Daniel's Cake

My friend wanted all her husband's favourite things to be incorporated in the cake and wanted them in 3D. I was quite happy with the cake until delivery time. Because the cake structure for the golf bag wasn't strong enough, and while carrying down the stairs and in the car, the structure moved and caused the bottom tier of the cake to crack and break...so the entire cake sank 3 inches to the bottom. Thank God that the fondant didn't crack that badly and i was able to patch up a bit. But the cake ended up looking like saggy old bag with a heavy bottom. I was sooo upset and disappointed with myself for not going with my instincts that the structure wasn't strong enough.  I told my husband 5 times that I think the rod isn't strong enough but he kept saying it is OK and reassured me that it will be alright. True enough, my worse fears happened right before my eyes, the cake cracked and moved.. my heart sank  and i almost cried.

My friend was very nice about it and comforted me and she just called to tell me that nobody at the party noticed the golfbag cake sagged until she mentioned it. But honestly, I'm still feeling quite lousy about it.  My heart ached further when I saw the after party photo of the sagging cake and tilting to one side.  I think I'll need some time to recover.. 

Everything is made with edible material. The golf bag, notebook, and keyboard all are made of cake, sushi is made with cakeballs, xrays are handpainted gelatine sheets and the rest of the stuff made with gumpaste and RKT.

Side View of the cake

details of the cake

details of the caviar, bellini with caviar, sushi

details of the sugar rose, golf clubs

Lesson learnt:  Trust my own instinct and always insist on a stronger structure when everyone else say otherwise...cos only I know how my cake is going to turn out... I think I should learn how to do carpentry work too instead of relying on others.... lol!

I planned to bake this week's HCB cake but i think now i'm too sad & disappointed to want to bake anything after my golfbag cake sank... 

Food (Frederick) Cake

This is what i have been doing and preparing hence unable to bake my weekly HCB assignments...getting all the gumpaste ready to harden and dry..which takes longer to dry in our climate. 

I've been asked by my friend to make a cake for her nephew's 21st birthday and she told me that he loves food. Hence it's all about food.  My friend said i have include pocky, lobster, sushi and an assortment of other food if possible. 

Everything is made from edible material, including the disposal box, sauce containers, green leaves.  Pocky and Chicken Nugget is hand-painted.  I was looking for sodium alginate to make fish roe or shall i say juice caviar..trying my hand in molecular gastronomy or trying to copy Heston Blumenthal..hahaha.. but i couldn't find such chemicals here..(even normal antibiotics are not allowed to be bought over the counter unless with doctor's certification..see..how to buy chemicals?!). Thus, i had to crack my head and used a more economy way of making tiny gummy balls instead. :D

The cake almost left me in tears..don't know why the cake kept breaking up and i couldn't get the pocky cake to stand upright...thankfully i had extra cake and remade it again..but had to make it bigger than what i had planned in order for it to be sturdy enough to stand.

Thank God everything turned out well in the end. I did pray very hard. :D  And God gave me a verse in Philippians 4:6-7.  "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. "

Cow Cake

Are you thinking what i am thinking?  The cow looks like a cross breed between a cow and a pig right? LOL!  

I want to thank my flickr pal,  [Schmish] for helping me with the cake structure. She was so sweet to draw out the cake structure for me so i can have a clearer idea what i should be doing for a 3D standing cow cake and she was also patient enough to entertain all my silly questions about DIY. I am really not a diy person and neither is my husband (20 years of marriage and i've never seen him hold a power tool before or a normal non-electric saw...) and i have absolutely no clue how to use a power tool either.  I showed my husband her drawing and he said he can do it. So, he helped me out with the cake structure, however, he insisted that the 'legs' shouldn't be that long cos cow doesn't have long legs and to trust his judgement... But just as i expected, the 'legs' he provided weren't long enough and i ended up with a short-legged cow..LOL! And the 'legs' were UNeven in length too!   I had to hide the legs (or pretend the legs to be covered with tall grass!).  With my not so great cake sculpting skill coupled with his less than satisfactory diy skill, my cow at certain angle looked like a pig!.  

