Purple Wedding Fondant Cake

I could sense the worry in Reen's voice when she called me to order a full fondant covered hantaran cake for a purple & white themed wedding. My only assurance to her, I've attended the fondant cake decorating class and have a bucket of ready to use fondant for the job.
No gumpaste roses were made since I was overwhelmingly concerned about how to roll and transfer the rolled fondant onto the cake. My solution, roll it on a 14" cake board and slide it onto the cake. Didn't do it so well I must admit, so the ribbon and fondant ruffle were used to cover the bottom edges.
When I saw the smile on Reen's face and heard her short response "cantik...", I was so relieved, so is she, I think. Thanks Reen!

Aidil Adha

Today is 13th of Zulhijjah, the last day of Hari Raya Aidil Adha. Cikgu Salwa, my daughter's class teacher ordered these boxes of cupcakes to be given to her neighbors. Thank you Cikgu Salwa.
I am happy that Malaysia's KLK Cocoa / Barry Callebaut's chocolate has been given halal certification by Jakim. Their Selbourne bar was  used it to make the choc ganache for these cupcakes.
The green cake boxes that I used are a little too large for the 6 cupcakes, so folded carboards were inserted to fill the void.

Edible Image Orders

I receive many cany calls asking for samples of edible images available for immediate ordering. I'm sorry, I don't have it because most of my customers are also other home based bakers, and they provide me the file of the image they would like to be printed.
Anyway, here's some of the edible images I helped to edit and/or 'collect' (i.e. taken without asking) from the millions of images available on the internet.

Birthday Cake.... with Wedding Picture

I've always printed the edible image as it was sent to me, i.e. shoulder height, waist height or full length. Looking at this cake I can't help thinking I should have cropped the picture to waist height and framed it. It would have saved me a lot of time removing the original background and finding a frame template for it which are available mostly in landscape orientation.
The dark chocolate ganache is poured over a thin layer of chocolate fudge covering on this cake, with a layer of strawberry puree and cream filling in the middle.
Thanks Mona for ordering; sorry I couldn't get you the fresh strawberries because it wasn't available at the only one hypermarket in Kulim... :-(

Joint Birthday - Barbie n Ultraman

Mas ordered this chocolate cake for a joint birthday, wanted edible image of Barbie for Awish and Ultraman for Danial. The most appropriate form of Barbie to match Ultraman Max is definitely her character in Barbie & the 3 Musketeers.

It is always a bad idea to try something new when you only have 3 hours to decorate the cake; I tried a new brand of better tasting whipping cream for the cream layer underneath the ganache and it just would not set. To stop the chocolate ganache from overflowing on the sides of the cake, I scrape off a thin layer and piped some buttercream instead.

P/S I learned from a baking class last weekend that spreading a layer of whipped cream on the cake and chill it before pouring the ganache on top will give you a smooth thin layer of ganache.

Soccer Field Cupcakes Cake

It's been months since I last made pull-away cupcakes cake. Since the order was for a soccer field shape, I opted to use 36 square mini cupcakes to form the 'field'.
Forgot to apply a little buttercream to the base of the cupcakes to stick them to the cake boards, I was lucky that my daughter Sue helped to hold the cake in place during the delivery trip to Sg Ara. The journey in my little perodua kancil with dead absorbers on the potholes ridden BM roads was indeed a long and bumpy ride...
Mieza also ordered another 25 regular cupcakes, thanks Mieza.

Mickey & Friends Cupcakes

Zul informed me that his son's favorite Mickey's friend is Goofy, but we agreed it wouldn't be appropriate to put goofy's pic on the cake. I rarely received cake orders from a daddy, so when Zul mentioned it was for Hazim's 2nd birthday I was quite puzzled since his earlier query was for a number 3 cake. It was 2am on the delivery day when I realized this, so I went ahead to print "2nd".
Hariz indeed was going to celebrate his 3rd birthday, so the edible image was reprinted and overlapped on the previous one; the quickest fix within half hour since they are rushing to grandma's house to celebrate. Thanks for ordering Zul.

Swirl Roses Cupcakes

Miza sent a pic of the cupcakes she would like for her hantaran and confirmed her order about a month ago. The weather has been quite chilly since the last few weeks (due to La Nina?, Artic ice caps melting?), so I was not really worried how far these buttercream topping cupcakes would travel to the groom's place. ( I usually advise my customers to order fondant topped cupcakes for hantaran)
When Miza saw these cupcakes her reaction was "Cantiknya...." Thanks Miza, Selamat Pengantin Baru!

Cheesecake Cupcakes, Fondant Teddy Bears

Last week I was reading my first few posts when I started this blog about 9 months ago and remembered that my initial excitement to start cupcakes decorating was from making those tiny fondant bears, pooh, eeyore, tigger etc... I haven't done those for a very long time mainly because I don't really enjoy molding with tightly gloved hands.
Anyway, when Niza ordered some blueberry and zebra cheese cupcakes for her anniversary, I suggested adding these little mom, dad & baby bears for the decor. Thanks Niza, Happy Anniversary!
I'm still reluctant to try the chocolate fondant widely sold at the shops; so I made mine by adding softened chocolate bar to the fondant dough.

