Safari Cupcakes

Finally, I'm getting some adult action! No not that kind (brain out of the gutter please) but cupcakes for a nice young lady turning 30-something ; )

After having made those cute animal fondant for kids birthday, I get a request for animal print cupcakes. The birthday girl likes her leopard and zebra motifs. Now how do we incorporate that tastefully on cupcakes? 

1. Take the easy way out - just buy animal print cupcake liners

2. Use fondant and paint on the animal print as a topper

3. Use animal print art paper and make toppers

I did two of the above and got stuck on the fondant because I'll be using cream cheese in my frosting. So what sort of topper can I print on with edible paints that will hold up well on cream cheese? I strolled the aisles of the supermarket for inspiration and one thing stood out - Marshmallows!

I decided to buy those big tubular white marshmallows for camp fires and use them as toppings for the cupcake, on which I painted the safari patterns. Here's how I did it...

Get a pack of marshmallows. Snip the two ends of each piece and you'll get a flat disc of marshmallow but you'll find the scissored end sticky - just dust it with some powdered sugar or corn flour.

Snip to disc

Then paint on the spots with some edible paints - I'm using Americolor soft gel with some added water.

Pink leopard prints

Colourful safari cupcake toppers

A pack of leopards

Making the zebra prints was even easier. I used my Americolor gourmet pen here and just drew on the stripes.

Here's the animal print cupcake liner

A herd of zebras

I also made some paper toppers using animal print paper. This gave a nice variation to the cupcake design, but really, it was the best way to spell out Happy Birthday Missi!

Happy Birthday Melissa!

Hope you had a good one 

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.

Tayo and Friends

The Korean wave is not confined to pop bands and soap opera, we've now got children's programmes and toys from Korea that's as big a hit as Mickey Mouse and Thomas the Train... well almost. You know the Korean characters are catching up when you start getting cake request for it.

A mummy who came across my cake at her son's preschool looked me up for a Tayo the Little Bus cake. I'm familiar with Tayo because my two sons are fans as well. Tayo is a Korean animation series about a little blue bus and his friends, which include other modes of transport like taxis, police cars, fire engine, trains and construction equipment. It's somewhat educational as the adventures of the little city bus impart lessons like how to cross the road safely and speeding is dangerous, etc.

Mummy S was quite resourceful in scouring online stores for the Tayo toy characters, which means I was spared having to fondant a bus or fire engine. She found a nice deal on G-market for the toys. It was tempting to put a few of the characters on the cake but I suggested to go with just one to make it stand out. The birthday boy finally decided on Frank the Fire Engine.

I made a rainbow cake - buttermilk cake recipe with cream cheese filling - covered in white fondant. Then I decorated the sides with rainbow garage doors like in the series. With the remaining coloured fondant, I cut out many stars and dotted it all around the cake. Check it out...

Frank the Fire Engine takes top spot

Happy Birthday Joshua

I was just thinking of how to cover the cake board. Looking at the many artisan bakers I admire, they  usually have their cake boards decorated. I read somewhere that it's unprofessional to leave it bare. I hardly ever cover my cake boards, I find it a total waste of fondant! It's bound for the bin once the cake is served :( Instead of covering the entire board, I decided to be a bit creative and rolled out ropes of fondant to encircle the cake, then added stars with the No.3 to the corners (Joshua is 3!)

Tell me what you think - do cake boards need to be covered? I'd love to hear from anyone ; )

Thank God for Little Girls

My little niece got baptised last weekend. God bless the little cutie. One of the things her mummy (my sister) got excited about was the party that we'd have after the baptism. Any excuse for beers, wine and finger foods on a Sunday! And of course reason for a cake.

My family is my biggest fan :) They love my rainbow cake and don't seem to tire of it at any occasion that calls for a cake. This time round, my sister wanted a two-tier cake with alternating layers of pastel pink and green. I'm so glad she has a daughter... Baby C is my excuse for making sweet-looking cakes and party deco that's unabashedly pink!

So what's the deco norm for baptism cakes? There's typical ones featuring the cross, simple ones that denote the date of baptism and it's usually clean and classic designs, but there's really no convention.

So here's what Baby C got...

Pastel ballons floating skywards

Happy Baptism Clare

It was also my sister's birthday so this called for a two-tier cake!