Nevertheless,  I had fun making this cake...i had a lot of first time with this cake..lol! First time i made a structure for a cake, and first time used airbrush and first time i 'steamed' my cake.   Before i 'steamed' (like Cake Boss) my cake to give it a shine, the airbrushing looked better, but after i 'steamed' it, the airbrushing looked much darker..and quite patchy!  My lesson, never steam airbrush cakes until i have mastered the art of airbrushing first.  I know i'm suppose to practice on a piece of paper first but i didn't..i just went hands-on with it! :p    This is not a paying cake, so i get to 'experiment' right? 

Happy Birthday Hannah!  Hannah is born in the year of cow, hence she requested for a cow cake. :D  

Pixar UP Cake

No HCB bake this week cos my daughter and I don't really like coconut in cakes. *shrugs* Don't know why....just not too fond of it. But i like coconut in curry and some other local desserts though.  Also, i've been busy baking my daughter's belated birthday cake.  So here it is....

Made this UP Cake for my daughter's belated birthday celebration...a must after the UP Cookies..:) 

Up Cake: Front View

Hand molded Russell, Dug & Carl

Hand molded Kevin

Up Cake: Side View

Cake Flavor: Strawberry Cake w/ Strawberry buttercream & fresh strawberries filling

This strawberry cake is very easy to bake - quick and fast - so fast that it felt like it's made from cake box mix..the cake turned out beautifully but i have one complain though, the texture/crumbs is a bit rough imo. Not sure if it is because i'm spoilt after baking so often from Rose's HC book as all of her cakes, the texture is very soft and crumb is also very delicate that it melts in your mouth, so much so any cakes not up to par i just can taste it right away?  *shrugs* This cake is yummy except the texture just feels rough on my tongue. Other than that, the taste, flavor is great.   Have i become cake snob (besides chocolate snob..) too? *rolling eyes*

Recipe as requested by Hanaa:-

Strawberry Cake (by Michele Foster)


Oven Temp: 350f
Baking Time: 35mins


3 cups cake flour
1-1/2 cups sugar
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 Tbsp strawberry gelatin
1 cup butter, soften
1-1/4 cup buttermilk
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract


Sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and strawberry gelatin powder.  Add butter and 1 cup of buttermilk. Mix slowly until combined then beat at medium speed for 90 sec. Meanwhile mix eggs and vanilla & remaining buttermilk. Scrape down sides. Add to batter, mixing in two batches for about 20 secs each.  Pour into two 8" or one 9x13" pans.  Bake at 350f for 35mins. Cook for 10mins before turning into the cooling rack. Frost with your favorite buttercream after completely cooled.

Pixar UP Cookies

My daughter's birthday is coming up next week but she will be in away in Church camp and hence won't be celebrating with us. This is the first year she's away from home on her birthday. So i made her some birthday cookies of her fave cartoon characters for her to bring to camp.   I spent 2 days piping these...so tiring!!  My arm going to drop off already...  I thought i could finish in a day but i couldn't.. hence i didn't have time to bake this week's HCB assignment :(.

Overall, I'm happy with how the UP cookies turned out.  However, I still need to improve on the fine detail piping skill which i am lacking in (as what Chef Michel Roux Jr, judge of MasterChef-Pro always say "lacking the finesse...") I guess practice makes perfect but cooking decorating is extremely time consuming imo..and sometimes (actually, more like most of the time) i'm quite lazy to get my butt moving..:p ! 

Russell and his Wilderness Explorer, Grape Soda badges

Carl & his Home

Dug

Kevin

UP Cookies

Tiara cookies

Dress cookies

Cookies all packed and gift wrapped for my daughter

MH Birthday Cookies

Made this platter for my colleague MH's birthday. She has a sweet tooth so i hope she'll enjoy it.  At the same time practiced my piping too..lol! :D   Couldn't decide which photo looked better so i ended uploading both...:)   Happy Birthday MH!

Thank you all who left comments earlier on my Ironhot-heart cookies blog post.  All your lovely & kind comments have been most encouraging and gave me much confidence to try piping another batch of cookies this soon. :D  

Ironhot-heart Cookies

The cartoon characters drawn by my daughter. She's entering Uni to study design in a few months' time. I translated her drawings into cookies just for her.  Of course her drawing is much better than what i can pipe. This is the best i can do - for someone (me) who has piped less than 5x! Piping is my nemesis!  

