"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....

"Pineapple Tarts & Such"

In my earlier post, I mentioned that I have baked two types of Raya cookies. Well, the other cookie that I made for this Hari Raya was the pineapple tarts. This request was made by my other half, who loves the jam tarts. So, I managed to complete one batch this week and have yet to complete another batch. I had to put a halt on my cookies baking this week as I had two cake orders also. Even though I had at first decided to take at least a month and a half break from selling cakes, I decided to take on these orders.  My hands are itching to make some sugar modelling! Crazy, I know but I missed creating my sugarpaste cakes!!!

First, these are my pineapple jam tarts...

The jam tarts just melts in your mouth as you take the first bite!

Pineapple tarts have always been my all time favourite Raya cookie. Been having at least two of these after I break fast! Bad for the waistline!!!!

This year, baking the pineapple tarts was relatively easy and I was very surprised at how fast I was able to finish one batch of these cookies! Hopefully, baking the second batch wouldn't give me any problems.

Now, for my first cake order this week, it was a chocolate cake with chocolate ganache icing. This cake was ordered by Annie, who wanted to try my chocolate cake. She found my FB page, Pink Ellies Novelty Cakes and enquired about an engagement cake. So, after many e-mails, she decided she couldn't wait for her engagement to taste my cake and decided to order one this week. So, I made her a buttermilk moist chocolate cake with dark chocolate ganache. Enjoy the cake, Annie and thanks for the order!

The chocolate cake

I added Oreo crumbs, dark chocolate & white chocolate shavings on the cake. I put 3 layers of chocolate ganache on the cake

Looks good, eh!

"Tok Mak's Sarang Semut"

I have not updated my blog in a month!!! Truth is, this fasting month has really taken a toll on me. I started being very sick the first week of fasting. Very, very bad gastric attack and my body is still slowly adjusting to fasting despite the fasting month is already coming to an end. Needless to say, I've just gained my energy in the last week and managed to bake two types of family favourite cookies for Raya. I made my late grandma's sarang semut. This cookie is an all time favourite in my household especially for my son, Haziq. He has been pestering me to bake for him the sarang semut since the beginning of Ramadhan. Hari Raya  is not complete without the cookies, right?? So, I always try to bake at least two to three types of cookies each year and the rest I would order from different suppliers.

The sarang semut cookie is very special to me. I make it every year to mark my respect to my late grandma and also to keep her in our remembrance especially during the festive season. No one in my mother's family makes it anymore as the process is quite tedious but I do it every year despite the fact that its very tiring especially when you're fasting. Its a 4 step process : 1) bake the cookie dough, then transfer to cooling tray, 2) coat the cookie with melted chocolate, 3) cover the coated cookie with chocolate rice and, 4) put cherry on the cookie and place them in cookie wrappers. This year, I had my daughter, Hannah  to help me. She was great help despite her fasting and all that! We made two batches and managed to finish about 120 pieces in one baking session. And of course, my son was the happiest boy when he saw a whole jar filled with sarang semut. The problem now, would my sarang semut last until Hari Raya?? I hope so, though. The way I see it now, the cookies are slowly working its way down in the jar. Hopefully it can last for another 10 days!!!

Tok Mak's Sarang Semut

The sarang semut up close... Looks yummy and taste good too! The butter cookie just melts is your mouth as you take the first bite. Have always love this cookie ever since I was a little girl!!! 

Thanks Tok Mak for this great cookie recipe. I will make sure I pass on this recipe to Hannah and keep the tradition of baking the sarang semut for many, many more years to come. At times like this, I realise how much I miss my Tok Mak's presence in my life. Love you always, Tok Mak....

"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. 

"Bollywood"

My Auntie Wah, my mom's eldest sister, is the greatest fan of anything Bollywood. This year, my mom and her sisters wanted to do something special to celebrate Auntie Wah's birthday. This is where I come in. My Auntie Teh aka Datuk Zainun Aishah, wanted to surprise Auntie Wah with a Bollywood themed cake. She told me that Auntie Wah is absolutely nuts about Hithrik Roshan and I must have his images on my cake. Other than that, I was also informed that my Auntie Wah loves the Bollywood movies and songs including the wardrobe the Bollywood actresses have on. At that point, she said, "I leave it to your creativity, Elin. Surprise us." 

With that in mind, I pondered on how my cake design would be. First thing that came to mind was a film reel. I wanted to put all these Bollywood images on a film strip and that way my Auntie Wah could see all the actors, actresses and movies produced in Bollywood. I set about choosing all the right images. That was the fun part and of course, I had Hithrik Roshan's images the most. I also added an image of Arjun Rampal, as he is my favourite actor!!! Having that done, I sent all the images to get them printed like a film strip on edible paper. It was a fun cake to make. I always enjoy making cakes that are out of the norm. For the cake base, I did a red saree with antique gold embellishments.

Making the saree was quite tricky as I used royal icing to draw the patterns first, then painted the patterns gold. Royal icing is always tricky and need loads of patience, which I didn't have much that day. That process took the better part of my time. All the hardwork was worth it though as my Auntie Teh and Auntie Wah were very happy with the cake. Especially Auntie Wah!!! She didn't want to cut the cake. She managed to keep the cake for another 2 days before she finally ate the cake...

My Bollywood cake for Auntie Wah

Happy Birthday, Auntie Wah! May your years ahead be blessed and filled with all good things always...

xoxo

Elin