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

Twenty Years of We Do

My brother and sister-in-law renewed their commitment to each other again after 20 years of marriage. In an age of so much brokenness - socially, politically, economically - keeping a marriage going for two decades is surely commendable.

So how did the happy couple celebrate the occasion? They booked a holiday bungalow, invited family and friends, catered a lovely feast, asked Fr Paul Staes and Fr John-Paul Tan for the renewal of vows, and got this sister to be in charge of cake and deco.

My brother wanted flower arrangements with a candle centrepiece for the dinner tables. He was quoted $80 - $100 per centrepiece from the florist, I balked at the price and convinced him to let me try out my hand at floral arrangement. At this point, I'll let you in on a childhood ambition of mine... I wanted to be a florist. I never acted on my interest (and I had many), but here's my chance, I had to create 8 centrepieces with a large candle block and red rose blooms.

Here's what I conjured for the celebration...

Wedding flowers

I love Ikea for the inexpensive candles that can be bought. I also have to thank Eileen from the Marine Terrace market for her lovely blooms and useful tips on arrangements. I bought 100 large red roses from her and those complementing hypericum berries and aster solidago.

And no I didn't forget that this is a cake blog, so here's the anniversary cake to go with the flowers. A deeply luscious red velvet with creamy cheese frosting topped with rose swirls.

Happy 20th Anniversary David & Rose

This is my cake of the month. I love the deep crimson and I make mine Miette style. I like assembling it this way as it shows the dramatic contrast between cake and frosting. I only realised this is similar to the famous Tomboy cake by San Francisco Miette bakery when my cousin who is in the baking business said 'Hey you make yours like Miette!' Here's Miette's version.

Hello Kitty #3

There you go... Hello Kitty is requested again. This time it's from a thoughtful bride-to-be who ordered this cake for her baby niece who turns one on the wedding day. I thought it was really sweet of her to take the time to plan a little birthday surprise for her niece in the midst of all that wedding preparation. She saw my Hello Kitty #2 and knew it was just the cake for the occasion. Her wedding theme is rainbow and the birthday girl's mummy (bride's sister) loves Hello Kitty.

Here's Hello Kitty with a wedding touch

Happy Birthday Cordelia

Congrats Felise & Brian and all the best!