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.

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.

Cakes and Craft

I made a batch of cupcakes this weekend for a new acquaintance. I am glad that she gave me an opportunity (ordering my cupcakes) even though she didn't know me very well.

Her order: Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Swirl

I have yet to make peanut butter frosting even though I've always loved the stuff. When I was young, I once scooped a whole spoon of peanut butter from the jar and greedily swallowed it. I nearly died choking on it, but it tasted soooo good. Obviously, the near-death experience didn't diminish my affection for peanut butter.

My peanut butter swirl is a simple recipe. Three parts smooth peanut butter, one part Nutella – it's a creamy concoction that can't go wrong on anything! Using a 1M star tip, I piped rose swirls onto the chocolate cupcakes.

The cupcakes were meant for a lady celebrating her first year in Singapore – Happy Anniversary! So I was ask to incorporate some deco that would mark the occasion. I really didn't want to deal with fondant as it can be quite time-consuming, so I suggested cupcake toppers!

It's a lot of fun making cupcake toppers using pretty cutouts, printed patterns, etc and attaching them to toothpicks that you can easily insert into the cupcake swirl. This combines two of my favourite handiwork – baking and paper craft!

Handmade 'hearts' and '1s'

With paper craft, the creative possibilities are endless and you can even add personal messages with the toppers. I think this is going to be my new thing for cupcakes, I highly recommend it to anyone looking to get a box of cupcakes with a special message. 

A special arrangement

For my elder boy's first birthday back in 2010, I had actually made cupcake toppers for his 'Ladybug' theme party – Lemon cupcakes with 'Thank You' toppers for the kids.

Jake's 1st Birthday, Nov 2010

This is something that mothers should definitely consider for party cupcakes. It's easily customisable, looks amazing in an arrangement and doesn't add any more sugar to the sweet treat.