"Hi, I am back!"

I haven't been blogging for a while now. Actually 4 months to be exact. I have been busy and plus I haven't been making any cakes lately.

I have been wanting to blog about this cake I made for our good friends, who visited us from Jakarta last April. Coincidentally, Pak Halim's birthday had just passed and I thought it would be nice to surprise him with a birthday cake.  I knew right from the beginning what cake I wanted to make for him. I decided a tuxedo cake as I have always known Pak Halim to be one of the most distinguished gentlemen that I've ever met. The cake was simple but elegant and suits him perfectly.

 

The tuxedo cake

The cake was lemon flavored



The black of the tuxedo was airbrushed to achieve the perfect shiny black colour




A nice red flower to complete the tuxedo

This is one of my favourite cakes and boy was the birthday man surprised! I am happy that my simple gesture meant a lot to Pak Halim and his family. We had so much fun with them and we played the tourist around Bangkok city with them.

 

Another cake I made was for a friend's daughter on the occasion of her 9th birthday. Ediana's daughter, Aressa wanted a Teen Beach Movie theme cake. How I wish I was in KL, where my edible print supplier is so easli accessible but alas am in Bangkok and we had to make do with normal printing for the sugar frame.

 

The whole view of the cake

Side view of cake with the sand decorated all around the cake



Aressa wanted a surf board on the cake

The sugar frame with inedible printing

The cake was a vanilla bean cake. I had fun making this cake as it was a fun theme. I hope Aressa loved her cake and her guests enjoyed the cake too!

 

Those were the only two cakes I did from the months of April to August. Am quite sad actually that my business hasn't taken off here. For one thing, I have not done enough marketing and another the people here (at least the one I meet) are just not willing to pay for the cakes like my clients in KL are willing to. Its difficult trying to explain that the cost of making these one of a kind cakes. The time I spend on each of  the cake itself and the design will never be the same as another cake.

 

How I miss my busy cake making days in Malaysia, whereby there's always an interesting cake to meet each week. But hopefully my drought season will end soon. I will be conducting classes for the Adult Education Program in ISB as part of my PTA contribution to my children's school. At least then I will still be practicing my cake making.

 

 



 

 

"A Cake for Tok Andak"

I haven't been making cakes for a while now.  My last cake before this one was the owl birthday cake I did for my niece, Iman. January was a very hectic month for me as my kids start their new school year and I am still without help!

 

As far as I can say, am so glad that January is over and February is here. The kids are finally settled in their new school year routine and my life will be back to normal when my maid eventually comes back on the 10th of February.

I actually did squeeze in 2 cakes in January. The first cake I made was on the last weekend of January at the request of  my dad. He wanted me to make a simple cake for his uncle, Andak (Tan Sri Rozhan bin Kuntom) or known to us as Tok Andak for his birthday celebration to be held on the next Sunday, the 26th of January 2014. Tok Andak is very sickly now and his son (my dad's cousin) wanted to commemorate his birthday with having all of his father's close relatives over for a birthday lunch. As a token for the occassion, my dad thought a cake would be a nice gesture. Something personal from him and our family.

 

So, with very short notice and no game plan, I whipped up this very simple cake. I made a lemon cake with vanilla buttercream. When my dad asked me how much did he owe me for the cake, I was horrified!! Of course, the cake was free!! A small contribution from Pink Ellies!!!

 

The simple cake made to look like a gift box

The tag on the cake

Another view of the cake

I was quite happy with the cake despite starting to bake the cake at 5 pm on Saturday, I still managed to finish the cake by 11 am the next morning in time for delivery to my parents' home.

 

 

"Joey's 33rd"

Last week, I had a last minute order from Jess (Raja Jesrina Raja Arshad), who is one of my best customers. She wanted to surprise her fiance, Joey for his 33rd birthday party. She contacted me on Monday for a cake on Thursday. I usually don't accept last mniute orders and if you've been following my blog, you would've realised that I've slowed down quite a bit from taking cake orders this year. The reason being my son will be sitting for his national Malaysian Upper Primary examinations or better known as UPSR here. I have been very busy being the driver to my son as he has extra classes almost every day since the beginning of the year. Now, I only have to survive another 8 days and his exams will be over!! Am sure I'll be more relieved than him!! I will get my life and normal routine back!!! Can't wait actually!!!

