Much Needed Update

I've been writing less and less as the year's calendar gets filled up more and more with activities and travels. But the baking has not stopped, and it's the one thing I always love coming back to when I find myself with some "me" time. So dear readers, my apologies if I haven't answered all your email enquiries and sorry for not being able to take on as many orders as I would have love to.

As we enter the last quarter of 2015, I can't help but start evaluating the year...and it's been so far so good. Velvetin Cake was launched in February and though it has lost some traction, in part due to my periodic travels, I'm glad it's something I got off the ground early in the year. I still have a loyal group of red velvet fans (you know who you are), who are always supportive and encouraging so the luscious red cake is still coming out of my oven faithfully.

There's still some time left in 2015, though I'll be on the road again in November, I am hoping to showcase Velvetin Cake at the Public Garden Market. I'm looking out for the October dates and will keep you posted. I'm also planning to offer the red velvet cakes for Christmas, so look out for that something special come December.

I know it may be a bit early to do a roundup at this point, but I have to mention that this year has also turned out to be the year of the Swiss Meringue Buttercream. I've avoided this frosting ever since I started baking for obvious reasons - our unforgiving hot weather and my reluctance to use shortening. However, I have become a bit of a convert since I chanced upon an interesting blog post about a fail-proof Swiss Meringue Buttercream. The baker/author used a science-base approach on the ingredients involved that would save you a lot of pain and panic when it comes to whipping SMBC. Those of you who have tried and failed in a soupy buttery mess, this may be the answer. The thinking is simple, why whip up a whole bowl of beautiful meringue only to deflate it with cubes of butter in the hope of it all coming together? Instead, egg white with dissolved sugar is added to butter that's been creamed at the ideal temperature - the result is a smooth, satiny, yummy and surprisingly stable SMBC that I've been using happily this year.

Here are some of my creations with Swiss Meringue Buttercream...

Princess Sophia Rosette Cake

Pink rosette cupcakes

Elmo and friends

White Roses

So yes, please note that a non-fondant cake is an option. Do request for a Swiss Meringue Buttercream cake, I promise you'll fall in love with the dreamy creamy frosting.

Having said that, of course there will be cakes that really can't escape fondant, especially when you don't want it to look like cake. For example, a Lego cake.

Lego Movie cake

Or the Hungry Caterpillar storybook cake...

The Hungry Caterpillar

Velvetin

February was an exciting month for me and I'm especially proud to have launched a long-awaited project - Velvetin Cake - my little adventure in red velvet cakes.

There is no other cake I love more than the luscious red velvet. I first fell in love with the crimson cake when I spotted it on joyofbaking.com. The red layers separated by cream cheese frosting made my eyes hungry. My first few attempts at making this cake resulted in a cake that was a bit dry, as with a lot of red velvet cakes I've tasted at cafes and cake shops, and depended way too much on red food colouring. After experimenting with a few recipes and ingredients, I was finally happy with a red velvet that is moist, flavourful and didn't require a whole lot of red food colouring.

Classic Red Velvet

I took the Velvetin brand to Loewen Farmer's Market at Dempsey on Valentine's Day and it was a sell out! Admittedly it wouldn't have been such a success if not for the love of my family and friends. You guys made it a whole lot of fun! I'm now looking for the next popup stall to peddle my red velvet so please do stay tuned. Go to Velvetin's Facebook page for updates.

Meanwhile, if you'd like to order a red velvet cake, Velvetin has them in 3 ways - The Classic (cream cheese), Red Velvet Fudge, Kitty Kat (signature KitKat red velvet) - you can do so at velvetincake.com

Furry Furby

I know, I know...I've taken too long to update my blog. I've made quite a few cakes in the last week, entertained many requests for customised cakes and sadly had to turn down quite a few interesting orders. Yes, I'm in the Indonesian capital again, so while I won't be baking, I should definitely catch up on my updates.

One of the cakes, which I made for an acquaintance who had come to enjoy my red velvet fudge cake, is the Furby! I was really happy with how it turned out. Mummy J told me of how her girl loves the owl-eyed furball toy and wanted a birthday cake of her fave Furby.

She sent me a drawing with some modifications to a teal-coloured Furby to give an idea of how the cake should look like. So what Hasbro can't customised, I did just that in cake and cream :)

Furby of her dreams

I baked 9" round red velvet layers with chocolate ganache filling and had it cut out slightly around the sides to get the egg shape look for the Furby. It was simple enough to do. The features like ears, eyes, beak and feet were all made from fondant. Now the challenging part is to recreate the fur. As you can see, this Furby is mainly teal with spots of lime green. It also has these concentric pattern that I was studying on how to pull off.

The best frosting to achieve this is buttercream or the like. As you all know, I'm not a fan of buttercream, largely because of our weather. So a fluffy meringue cream will do the job. I whipped up a batch and had it coloured in teal, light turquoise and lime green. The cake was first treated to a generous ganache covering, then heaped on with teal coloured frosting. After that, the lime green frosting was spotted on and finished with a circular swirl of lighter teal. Here's the result...

Yummy Furby

Happy Birthday Ashley

This technique is the same as what I have done with Elmo and Cookie Monster cakes. I simply love making furry characters, and eating it too. Yums!

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.

Cake Out in Jakarta

Here's another one of my random musings about a baker's life. So I was in Jakarta last month and I've discovered that the Rainbow cake and Red Velvet cakes are hugely popular in the Indonesian capital! My hubby joked that my business would boom if I started baking there. Then I found out from my Indon friends that 2012 was the height of the coloured cake craze. Still, the demand is apparent seeing how many cafes, restaurants, supermarket counters and cake shops offer the multi-coloured cake.

This called for a bit of investigative tasting.

I went to Pacific Place, one of the many upscale shopping malls in Jakarta. There's a lovely cafe there called The Goods Dept Cafe & Diner. It reminds me of the first P.S. Cafe. It's actually a store selling exclusive imports as well as local designer goods from apparel to accessories and lifestyle products, books and gifts. I zoomed into the cafe as the cakes in the display caught my eye!

Here's the Red Velvet cake. Five layers of dense chocolate-flavoured crimson cake with cream cheese frosting in between and topped with cake crumbs.

Flatiron of red velvet

The cake looked impressive and at Rp 60,000 (approx USD6) a piece, it's considered a pricey confectionery. It's got good flavour but a little dry for my liking. The cake is very dense so although it's a modest slice, it was a feat to finish. 

And here's the Rainbow cake (also Rp 60,000). I've made so many Rainbow cakes but have yet to really sit down to eat a piece. The colours were perfect, so I was eager to find out how this tasted. 

Pelangi Pelangi ('rainbow' in Bahasa)

There is something quite artificial about the cake. I couldn't decide if it was my brain playing tricks because the colours were just too vibrant to be food. But I do believe this cake is not butter-based, probably oil-based which is not ideal for taste if there is no other flavour anchoring it - i.e. chocolate, banana cinnamon, etc. Having said that, it's just gorgeous to look at.

The perfect coffee break

I wanted to try out a few more Rainbow cakes, I really did... but I've come to the conclusion that I enjoy baking more than eating cake. Is that possible? If you're curious about how popular these cakes are, you only need to google 'rainbow cake' and 'Jakarta'.

Here's what you'll typically see in cake shops in Jakarta, Rainbow cake by the slice in the top shelf!

Dapur Cokelat Shop

The Harvest Patissier