Sofia the First

Wow! I made some Sofia the First cupcakes recently and had it posted on my Facebook page. Overnight, the post reach surpassed all my previous posting with a healthy number of likes and kind comments. Thanks so much guys. The petite princess in purple offered so many wonderful design elements  to work on that it was simple pleasure to make.

This also made me realised how many of you actually like Sofia the First! I know her because it's on Disney Jr. and it's one of few princess cartoons my boys would watch, if not the only. It is also easy to like Sofia, she's kind and spirited but not cloyingly sweet, just enough to make some awesome cupcakes. Heh.

Here are a few emblems that brings out the essence of Princess Sophia...

Her purple amulet

Clover pattern on her dress

Every princess needs a tiara

It's an extremely purply affair, a sort of powdery lavender that is most fitting for Disney's latest bug eyed princess. Here's Sofia herself in cupcake (literally).

Sofia the First 

I made little printouts of Sofia, had them cut out and mounted on toothpicks, then stuck it atop the cupcake and used the fondant ruffle technique for the skirt. Little round discs of fondant were ruffled piece by piece with a ball tool - something I have to confess that's strangely therapeutic to do - and arranged it all around each cupcake.

HRH Cupcakes

I've had wonderful feedback and was told Mummy H who ordered this was totally pleased as was the birthday girl. From the response I've been getting all around, I think Sofia has just gained a few more fans.

What more can a cupcake be?

Some time back, I made a cake made up of cupcakes. My dear friend saw the idea from somewhere and asked if I could do something like that. For all intents and purposes it's a regular cake, except it's made up of many cupcakes put together, kinda like a jigsaw puzzle.

This great little idea is called the 'pull-apart' cake. It's also perfect for those who don't want to deal with cutting up a cake to serve. Once the candles are blown out, all you have to do is pick up a cupcake and enjoy the goods. And the design possibilities are endless!

I made a beach theme pull-apart complete with the birthday boy's favourite beach toys! Here's a look at how it's done...

Setting up the base of cupcakes

Adding the frosting over the top entirely

Happy Birthday Zach!

These cupcakes quickly caught on as I started to get a few requests for this idea. Mummy P ordered what must be the biggest batch of cupcakes to date for her kids as they both shared the same birth date so it was cupcakes galore at school!

The birthday boy wanted an superhero themed cake so I suggested Iron Man! The request was for 50 cupcakes so I had to think of how to configure the 'cake'. I image googled Iron Man and thought the logo was the best way to go - a huge red M with a dot above.

Esan's Iron Man Celebration

For the birthday girl, she wanted something princess-y so I had a look around and saw a very nice idea online of a princess dress put together by cupcakes. I made a fondant tiara to top off for the royal treatment. Admittedly, the shape didn't work out as nicely as I would have liked. I think it' was a case of no. of cupcakes versus the configuration for a dress.

Happy Birthday Princess! 

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

Castles for Princesses

I've always looked at princess castle cakes and thought to myself - That is just way too difficult! There's simply too many details and construction required to make a home fit for a princess. So you can imagine my trepidation when I was contacted for a princess castle cake.

A mummy who found me online wanted a rainbow cake for her daughter with a princess castle theme. It's a busy week (and month) for me so I told her honestly that I just didn't have the bandwidth to take on the bake job. However, I couldn't bear disappointing anyone especially since she was looking forward to a rainbow cake, so I suggested baking just the round cake with a simple design and she can find her daughter's favourite princess and castle toppers, which I'm sure would look perfect. I was glad she took up the idea coz I knew the toppers would do more justice than my many hours trying to make this work.

As luck would have it, the shops ran out of the castle toppers.

Desperately-seeking-castle mummy contacted me and asked if there was any way at all that I could craft two castles to add to the cake. She managed to get the princess toppers but it wouldn't be the same without the castles. She even sent me resource links and images for ideas on how to craft the castles! I have to admit, my interest was definitely piqued but more importantly, I couldn't possibly leave her stranded! Though it's a crazy period now leading up to Christmas, I found myself looking at youtube  for how to make a castle cake (and there are plenty!)

While looking at how I could do this, I found a website on how to coat the ice cream cones for the castle. The baker had a wonderful description of how she went about building her castle cake, it's a great one - check it out here. I like how she coated the cones with royal icing and rolled it in disco dust! And that's just what I did...

Pink Peaks

The royal icing dried smooth and hard which made it easy to handle for construction. And I love that pink (Americolor Soft Pink). It was a day of just playing with ice cream cones. These inverted cones easily fitted into the fat wafer cones you get with Macdonald's soft-serve ice cream, once that is done, you'll already get the basic idea of a castle tower.

Castle Cones

I made five castles with graduating heights to surround the back of the cake. To do that, I looked around my larder and found some wafer biscuits, had them cut to size and stacked to the height I wanted.

Tall, taller, tallest

I just wish I had more time to embellish the towers, as you can see the cones do look a bit naked at the bottom. I made it up by pipping some 'green grass' and sprinkled some confetti flowers to make it look like flower bushes. Another thing I did was put little flags at the top of the tower cone, it's a small detail that didn't require a lot of work but added to the look visually. Simply cut out some art paper into triangles and stick it down with some fondant.

Tower 1

Latest castle development

I had the cake delivered to the school where little Jmie was going to celebrate her 2nd birthday with her classmates. Her mummy met me to assemble the princesses on the cake for the finishing touch. I was told Aeriel the mermaid princess is her favourite, so naturally she got the main spot on the cake.

Sitting pretty

Happy Birthday Jmie

While I came through for Jmie and mummy with the castles, at the same time, I have them to thank for pushing me to overcome this mental block for castle cakes. I've learnt a lot making this cake and wouldn't mind doing it all over again.