Cakes & Cupcakes for Boys

Boys... when they're toddler, Sesame Street is usually one of their favorite shows.
Imran is sooooo super cute, ooohhh... that smile could just melt your heart..... wish i could pinch those chubby cheeks! The choice of Sesame Street image was from mommy herself, thanks Suheila.
Making this cake reminds me of how much my daughter Yna loves Elmo when she was three or four, I had to call up every Toys R US stores in KL trying to find one when they launched "Tickle Me Elmo". Well.... she's past that stage now,  otherwise we'd have to get her the new "Elmo Live"  :)

Boys... when they're preschoolers or in primary school, suddenly their favorite cartoons becomes gender biased. Every little boy I know just love Ben10 and Transformers. Thank you Asmawati.... harapnya ramai lagi anak sedara nak mintak cupcakes ada gambar :)
My son Syamil helped me with the selection of popular Autobots and Decepticons to put on those cuppies... Optimus Prime, BumbleBee, Sideswipe and Megatron. (three good robots against one villain, this isn't fair!)

And.... some boys just want to be the hero themselves! :D
Here's some of the edible images i edited.... Thanks Siti n Syalina

Déjà vu....... seeing what you saw

Getting orders from customers who emphasize the words "exactly" when referring to the cake i've made before sometimes worries me, because I always try to make some improvement.
The railway track is made of black colored fondant on this one, looks better than the buttercream piping on the previous.

 The chocolate fondant planks 'sweat' when taken out of the fridge, and having to deliver it around noon just made it worse :(   Thanks Lina for ordering, hope the cake was okay when u received it.
Chef Khairy gave a brief demo on chocolate plastique yesterday, his advise was... to remove as much fat as you can from the melted chocolate when u're mixing it with glucose / corn syrup; will try that next time.

This fondant covered cake is definitely better than the previous one :)
SMS from Azreena a while after she picked up the cake "....can't focus on driving, really love d cake beside me" . Thanks Azreena!

Cakes n Cupcakes for the Girls

This order was from my daughter's friend. My swirl roses have slightly improved, many thanks to KamalinaCakes for sharing her method, use Wilton nozzle 224 and 103

When my friend Ti asked me to bake some fun cupcakes for her friend's 3 year old daughter I immediately chose Fifi and the Flower Tots and Strawberry Shortcake, although they're not that popular in Malaysia because it has not been aired on Astro for quite some time.

Another order from Ti is a tiramisu cake for one of her best friend at school. I think this is probably the 5th tiramisu cake ordered by the teachers at SMKM. Ti and her friends are hardcore fans of the Twilight series, and I think they are definitely anticipating the Twilight Eclipse screening in June, in 3d! The initial plan was to put Edward's pic but received an email just a few moment before I print, to have Kecum's newborn 'prince' and Kecum's other half pic instead.

There are so many variants of Tiramisu out there, this is the recipe I have been using
Cream Cheese                200g (mascarpone preferred, otherwise use Tatura, it's less acidic than Philly)
UHT Whipping Cream    200g
White Couverture Choc   150g
Sponge Cake                   300g, sliced into two
Savoiardi Lady Fingers    enough to cover one layer
Nescafe 3in1                   2packs
Nescafe Regular              1 tsp
Hot water                         1 cup

Beat cream cheese till smooth set aside

Whisk UHT Whipping Cream until about triple the volume (not too stiff) set aside
Melt courverture chocolate using double boil/ bain marie method and add fold into whipping cream.
Take about 3 tablespoon of cream cheese add to white choc/whip cream and fold the mixture into the cream cheese.

Mix the two kinds of nescafe with hot water to dissolve and set aside to cool in a bowl

Put a layer of sponge cake on bottom of removable base cake pan, and spread half of the cream cheese mixture.
Dip the lady fingers half of its side and flip it onto the other side, so that it won't become soggy
.
Arrange the dipped lady fingers on the cream cheese layer

Spread another layer of cream cheese. Place the spongecake piece, or sieve some cocoa powder.
Top the spongecake with whipping cream or choc ganache, voila !

And... for Ti who's recuperating at home after a kidney surgery, I bring her these.... for her kids

Take care Ti! Advise from Ti to everyone, drink more water, eat less meat. Hmm...I still can't hit the 3liter per day target set by my Herbalife consultant

Bring a smile to a child's face....

To me, one of the greatest joy of baking is seeing a child gleefully smiles when looking at their birthday cake. With edible image, that happens quite a lot, especially the ones where there's a picture of them together with their favorite cartoon character(s).
Here're the cakes I made for their birthday celebrations at the kindergartens /day care centers.
Ordered by Yanie, disney princess cupcakes and a cake for 80kids

Order from Yati & her friend Ju, Dora and boy&girl themed photo cake

 

From the parents via Cikgu Nab of TFE

 

To those whose cake pics are not posted, I'm so sorry. My daughter Yna was experimenting with "what things float and what doesn't" while being left at home with Dad. One of the item, needless to say, is our previous Sony CyberShot , submerged in a mug of tea! Maybe it did survived for a while, since the last image stored seems like an underwater video, ha ha ha.