Ironhot-Heart is the name of the robot (in case you don't know that's a robot..since a friend of mine thought the head looked like a monkey & the arms like prawns! :( Guess must be my bad piping skills for her to think that way!! lol! ) my daughter gave her cartoon characters.  And also to clarify that girl on the flower cookie is not a robot girl (which i thought it was initially and met with much protest by my daughter) but Marshmallow Girl....*roll eyes* 

Toy Car Cake

I'm really happy how this cake turned out esp when I wasn't feeling well and didn't really feel like making this cake.  However, after reading Friday's daily bread devotion (http://odb.org/2010/05/07/becoming-inclined-to-god), i managed to complete this cake. Thanks to God & Praise the Lord! :) 

Cake alone is 16" x 12" and it's quite huge & very heavy.  Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Buttercream.  

Happy Birthday Daniel! :D

[MacTweets/ma7] Rum & Raisin, Pina Colada & Earl Grey Tea Macarons

I made these macarons 2 days before Jamie & Deeba posted Mac Attack 7. I got the dates all mixed up..i thought i was making for Mac Attack 6 but in fact i missed the deadline! :p Since i have yet to blog about them, i figured i might as well incorporate them into this month's MacTell Me-A-Story.  My favorite story book while growing up was Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. Mad Hatter's tea party scene comes right to my mind...and those little cakes that shout "Eat Me"....even more so after I recently watched Tim Burton's version of Alice in Wonderland. I had a couple of ideas for my macarons but couldn't decide which would taste better so ended making all the 3 flavors. I did this after work and it was not a good idea because i baked till after midnight and almost 2-am before i could go to bed. I'm as crazy as the Mad Hatter i think, at times that is..;p... and i had to remind myself AGAIN never to bake all 3 flavors at one go esp. after work!  

Rum & Raisin Macarons

Vanilla Macaron Shells, White Chocolate Rum Buttercream with Rum Raisin Jam centre

Pina Colada Macarons

Coconut Macaron Shells, White Chocolate Rum Buttercream with Pineapple Jam centre

Earl Grey Tea Macarons

Earl Grey Macaron Shells with Honey Buttercream

Rum & Raisin Macarons, Pina Colada Macarons & Earl Grey Tea Macarons

Rum & Raisin Macarons, Pina Colada Macarons & Earl Grey Tea Macarons

Macarons shells all matched up..i still suck at piping even size macarons..

so have take time to match them in their respective sizes..lol!

This time, basic macaron recipe (italian method) is taken from David Lebovitz post on Pierre Herme's Ketchup Macarons.  After doing 3 batches of macarons in italian meringue..i find that the folding of meringue is extremely tough compared to the french way...towards the 3rd batch, my arm and wrist felt like it was going to fall off my shoulder..but then does make chewier macaron shells though.. Also italian way is more forgiving too imo....my 1st batch of Vanilla shells, the sugar didn't really dissolve and had lots of sugar crystals stuck on the pan but my shells turned out ok. The 2nd batch, the Earl Grey Tea shells, the sugar syrup was a bit caramelized..but my shells were still ok. The 3rd batch, the sugar syrup was finally correct and of course the shells turned out great. :)  My conclusion: Pierre Herme's recipe is definitely a keeper! :D

Among the 3 flavors, thumbs-up to my Rum & Raisin flavor!! :D Everyone loved it (me included!..i like the rum in it..lol!).  Pina Colada voted as 2nd favorite. :D  Earl Grey was ok but i guess i didn't add enough of the earl grey tea powder so the flavor wasn't as distinct as i had wanted.

Please do check out other bloggers' macarons & flavors listed on http://mactweets.blogspot.com!

Alice in Wonderland Cake

It's my daughter's turn to bring a cake to Church for Youth Fellowship for the month.  I decided to make an Alice in Wonderland's cake after watching Tim Burton's 3D movie.  Don't ask me why, but i just love the story of Alice in Wonderland since young.  

