paper clip
that I used as my inspiration

For Hannah's classmates

I managed to get the basket at the Chatuchak weekend
market at a bargain! I love them 

 

For Hannah's cake, I basically made a bigger version of the sugar owl and airbrushed the cake with a pearl shimmer. The cake was quite easy to execute and I managed to complete the cake and cookies all on the same day. I guess not working does have its perks! I can spend the whole day taking my time instead of always having to rush my time and fighting for time.

 

My baby girl with her cake

 

I can't believe that my baby girl is 10 already and this year she will be 11. How fast time flies! I wish I could just slow down the time and treasure every moment of her childhood as long as I could. She is almost a teenager now and acts like she's going on 16! Don't grow up too fast, baby girl! Treasure each and every childhood moment you can. Time passed will never be recaptured. I wish her only the best things in her life and hope she will grow into a beautiful young lady that I see her becoming each day. Love you to the moon and back, my baby girl....

 

 

"Sugar Cookies Fit For A Princess"

This was the first order I agreed to take after my carpal tunnel release surgery. Raja Johanna ordered these chocolate decorated cookies to celebrate the arrival of her baby girl last December 2013. She marked the arrival of baby Zahira, full name Tengku Zahira Eusnie by hosting a Majlis Aqiqah & Cukur Jambul for her relatives and close friends on the 16th of March 2014.

 

The theme colour was pink and the rest she left it up to me to decide the design and combination of theme colours. Her only other specification was to have baby related shape for my cookies. At first, I was kind of worried committing myself to this order because of my hand, which is not fully healed and also the water rationing in Selangor, but I planned and organised myself with this order. I was quite proud actually that I managed to get this order done despite my predicament.

 

I started off earlier in the week by baking the chocolate cookies. Since we were experiencing water rationing, I wanted to get the cookies done while we had water. Thank goodness, the cookies turned out well and we managed to finish our baking in 2 days as I split them into two batches. I even baked a few extra pieces in the event of breakages. My idea was to have 6 different cookie shapes with each shape comprising of 25 cookies. The cookie shapes I made were pacifiers, baby rattles, onesies, butterflies, prams & teddy bears. I also had the thank you tags customised and printed by a professional printer. The theme colours I chose for the cookies were baby pink, light grey and white.

 

The onesies in pink



The butterflies



The baby rattles



The baby prams



The baby pacifier

The teddy bear

The cookies all individually packed with thank you tags

 

Thanks again for the order, Johanna!

"20th October"

Johanna Arshad threw a surprise birthday party for her mother in-law ("MIL") on 20th October 2013. To celebrate the occassion she wanted her MIL to have a lace cake just like her surprise birthday cake last year. She wanted a lemon cake. The theme of the cake is baby pink and light cream. This cake was relatively easy to make but quite time consuming as I'm a very detailed person. I can't help it but I can't stand imperfections! My husband says I have the OCD disease ("Obssesive Compulsive Disorder")... Hahaha... Which is true in some ways and an be very frustrating for me!

 

Back to the cake, when I started making this cake, I was already very tired!! I had been sleeping late every night as I was finishing 50 pcs of sugar decorated cookies for Johanna also. The cookies are also part of the birthday celebration. The cookies are door gifts for their guests. Johanna wanted  chocolate flavoured cookies in the shape of a cake with candles. the theme colours of the cookies are pink, blue & green. The cookies had to be individually packed also and tied with ribbons and a thank you tag. So, for me that was quite a task as I was working every day and only managed to start the cookies in the evenings. Very, very tiring and exhausting especially when I'm a perfectionist. I also had the cookies airbrushed to create a lustre effect.  But it was worth it as the cookies really turned out nice. I was very happy with the final product.

 

Before the beautification with the ribbons!

 

All ready with ribbons and thank you tags

 

 

 

The cookies also had a lace effect and I combined royal icing and gumpaste for the cookies sugar work. Actually making the cookies were not difficult but it just requires lots of patience as the process takes time from the momemnt you make, bake, decorate and pack the cookies!

 

After I had the cookies done, I started on my cake, which consist of 3 components; i.e. 1) the sugar frame for the edible image, 2) the sugar flowers; and of course 3) the lace cake itself. The weather was really bad that weekend. Very humid and my sugar frame took a long time to dry and harden. Luckily, I started early on the frame.

 



The overall view of the Pink Lace cake



The lace with the pink flowers

The edible image of the the grandparents with their grandkids

The lace work I did with royal icing and fondant

 

In the end though, all turned out well and I was very satisfied with my work!