The Princess Project

My baking soul mate is in town! Dawn is back for the summer school holidays and although she's declared that she's on a baking break, it didn't stop her from galavanting with me to Phoon Huat, Bake It Yourself and Art Friend for supplies. And of course, we baked!

We took on an order together - the first official collaboration. It's a princess cake that includes the full works - ruffles, tiara, bows, flowers and it's got to be pink pink pink! We spent 2 full days together planning, baking and decorating while the kids watched copious amount of TV (we had our hands full!) and ate levelled out cake!                  

I baked my trusty moist chocolate for a two-tier cake with ganache filling. Dawn planned the cake design and showed me how to make fondant ruffles - a repetitively therapeutic thing to do on any given afternoon. We moulded fondant in many shades of pink for the ombre ruffles and had to resist introducing some other complementing colours because the recipient insisted on a pink cake. In the end we used some white for contrast, we just had to.

Here are some scenes from the making of...

The ball tool is essential for ruffles

Here's the ombre skirting

Stacking the pinks

Dawn putting in the finer details

Dawn had made the pretty tiara with gum paste and it sat wonderful atop the cake, making it fit for a princess birthday celebration. When we finally added in the final details, I couldn't imagine how anyone could bear cutting into this cake. It is definitely my most professional-looking cake to date.

The Princess

Happy Birthday Kara

Dawn bakes in Shanghai. If you'd like to follow her amazing cakes, check it out here - Cakes from D'Heart

Before They Grow Up

Hello readers, it's time again for my casual musings. So my younger son James turned 2. We had two small parties and two cakes - Elmo and Cookie Monster. While I can't say he is the biggest Sesame Street fan, he does, however, recognise the furry red monster and the cookie muncher. Nothing is more delightful than hearing your 2-year-old shout out in excitement - "Elmo! Cookie!"

Here are the cakes...

Happy Birthday Jamesy

But I'm not going to wax lyrical about the cakes in this post. As I watch the boys grow from gurgling babies to toddling tots to 3-year-old with an opinion (Jake), I suddenly feel like I'm running out of time.  This precious age of innocence will flash by before they turn into surly teenagers (god help us). We are taking a trip with the boys next month and while I was planning on where to go, it suddenly occurred to me I went from places to see before I have kids, to places to see with your kids before they grow up.

We are fortunate to be able to take the kids on trips. While I lament that with them in tow, it means we'll have to forgo some (nice) restaurants, skip some (cool) museums, forget the pub crawls and night scene and generally keep it kid-friendly, there is a part of me that realises that they are not going to want to travel with us after a certain age. You only have a small window to see the world through their young eyes while they are still filled with wonderment. So that got me thinking, what are the places to see with your kids before they grow up?

Here are some places on my list... in no particular order:

1. Legoland Billund, Denmark
2. Disneyland / Disney World, USA
3. Great Ocean Road, Victoria
4. Great Wall of China, Beijing
5. Terracotta Soldiers, Xi'an
6. Northern Lights, Arctic Circle
7. Big Five, Kenya
8. Las Vegas the husband says no need, you'll always feel like a kid in Vegas
9. Christmas Markets of Europe
10. Vatican City, Rome

I don't know if we'll ever get to some of these places with the boys before they turn 12, well, I have a good decade to work on it. We are checking off one on the list as we head to Melbourne next month! What are some of the places you'd like to see with your kids before they grow up? 

Oh Toodles!

A mummy I knew from childhood got in touch with me when she saw I was baking children's cakes. It's always so nice to hear from old acquaintances who are now mothers, all looking for cakes for their little ones. Mummy A's little boy was going to celebrate his 1st birthday with not one but two Mickey Mouse cakes!

The two cakes were going to be for two separate parties as celebration was spread out over a day - a.m. session and p.m. session. I totally get that; I did that with my boys' birthdays too because we wanted to group our guests such that we can entertain them adequately.

We discussed the design options for Mickey. As you can imagine, there are loads to choose from and every single one looked wonderful - that's the thing with Mickey Mouse, it's a design that always works; it's timeless!

In the end, Mummy A got a very cute plush and some great Mickey character toppers for the two cakes. For one, we had the Mickey plush hugging a cake. Simple enough but when you get the colours right, it's such a very happy cake!