Well, back to Jess' request, I told her the truth and that I couldn't really make elaborate cakes as the time given to me for planning and executing the cake was only 2 days! I work full time, so I had a bit of time constraint. Nevertheless, I still accepted the order on the condition that the cake is not that dificult to execute. The theme of the cake was golf and Joey's favourite colour is orange. He's a fan of Rickie Fowler's golf accessories. After looking at different options, I decided to make a cake that has a sugar figure of Joey on a golf course with his orange golf bag. This was how my cake looked like:

The overall view of the cake

The sides of the cake was decorated with fondant circles and airbrushed with green and silver

Doesn't really look like Joey but the closest I could make with the time constraint I had

The sugar figure us quite cute actually, and I was quite happy with how it turned out

 

The orange PUMA cap, which I hand painted and the orange PUMA golf bag

The cake was vanilla bean flavoured with vanilla frosting. This was what Jess had to say when she saw the cake, "Hi Elinna I love the cake! Thanks for pulling it together in such short notice :)" I was very happy to see that message and makes all the hard work really worth it! Thanks again for the order Jess and Happy Belated Birthday, Joey :)

"Green"

This cake should have been made for my husband!! He's really into golfing and this cake would have been perfect for him. Instead, I made my first golf themed cake for someone else or to be precise, this cake was ordered by Raja Johanna, who happens to be Raja Jesrina's sister (my blog entry on Jess' 30th birthday). She wanted the cake for her husband's 40th birthday party last month.

Actually this is the second 40th birthday cake I made for Tengku Datuk Zafrul. The other cake I did was the arty cake with his favourite painting collection on the cake (my blog entry "Art Lover"). Johanna wanted a golf course with the hazards, such as the sand bunker and water hazard. She also wanted the buggy and a golf bag as part of the cake. No figures required! Thank goodness for that!! Hehehe... Johanna also wanted the base of the cake to be bigger instead of stacking the cakes in tiers. The cake was lemon flavoured with vanilla frosting. So, this is what I came up with :)

The overall view of my green cake

I so love the green colour of this golf course. I had the base airbrushed in different shades of green to achieve this colour

The golf bag and buggy

Sand bunker

The green and sand bunker at the 1st hole

The green and water hazard at the 2nd hole

The golf buggy I made from gumpaste

Happy 40th Birthday, Tengku Zafrul and I hoped you liked my green cake. May your coming years be blessed and filled with more happiness and joy :) 

I hope I'm able to make for my other half a golf theme cake too when he turns 40 this year...

"Art Lover"

Raja Johanna wanted an art themed cake for her husband, Tengku Zafrul's 40th birthday. She had organised an intimate dinner party for him and wanted to surprise him with the cake. Tengku Zafrul loves art and has a great collection of paintings at home. Johanna wanted the cake to be like an art gallery with their private collection of paintings be the star of the cake.

So, she proceeded to take the photos of her husband's favourite paintings and I printed them out in edible form. I had these mini paintings framed in gumpaste and hand painted them gold, silver and black. The cake itself was actually supposed to be simple to showcase the paintings. Johanna chose a painting as the main centerpiece for the cake and I had this painting placed at the top of the cake.

The sides of the cake is decorated in a simple diamond shaped patterns and I airbrushed the cake with pearly white sheen. The cake turned out simple but very classy. As Johanna mentioned to me, her guests especially her husband absolutely loved the cake. So much so, she ordered from me again for another 40th birthday function.

Overall view of the cake

Each of the four sides are decorated with 2 paintings

This was my favourite side!

The centerpiece of the cake

The cake was a vanilla bean cake with vanilla frosting. Thanks so much for the order, Johanna and am so glad the guests loved the cake!!

"Angry Bubble"

My friend, Elo wanted to surprise her hubby, Halim, who celebrated his 59th birthday last week. Elo and Halim were in KL for the hols. They both reside in Jakarta and that's where my friendship with them began. We met them while we were staying in Jakarta few years back. Even though, we've moved back to KL since 2011, we still remain quite close to them.

Back to the surprise party, Elo wanted a very fun cake to celebrate a fun occasion! After going through a few ideas, Elo decided on the "Angry Bubble" theme. Halim is absolutely gaga over this game on his tablet and is quite addicted to it. As for me, I never heard of this game before and I had to make a cake based on the screen capture that Elo had sent to me. I decided to do more research from the web and came out with a few ideas that I captured into this cake...

