Buds, Blooms and Beyond

I'm going to blog about cakes I made over Valentine's Day... I'm still behind on my updates as you can see. Anyway, as I was saying...

You may have read my earlier entry about the master class I took with Joyliciouscake for making sugar flowers. Well, I was very fortunate to be able to apply what I learnt as Valentine's Day came round and I was asked by some devoted husbands to create something special for their wives.

Now, we know Valentine's Day is the one day in a year that florists of any grade make all their money. So this baker was going to give them a run for their money, at least with the two lovely gentlemen, who wanted flowers that their wives can eat instead of watch wither.

Hubby No.1 is based in San Francisco, and he asked if I could create a Valentine's Day cake for his wife here in Singapore. At first his idea was for me to make a cake in the shape of a branded handbag, but I told him that it's one thing to make edible flowers, it's another to make edible bags. Some things are best in actual form...and leather bags are one of those things - agree ladies?

So here's the expression of love I made on his behalf - a Tiffany blue heart shaped cake topped with more than a dozen red roses. Each rose was lovingly handmade, petal by petal.

"Our love can traverse any distance"

I delivered the cake first thing on V-day, to catch her before she went to work. I knocked on her door bright and early at 7:30am, after being told she leaves the house about 7:45am only to find that I had woken the household! She had overslept! So she was saved by the (door)bell, and received a total surprise on V-day morning. I only wished her hubby could see the sheer delight on her face. 

Hubby No.2 requested for a cake with flowers as it was his wife's birthday. She enjoys a good carrot cake and I was only too happy to make one with sweet cream cheese filling. Not enough people request for this, it's such a wonderful wholesome cake. 

Again I made roses in varying state of bloom, from rose buds, to small blooms to full petal roses. I also   put my lessons in floral arrangement to good use. It's one thing to be able to handcraft flowers, but being able to put it together in an aesthetic way makes all the difference. I have my amazing instructor Joyce to thank, apart from a master sugar artist, she's also an expert in floral arrangement.

Happy Birthday Darling

Roses are red,

Violets are blue,

When you need to say I love you,

Bake a cake. 

                        -- debbie

A Date with Charming Flowers

It's that time of the year when my baking buddy Dawn comes back from Shanghai and we get up to all sort of baking goodness. This trip back, she arranged for us to learn sugar flowers! I have a deep affection for flowers and the inner florist in me had been eagerly looking forward to this course.

We spent almost 3 rewarding days with our sugar art 神 (god), Joyce from Joyliciouscakes. Lesson time with Joyce is sheer pleasure as she imparts her techniques on crafting sugar paste into the most realistic flowers you have ever seen. Joyce is a generous teacher, wonderful host and a truly supportive friend in baking. 

Here's the rundown of flowers we learnt in the 2.5 days we spent in her home studio...

Magnolia

Ranunculus

Rose

Hydrangea

Chincherinchee (my fave of the lot)

Hypericum Berries

Red Wild Berries

My Charming Bouquet

We also learnt to make fillers like Wild Ginger Blossoms, Poison Hemlock, Hydrangea buds and Magnolia buds. They may be small (and a bit of a pain to make, literally!) but they make all the difference when completing an arrangement.

All these flowers were patiently made by hand, bud by bud, petal by petal. It's definitely my most laborious work of art by far! Thank you Joyce for the wonderful tutorials.

I Do

You know you've reached a milestone of sorts when you get to make a wedding cake for someone. That someone is a former colleague who truly believes in my baking and has no qualms that I never made a wedding cake ever! God bless her sweet soul.

This is a very special project for me for many reasons. I'm a hopeless romantic; a wedding cake symbolises the commitment to love in a very edible way. Marriage is a wonderful journey that I'm lucky to have embarked on with a kindred spirit - we are five years into ours - and I'm always happy to see friends making that lifelong promise to someone they love.

When the bride requested for me to bake her wedding cake, a million ideas raced through my mind. I was lucky to be given total creative autonomy. I told myself, keep it simple, focus on a few details and make those really stand out. So I proposed fresh flowers on a white fondant covered cake. She said yes!

Wedding cakes may seem simple enough, as compared to say a boy castle cake with towers and turrets, but in reality, it requires more finesse for that flawless finish. I prepped 2 dozen red and pink roses to go between the two-tiered cake. It's the first time I'm working with fresh flowers, it's totally stunning on a stark white fondant cake...makes me wonder why it's not more popular than sugarpaste flowers.  

Here's the first tier with flowers...

Red Velvet Cake + Roses

This is a red velvet cake covered in Wilton white fondant. The roses are nipped from the stalk and inserted with floral wires and assembled into a styrofoam disc about 5" smaller than the base cake. When that is done, the top tier is gently placed on top of the styrofoam disc. I topped the cake with 2 roses to represent the happy couple.

For Annie and George

While putting this cake together, I became slightly obsessed with ribbons! There are some wedding cakes that are embellished with nothing but ribbons and it's just too pretty! Some of the best examples I've seen of wedding cakes have nothing more than clever use of ribbons and a simple flower feature. I especially like this Singapore-based wedding cake boutique - Crummb - check out the website

All the best Annie & George!

Love is patient, love is kind. 1 Corinthians 13:4-7