Mickey hugs a cake

Emmanuel's First

Mickey hugs a rich and moist chocolate cake layered with chunky Oreo cream cheese frosting. I love how the red fondant cover complements the plush toy, which admittedly did all the work. All that was needed were some stars, Mickey's emblems and the No.1.

For the second cake, I borrowed from some designs Mummy A sent me - the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse design. Again, the toppers did all the work and I just set the scene for it.

Happy Birthday Emmanuel

Huat Ah!

I come from a family of avid mahjong players. I grew up familiar with the racket of mahjong tiles clacking around the house and inherently know all the high (pong!) and low (grunts from a loser) sounds of the game. No family function is ever complete without a few rounds of mahjong and I've had some cousins who were almost born at the table! My mother at 73 is still at the top of her game. But, guess what, I don't play mahjong. The constant drone of mahjong makes me feel numb; every time I hear those tiles, I get bored, very bored.

I may have missed out on the necessary DNA to play mahjong, but I sure can make a mahjong cake. Considering my disinterest in the game, I was quite excited to get a cake request for the 發 ('fa cai'; prosperity) mahjong tile with a rainbow cake inside. It's my first mahjong cake and making it came quite naturally to me - thanks to those years of packing up mahjong tiles for my mum after the game.

I usually only make round rainbow cakes but I made an exception here and baked the six layers one at a time as I only had one rectangular pan. It was simple enough to cover the cake, one layer of white fondant, followed by a green trimming for the back of the tile. Then came the tricky bit which is carving the chinese character 發.

Here goes...

Happy Birthday Freddie

Birthday boy F had his mahjong and ate it too! Let's hope this brings him lots of good luck at the table.

HUAT AH!

Tayo Buses Make Cool Cakes

A former colleague who's been following my cakes saw the first Tayo cake I made and commented on how his boy loves Tayo the Little Bus too! My brood at home are fans as well, and I almost don't know any little lad who doesn't like the cheery Korean vehicular animation. It's such a hit!

So naturally when Baby A's 2nd birthday rolled around, I got the call for a Tayo cake. Daddy D was pretty cool about leaving the design to me, we both sort of figured that when you're 2, as long as you see the toy you like on a cake, it's the best birthday cake ever! With that, I recommended to get the toys to decorate the cake with.

With the previous Tayo cake, I found out you could buy Tayo toys from the website qoo10.sg. So I went on it to find the toy topper for the cake I had in mind - a set of four Tayo and friends buses
Then I crafted the 'bus terminal' with cake - a rectangular block with a red roof and four colourful garage doors from which the buses emerge!

The cake is a triple layer eggless chocolate cake; Mummy H informed me that Baby A was allergic to eggs. Luckily, I had a wonderful eggless chocolate cake recipe so the birthday boy wouldn't need to miss out on his own cake ; )

Buses and Cake

I was told the kids loved the cake, I suspect the toy buses had something to do with it. Imagine a bunch of 2-3 year olds trying to get their hands on it. The adults had a hard time keeping them away before the candles were blown out. Then it was sweet treats and fun toys for all!

Tayo and friends

Happy Birthday Akira

Constructing Cake

There's been quite a few enquiries in the last week or so and it's so wonderful to see mummies with creative ideas on cakes for their little ones. I'm so sorry that I couldn't take on any orders in June as we were spending time in Jakarta over the school holidays.

However, forward-thinking Mummy W had contacted me months in advance to create a cake for her boy's 3rd birthday. So when I got back, it was the first cake on my list! She had sent me many examples and ideas for a 'construction' theme party, it was really cool, check it out here.

We discussed over a few details and the birthday cake was to look like the scene of a construction site. Mummy W had sourced for a great-looking toy excavator that would dig the dirt (oreo cookie crumbles).

Build up to the cake

Her little boy loves strawberries so I incorporated that too, and it ended up looking like a dug-up pit of strawberries. Mummy W also wanted some kind of 'signage' like you'd see at construction sites and I made one with art paper that says "Xavier's 3". Here's the constructed cake...

Happy Birthday Xavier

The triple layer chocolate cake has oreo cream cheese filling and frosted entirely in oreo cream cheese, which looks somewhat like sand and earth. Mummy W also wanted another party candy favourite - coloured M&Ms, so we had it placed all around the base of the cake.

A creative effort that was entirely Mummy's good input! I was merely the tool.