Happy Birthday Sis

As usual, I didn't take a pic of the cut cake but the balloons matched the layers inside. This cake is also the first time I tried a buttermilk recipe. It's a wonderfully moist cake that's springy and full of flavour. It's my favourite recipe now, so if you order a rainbow cake from now on, you'll get the buttermilk recipe cake ; )

Bubble Guppies

Sometimes it's great to be able to repeat a cake. Then you get to do all the things right a second time around (hopefully) and better your effort before. A mummy who found me online gave me that opportunity when she asked if I would do a Bubble Guppies cake for her little girl.

Mummy M contacted me almost 3 months in advance about the cake (thank you!), we waited patiently for this day to come. She wanted a 2-tier chocolate cake featuring her little girl's favourite Bubble Guppies friends. Ever since I got to know these adorable underwater characters, I am hooked to their cuteness. If you recall, it was Lauren's cake back in November last year that probably caught Mummy M's eye. For that cake, I only had the bandwidth to make Mr Grouper, so this time round I was eager to create the lot!

The cast of characters

While I was making these cuties, my trusty iPhone camera failed me :( Frustratingly, it just wouldn't focus on near objects so I was unable to document the fondant crafting in closer detail. But as you can see in the above pic, I made the Bubble Guppies, Mr Grouper, little fishes, starfish, seashells, sea sponges and billowing kelp, all ready to decorate the cake with.

In the process of researching this cake, I came across a few fine examples online. I even found on Etsy.com that you can purchase ready-to-use Bubble Guppies fondant toppers - check it out here. Some of these crafters are charging USD175 for a set of these characters in 3D. Talk about enterprising!

But I decided to make these with gum paste in 2D. They adhere better to the cake and work much better in our weather (yes I've learnt all my baking lessons in 100% humidity). The easy ones to make in 3D are the seaweed pieces (I twisted these into a twirl for maximum effect) and the starfish and seashells. They may not be the main characters but they are totally essential in setting the scene.

Mummy M also asked if I could make the cake a bit more girly since it was obviously going to be a predominantly blue cake, so I had Prudence's name in pink outline and dusted it with edible pink sparkles - when in need of some girly glam, just add sparkles - does the trick every time ; )

What I love most about the cake has got to be the bottom-of-the-sea look. I crushed some digestive biscuit and sprinkled it all around the cake base to make it look like the sea bed. Digestives rock!

Put the biscuit crumbs in a cup for easy sprinkling

Seabed Biscuit

And here's the completed cake... I'm very happy with it and so were the recipients, yay ; )

Mr Grouper leads the pack

Happy Birthday Prudence

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

Dear Zoo

I love going to the zoo, and our zoological gardens is pretty impressive for a small island state. Now that I have kids, the zoo has become the perfect adventure for our whole family. I especially love experiencing the wonder of nature through their young eyes. There is a great book that reinforces our affection for the animals at the zoo - Rod Campbell's Dear Zoo.

This classic lift-the-flap book is a wonderful read to kids as young as 9 months old. It's about a child who writes to the zoo requesting for a pet, and takes you through a gamut of animals beautifully illustrated by Campbell. Next to the Hungry Caterpillar, this is our other favourite book. So I was delighted that a close pal requested for a Dear Zoo cake for her little boy.

Mummy T tells me that Baby Z loves the lion, elephant and giraffe. So for his first birthday cake, the zoo will present him these 3 animals. I made them out of fondant and realise I have a knack for sculpting animals!

Here's a step by step look at crafting Mr Lion...

Ready for the mane event

Fit the mane around the head

Snip snip snip 

Hello Lion

Baby Z is so nice that he gets the cake twice. I made two sets of animals and for a moment it looked like a Noah's Ark cake!

Two by Two

I made a rectangular chocolate cake with Oreo cream cheese filling. The animals sat nicely on top and I made the distinctive red crate for the side of the cake. Then I used colourful M&Ms to line the sides, makes the cake light up instantly! 

Happy Birthday Zach

For the second cake, I made a rainbow cake covered in pale yellow fondant. It has a smaller surface so the animals sat closely and actually made them look bigger too. For this cake, I used yummy fruit gummies to line the sides.

Happy Birthday again!

The birthday boy was totally taken by the elephant. After blowing out the candles, he would grab Mr Elephant and nibble on the ears. Well, it's his birthday, he can do whatever he wants to... well almost (bedtime is still 7.30pm).

Zach's Dear Zoo