Thanks to a very generous flickr-friend Taya @deliciouslydecadent for her topsy turvy cake tutorial that i finally plucked the courage to do this. However, i did a lousy job! LOL! I cut the cake the wrong way, ie, i cut it in the opposite way (instead of a pyramid, i did a cone..) and i realised my mistake a bit too late. And to salvage it, i did everything the wrong way to get it right. LOL! Then i  place the top tier a bit off the centre... er....yup..i don't know what's wrong with me..i don't see it until i get everything done and then noticed it is off the centre. But I'm quite happy with my 'un-planned' last minute design and my inspiration is from other flickr members - Genevieve @forloveofcake and Rebecca @sweetcakesbyrebecca.  Needless to say, of course their design is 1000x better than mine. :))

The problem with me is i don't know how to plan & design a cake. This cake design just came up as I went along.. I asked my daughter who is into design (she plans to study it as she enters into university this year) to help me think of something and she fell asleep while thinking - so much for counting on her!?!?  I actually had some ideas in my mind but as i was doing it, i completely forgotten and colored the top tier fondant in the wrong color. So i had to just add whatever i thought of as i went along.   Also i spelt the Happy "UN-Birthday" wrongly...and NOBODY at home noticed it.. aargghh.. until when the cake was about to be cut..someone then noticed it!  

Here's the left over cake.  Coffee cake with coffee buttercream & white chocolate coffee ganache.  A lot of caffeine in the cake. I think you don't have to drink coffee after eating a slice of this! LOL!   

[MacTweets/ma5] Spring Fling: Yuzu RedBean Macarons

Yuzu Macarons Shells with RedBean centre & Yuzu/Lime Buttercream.

I had a hard time coming up with flavors for Spring since I live here in the tropics where it is Summer all year round and right now we are experiencing the hottest period ever!  All i can think of is ice-cream, ice-water, ice-kachang (local dessert made of ice!)..

I finally thought of Yuzu flavored macarons since i just bought a bottle of yuzu paste. It smells very much like tangerine/mandarin oranges..and i like anything orange. :)   I paired the Yuzu macaron shells with redbean centre & yuzu/lime buttercream.  

This time I wanted to try a different macaron recipe so i settled on Veron's @ Kitchenmusing.com  italian meringue recipe. You can find her recipe here.  She's a very talented lady and she uses the original recipe by Pierre Hermes having been to his macaron classes.   The recipe isn't too difficult and her instructions are pretty clear.  However, i had a hard time folding in the egg white. For this method, I find I needed a lot of strength to fold and  macaronnage which i find quite tiring!  

<Note>: I realised that the macarons from this recipe is more chewy with better texture and even though the recipe seems to have a lot more sugar, it doesn't taste any sweeter than the other macaron recipes i've tried before. Recipe definitely a keeper despite the fact that i have difficulty folding in the meringue. LOL! 

Please do check out other bloggers' macarons & flavors listed on http://mactweets.blogspot.com!

Yacht Cake 2 ( replacement cake )

This is the replacement yacht cake i had to make after the 1st yacht cake fell from the stool. I stayed overnight to re-bake and re-decorate the cake again and slept only 2 hours just to get the cake to be delivered on time.  

This cake is much smaller than the 1st yacht cake since i didn't have much time and i downscaled the batter and also the size of the cake. I didn't have as much time to add in as much details on the cake as i would like, plus lacking sleep i was having a headache.

The yacht is named 'Tuxedo" because that's the name of my boss' boat...but of course the above doesn't look like my boss' real boat. 

Everything on this cake is made from edible material and cake flavor is Coffee Cake with Coffee Buttercream. 

Thankfully this cake made it in time for my boss' celebration dinner.

PS: Im typing these 2 yacht posts with 2 hrs of sleep..so my sentences might sound weird..but i'll correct later after i have enough sleep..hahahaha..

....The Next Day....

My boss gave me this photo he took last night after the cake was cut.  I find it pretty interesting to see the  inside of the cake though..maybe because most of the time i don't get to see the inside of the cake or the cake being cut.

Yacht Cake 1 ( fell & damaged b4 delivery )

I made this cake for my boss' birthday celebration. Took me the entire day to decorate this cake and when i completed, my husband moved the cake to be placed onto a stool while i cleared up the table and then i accidentally touched the side of the board and then entire cake fell off from the stool and smashed into bits! All my hard work gone...wasted!  I was way too shocked and lost my sanity a bit and hence for got to take photos of the damaged cake..which i should have. 

Then i ended up staying up overnight and slept only 2 hours to re-bake and re-decorate the 2nd yacht cake ( in my next post ).

Right from the beginning, i had lots of problems with this cake..with fondant cracking, with cake sliding..etc and hence the boat looked rather 'bloated'..LOL!

Everything on the cake is made from edible material except the candle of course.  Cake Flavor: Chocolate Cake & Coffee Cake with respective buttercream...but too bad nobody got to eat it..all went to the bin! :(