The screen capture I finally decided for the Angry Bubble theme

Elo's idea for this cake was brilliant! I love how cheerful the cake looks...

The whole view of the cake and cupcakes for the guests

  

A close-up of the cupcakes

Elo pretty much left everything else to my imagination. I decided on the colour silver & black as its most suitable for a man's birthday theme and the colours go very well with the bubble colours. I made the colourful bubbles as the main deco for the cupcakes. Elo requested a vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream.

Happy Birthday again, Pak Halim and we sure enjoyed ourselves that night :) Thanks again Elo for all your orders and support. 

xoxoxo

Elinna

"Harry Wolverine"

This cake was requested by my cousin, Ezel for her hubby, Harry's surprise birthday party. The theme of the cake is Wolverine and I was given a free rein on the design of the cake. Since time was running short and I had 3 cakes to complete that weekend, I took some of the wolverine cake ideas in the web. I decided to go with wolverine's hands with blades instead of wolverine's mask as I feel that the cake would be more dramatic with the hands coming out of it.

Harry's cake was surprisingly quite easy to make except for making the blades coming out of the hands stand. That was the most tricky part of the cake. To top it all, it was raining the whole time and the weather was so humid that the sugar took ages to dry and harden. I think my other half will freak out when he sees the electricity bill this month!!! I had to keep the a/c running the whole time in the kitchen while am completing all these 3 cakes.

I'm glad to say that eventually, the blades did dry up and they were standing proudly up to the end of the birthday surprise. I am so thankful for that. As for Ezel and Harry, they were very happy campers and told me that not only did the cake look nice its was yummy too!!

The frontal view of the cake

Yay for me as the blades were still standing and coming out of Wolverine's hand quite nicely

The other side view of the cake

 Thanks so much for the order Ezel and Happy Belated Birthday, Harry!!!

"Not Out Yet!"

Last weekend, I had a cake order from Juwita Ghani (she ordered from me the Mickey & Friends cake last month). This time, she wanted to surprise her husband, Richard Sayer, who was celebrating his 38th birthday on 08th August 2012. She had organised for him a small dinner party on 11th August 2012 and wanted a birthday cake for that occasion. Richard likes sports especially the game cricket. So, she wanted me to make a cricket theme cake for him.

To tell you the truth, I've never watched a cricket game before and I don't even know how it is played. When I received the e-mail request from Juwita, I had to start researching on the web to see the best way to design the cake. To me, a cricket cake would not be complete without the player on the cricket lawn surrounded by all cricket stuff!! After much browsing, I noticed that almost all the cricket cakes that I see have these wordings on them, "NOT OUT" and decided I should adopt the same concept on my cake.

I actually enjoyed making this cake even though I started decorating after breaking fast. I was just too tired to do it in the day as I was also working that day. Turns out that I actually miss doing fondant cakes and had a great time creating this cake despite the fact that I finished the cake at almost 2 am!!

 

When Juwita saw this cake, she told me it was brilliant and Richard was so thrilled with the cake

 As for me, I am always happy when my clients are happy. Richard even thanked me on FB for the cake. Thank you Juwita for your loyal support! Happy Belated Birthday, Richard....

"Oleen's Cake"

This cake was ordered by my friend, Oleen for her dad's 71st birthday. This cake was one of my favourite cakes so far. I truly enjoyed making this cake and am very proud with how it turned out. The main theme were gadgets and books. So, Oleen wanted the dad to have an autobiography, a Samsung Note/Tab and a camera (any kind). Of course, I chose to do Tun M's autobiography (he's still my favourite PM). I used my hubby's Lumix camera as a sample for me to copy and I got my edible image supplier to print for me the cover for the book and Samsung tablet. So, this is how it turned out!

The theme of the cake is all of her dad's favourite things and she requested that I make for her dad a Samsung Galaxy Tab, an autobiography and a camera. So, I came out with this idea of having Tun M's book as the main cake. As for the camera, I carved the shape out of cake and made him a Lumix camera placed on a box. All in all, I had fun making this cake. The cake is all chocolate!

I love getting cake orders of this sort.Seeing how realistic it looks just made my day!!