These pics were taken using 'my' (?) new Cybershot Exmor, and I'm still fumbling with the settings.

My wish of getting a DSLR was shot down with hubby's remarks that the DSLR will suffer the same fate as our camcorder, nobody wants to carry it around their neck when we go on holidays (which has not happen since hmmm.... so long ago) :-(

Tomorrow is the start of yet another long weekend holiday....... "Selamat Menyambut Maulidur Rasul"

Princess Cupcakes

Order from Asma for "Princess Aurora and co" cupcakes. Thanks Asma, hope K Ngah had a wonderful birthday.

Pink Aurora

Satisfied with the last Thomas n Friends themed cake, Hanani ordered another chocolate cake, this time for her niece's birthday in Gerik. Glad that my choice for the pink background was right, it's Uzma's favorite color. The only Disney Princess my daughter Yna likes is also Aurora, simply because she's the one princess that always wears pink.
Thanks Hanani, and sorry for arriving late;  I was heading to our previous pickup point before I called you :0

My solution to make the white courverture ganache filling taste a little more like chocolate, add pure cocoa butter (the one with slightly yellowish color, the cheaper very white ones are made of and taste like sugar and shortening) I read that white chocolate is not considered chocolate by US FDA since it has no chocolate liqueur or cocoa solids. And btw... chocolate liqueur is halal (i.e. without alcohol), refer here www.ifanca.org/glossary  

Thomas & Friends Cake

I've been wanting to make a train themed cake for quite some time, thus was really excited when I received an order for Thomas & Friends cake from Hanani. Nani even willing to come all the way from Penang island to pick up her order, thanks Nani.

Her order was for a chocolate cake with fudge filling, but I thought I would be too unappealing for little Thaqif, so I added a white chocolate whip cream layer too. Looking at how Yna just scrape all the leftover from the mixing bowl into her mouth I just hope that Thaqif would like it too.

Anyway... i'm still searching for a better tasting white choc, the couverture I have tasted more like condensed milk than chocolate :(

Ben Sepuluh Cupcakes

Just when I thought the Ben10 series has lost its popularity, CN starts airing the new season last week.

 

This set for a girl who really adores the Ben 10 series (initially mommy wants some mickey n friends pics too, but later changed to only Ben 10).

 

These 70 individually packed cupcakes from a birthday boy to all his friends at school. Thanks Latha, I should have followed my Garmin instruction to locate your house instead of wasting 30 mins stopping and asking people for directions (and all of them were wrong)

And this edible image was ordered by Adilla together with some souffle cups for her to bake the cupcakes herself :)

Tiramisu Cake with Barbie Edible Image

The square cake pans with removable base are sold only in odd number square sizes at the bakery supply shops here. I wasn't sure why, maybe it was meant to accomodate the shrinking of spongecake after being cooled; i.e. my logic, bake the cake in the larger even number size pan and assemble it in the smaller odd number size pan, in this case 10" and 9" pans. (I always place a thin layer of chocolate spongecake at the base of the tiramisu cake to ease transferring from the pan base to the cake board).
Making these rectangular chocolate sheets was definitely much easier compared to forming it into a round/ring shape. But, superimposing the the pics of the girls onto two of the musketeers' face wasn't; although the Image-Equalize function in Photoshop did help.
The cheesecake filling was made using a (secret?) method revealed by Chef Khairy, a former chef of SR - white couverture chocolate to replace sugar in all their cheesecakes! The filling seems to set firmer faster this way despite the dairy whip cream being a little runny before mixing in the cream cheese/white chocolate mixture. And, I just love the taste, glad that I've made extra for my kids and their cousins who were spending their holidays here. Btw, I've given up trying to find mascarpone cheese around here, I'm now happy with the Anchor brand, less tangy than Philly, thus suitable for tiramisu.
Thanks for the order Cikgu Husna.

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.

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.

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

For Princess Ain

Thanks to Facebook I've managed to connect to many of my old friends (excluding a few ghosts of my past... :D). Except for a few who resides in northern part of malaysia, the last I met most of them was a quarter century ago, oh dear... I am soooo old.
Tie wrote on my wall that she'd like to order a cake for her daughter and wanted the pic of Ain to be edited to dress like a princess. A few nights later when hubby saw me looking confused in front of of my lappie he asked me why. When I told him about Tie's request, his reaction was "what...? you said u can do it?", and my reply was "err... yes".
I think the picture turned out okay (hubby agreed too), except that Ain doesn't like to see her red haired :(
Tie also ordered some 100+ cupcakes for all the kids at Ain's kindy (PASTI) too. Thanks Tie!

Cupcakes for Boys & Girls

Eeja has nine kids, and the eldest is only 12 years old. These are for the kids to take home to Terengganu. Ana Muslim & Strawberry Shortcake for the girls and Upin Ipin & action heroes for the boys. The kids were so happy showing off and sharing the cupcakes with their friends :D