Dear Daniel

Dear Daniel,

When your Mum and I were young, we were each other's favourite playmates. Family gatherings saw us like peas & carrots and we especially loved playing 'house'. Someone was always making a meal, we pretended to 'work' and of course there was the occasional domestic squabble but our kinship and friendship weathered it all.

Then we grew up and went from playing to partying. Too many nights were spent queuing at clubs, drinking till the bar closed and then, still reluctant to head home, we would eat our first meal of the day at Adam Road hawker centre till the sun beckoned.

Well well, look at us now. Our main preoccupation, making sure you kids are fed, cleaned and entertained. We queue at supermarkets, stay up till you are done drinking (milk) and still reluctant to head to bed, we try to cram in some me-time online till we hear your next cry.

It's been a month now since we were blessed with your arrival and every day, you are a joy to all who are in your life. Every time I look at you, I think of how very far we have all come. We couldn't imagine it before, but Daniel... you and your cousins Jake, James and Clare are everything we ever wanted and more.

Love,
Aunty Debbie

ps: In case you're wondering... your Papa is a HUGE Liverpool supporter, which explains why your full month cupcakes have those little red football jerseys with your name and day / month of birth ('39') on it. They were lovingly handmade by your Mummy and I, even though we don't watch football. But you should know the family is divided into Liverpool and Man United supporters, I'm sure your Uncle Ravi and Uncle Andrew will be having a chat with you the minute you can kick a ball.

Happy 1st Month Danny boy

Handmade Cupcake Toppers

If you read my earlier post about paper crafts, you'd know how much I love making cupcake toppers. I had the opportunity to make Full Month cupcakes again and I convinced the mummy that paper toppers were the way to go!

So it was off to the paper shop for some shopping. I chose a variety of blue patterned paper and got very tempted to take up scrapbooking (ok, focus focus). But I have been investing in a variety of scrapbooking tools. Here are my favourite cutters...

3" Scallop Nesting Punch

2.25" Round Punch

1" Scalloped Circle Art Punch

With these, some nice papers and a colour printer, I could dress up any cupcake, and that's just what I did for Baby Ryo. The sweet boy received 50 cupcakes with paper toppers designed and handmade by me ; )

Sticks for holding up the topper

Glue down print design on the backer

And there it is!

Happy 1st Month Ryo

These were banana cranberry cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. I piped a rosette and planted the paper topper. Don't they look amazing in a batch. I highly recommend anyone ordering cupcakes to consider these, I can work with you on the design too!

Little Irish

For the longest time in my family, my niece Laura is the only girl grandchild - my brother also has two boys, and I've followed suit with 2 boys myself. So you can imagine the elation after 16 years, we are finally blessed with another little girl. My sister delivered a gorgeous bub this month and we are totally enamoured with her.

A month ago while we were eagerly awaiting her arrival, I was really hoping she'd make an appearance by 3rd September as I wanted to make sure I would be able to bake her full month cakes (I'd be away from 2nd Oct and would be very sad to miss the opportunity to bake for her).

Baby C came to us on 3rd September and this Aunty almost immediately started planning her cakes with her Mama.

So what sort of cakes do you get when you're part Irish, part Cantonese. Well, there's definitely going to be green shamrocks, Guinness (if Papa has his way) and rich dark chocolate cake (if Mama has her way). Well, that's exactly what she got... A Guinness-looking chocolate cake with a green shamrock topping!

Varlhona Choc Cupcake with Fluffy Frosting

Two weeks leading up to Baby C's full month, her Mama and I were busy making little fondant shamrocks. I tried my darnest to look for a shamrock cutter but no one stocks it in Singapore! So we improvised with a mini flower cutter and shaped it into a shamrock and we did this 170 times! Talk about labour of love... ok still nothing compares to childbirth labour of course ;p

Mama's intricate hand work

Lucky many times over with this many shamrocks

Looks amazing in a box!

And individually packaged too

Happy 1st Month Baby Clare!

Cupcakes & Toppers

The last few weeks had been all about decorative fondant cakes, so I was looking forward to this weekend's order - cupcakes and paper toppers!

This was my first order of 1st Month cakes. A mummy contacted me to make 48 chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter swirl – she obviously liked what I did with Cakes & Craft, so she suggested cupcake toppers with her baby girl's name and a simple message.

I whipped up my trusty moist chocolate cake for the cuppies and prepared that luscious peanut butter frosting that is practically unadulterated apart from Nutella for sweetness. Then I used a 2C Wilton piping tip and swirled pretty roses on top of each cupcake.

Peanut Butter Roses

The best part about preparing this order is making a trip down to the scrapbooking shop to look for pretty paper. Instead of the usual pink for girls, the request was for buttercup yellow. So I scoured the shop for something girly and happy. Looky what I found... this lovely double-sided art card.

So happy indeed!

I created the round printouts with Isabel's name and date of her 1st month celebration, as requested by her mummy. It was a pretty combination with the white polka dot on yellow.

Isabel's 1st Month

Here's the complete box of cupcakes with toppers. The fun part is the double-sided pattern where I flipped the other way for variety! And the back view looks just as good too ; )

All lined up

A sweet momento

I was so pleased with completing these for delivery that I totally forgot to bring some extras promised for my client's own tasting. So mummy D, if you're reading this, you have cupcake credit with me. Call me!