30th Anniversary Cake

When I agreed to this order for number 30 cake weighing only 1 kg+, I was more concerned on getting the cake to fit on a 12" cake base. After I've assembled the cake, it's obvious that putting the two number pieces side by side was a bigger challenge; no wonder most 2-number cakes I googled were covered with fondant. When I slide the chilled & frosted number 0 piece to be aligned to the partially pre-piped icing border drawn on the base, it fell apart; arghhhh.... Luckily I need not worry so much about the decor since message from Firah was "....decor camna tak pa, yg penting bentuk 30....".

Thanks Firah for the order and congratulations on your parents' 30th anniversary. My hubby  & i will be celebrating our 20th next year ..... ;-)

As for the heap of  the 30% cake scraps, the kids finish it with drizzle of chocolate ganache and whip cream. Here's a pic of the naked cake formed using 2X4" ring pan, 1X4" round pan and 1X4" square pan.

Yna's Kindergarten Graduation

Yna has stopped going to her kindy since mid August; mostly due to Asyraf's 3-month hospitalization and Yna's nocturnal behavior that is so difficult to break (she sleeps after 3:00am, wakes up at 12:00pm). For the last few weeks I kept thinking that she won't be getting her first scroll to add to her personal file and what would my answer be when she asks about it in future. ( I still keep my kindy scroll from 35years ago, and of course her bro & sis have theirs too)
I was so relieved when the Cikgu Nab, the headmaster at Tadika Fitrah Ehsan invited us to join the graduation ceremony. Well, I think Yna deserves it too, since she's exceeded pre-school adequacy level of reading/writing/arithmetic. My regret however was that she was unable to join the performance, much to her disappointment too.

As a thank you gesture for the teachers and all the 4/5/6 years old kids at the kindy I baked these mini cupcakes for them. I didn't affix any labels on the individual cupcake plastic cases, thus was very happy that a few of the parents personally aprroached me and will become my customers soon.

The graduation robe & caps are pipings of choc fudge. Earlier, I made a batch of robes and caps using royal icing but they did not hardened; the reason was too much gel coloring added to make them black. To make matters worse, the cupcakes peeled away from the paper liners. I didn't want the cuppies to go to waste, so the liners were peeled off and the cupcakes were put into paper souffle cups. I googled about the peeling cupcakes problem, most i think was due to high butter/fat content. I think mine was due to the repacked "buttercup" blend i purchased after Raya when the original 1kg cans or 5kg tubs were not available. Or maybe, it could be the rainy weather too. Hmm...

Fresh Fruits Cupcakes

Deciding suitable cupcakes for a guy can be tricky. My hubby for instance will only eat chocolate cupcakes with a dollop of chocolate fudge, nothing fancy schmancy.

Intan ordered these 16pcs fresh fruit cupcakes for her hubby's 30th birthday; her choice of fruit was strawberry, grapes and peaches. I ran out of cling peaches, replaced with canned mandarin orange segments instead.

Cupcakes topping was half/half dairy fresh cream/non-dairy whip cream. Reason being, most non-dairy cream are too sweet, dairy cream tastes better but has very little whip volume and turns watery too fast in our tropical weather.

Message from Intan later that night, "Tq...sedap n my husband luv it......." Thanks Intan.

Cheesecake Cupcakes

Cheesecake cupcakes, that's what I decided to call  these tiny guilty pleasures.
Baked them last weekend, for the kids to take with them to their weekday hostels; since mommy's trying to stick to her herbalife diet plan; with only one or two (most of the time) cupcakes a day(shh... my 'wellness consultant' doesn't know that cupcake part yet) She's coming over tomorrow for my weekly progress charting. Errr...my progress??? i only lost 1kg in over a month! And no, i won't mention what the weighing scale (so called body composition monitor) says about my metabolic age.

Strawberry/raspberry and chocolate topping this time; there's a long list of other flavors i'm planning for future projects....and still wishing to shed a few more kgs along the way

Dora Cupcakes and Princess Cake

Elsie called from Perth to order these for her nieces. Cupcakes with Dora images for Kakak (older sister), and a pink princess cake for Adik (younger sister); both sets with the girls' pics too. I arrived at a spacious apartment with the doors wide open. The wind was blowing softly, smoke and noise from the busy Penang streets just disappear at this top floor of the apartment block.
I was greeted by Elsie's mom, standing beside her was a very sweet little girl which I immediately recognized as adik was also waiting, and... she was wearing a Dora t-shirt! I felt my heart skipped a beat, did I swapped Elsie's instructions? Alhamdulillah... i found out later that i didn't.

Later in the evening Elsie called again just to inform me that the girls and her mom liked the cakes very much. I've also started building Bakeryna pages on Facebook as suggested by Elsie. Thanks so much Elsie!

P/S Adik's pic was superimposed with Snow White's black hair wig, tiara and princess dress