Adam’s 3rd Birthday Cake

Apologies for not updating for a long time, I am still trying to work through my grief for Abah but do bear with me, I am slowly getting there

Anyway, if you are a regular reader you will know how much our lives have changed now that we have this little guy in it.

Our little Adam, my sister’s three year old son. An energetic funny little boy whose beautiful smile lights up even the saddest of hearts.

By the way, I LOVE THIS PICTURE!! He wanted long hair so he popped the peeled skin of a pomelo on his head. That should give you a hint on how cheeky he truly is.

Anyway, our little champion turned three this year and I just had to make him a fun birthday cake. He has a stuffed monkey he sleeps with that he calls ‘Purple’ and I knew the cake must feature ‘Purple’ in some way.

My siblings and I also have this thing about ‘elephant bums’. In boring wedding ceremonies or long trips in the car, we used to doodle elephant’s bums constantly so an elephant had to be thrown in. Here is what I came up with.

The bottom layer is an 8 inch cake with 2 layers of vanilla and chocolate with vanilla icing and the top tier is a 6 inch strawberry cake with raspberry jam filling. Here is a close up of the layers before I dirty iced them;

Yum yum yum yum

And here is a close up picture of Purple the Monkey and Ellie the elephant.

I had so much fun making the animals on this cake, I couldn’t stop.. So I made 2 more for future projects, a really cute Panda and a hefty lion!

Aren’t they adorable? I can’t wait to use them on a cake oneday!

The birthday party went very well. My sister was very creative with the decorations and we had a bouncer which meant everyone spent the whole party being doused with water. Adam had a wonderful time and had a big smile on his face the whole day Here are some fun pictures of the day.

Finally, a picture of my MAD husband diving head first down the slide of the bouncer

COWABUNGA!!

A two tier wedding cake

My first tiered wedding cake!!

My sister’s friend placed this order a while back for her sister’s wedding and she wanted a small wedding cake surrounded by little bitesize cupcakes in a pink and green theme. Now, I have NEVER done a tier cake before but thanks to MANY MANY hours watching tutorial videos on youtube, I felt I was ready to take the plunge!

I decided on handmade pink roses with a green and yellow background for the cake. Each rose took me about ten minutes to make and it was done everynight for a week before I felt I had enough for the whole design. I learnt how to make fondant roses from this tutorial, its dead simple but when you are a beginner like me… painfully slow

Here are my better attempts as I stuck them on the cake.

The bottom tier is an 8 inch vanilla cake with a coffee cream filling and the top tier is a 6 inch chocolate cake with a mint filling. I covered the bottom layer with green fondant and the top with yellow fondant for contrast. Also stuck on the initials of the groom and bride with a few white daises for contrast.

View from the top

View from side

A few tiny little cupcakes with green and pink fondant to surround the cake!

Also had to quickly make 30 pink and green buttercream swirlies with daisies and I was finally done

This picture makes me crave watermelons

It was a big project that lasted about a week that wrecked my dining room and kitchen, covered the furniture, the cats and the floor with a thin layer of icing sugar and Pete was constantly going to the shops as we ran out of vital supplies but I do think it was worth it. It was such a thrill to see the reaction of my sister’s friend as she saw the cake the first time and I can only hope the bride and groom like it as much.

Daisy Wedding Cakes and Our Toulouse

Very happy to report that our Toulouse has recovered well from his operation and is as loving as ever. Pete and I went out full cat nursing mode in the last two week; daily battles with pills, constant watch of his ‘toilet routines’ and a strict wet foot diet that didn’t go too well with the other three cats. Still it’s a small price to pay to see our little boy so lively and full of life. A big thanks to Bil and Kadina for their generous help, Toulouse would have surely been lost without them.

This is Toulouse right after his operation, he was quite out of it and we had to keep him safe in a small cage in our bedroom for a night so we could monitor him.  We had to put what Pete calls ‘the cone of shame’ on him so that he wouldn’t bite his catheter out

This is Toulouse just five days after the operation when his catheter was removed. His body is still quite warm as he is fighting the infection but otherwise he is perfectly healthy. We had to give him the quickest of bath as he stunk of pee. Our little boy is safe again! We have been told by the vet to not give him any dry food for a while so jellied fish for a while! (YUCKS)

Anyway,now for the baking bit..

Last Sunday, a good friend called and asked if I was willing to bake two wedding cake for her nephew’s ‘Balik tiga hari.’ She wanted it by Wednesday!!

I was and still is SWAMPED at work but I couldn’t say no to such a dear friend so with Pete’s invaluable help, it was time to knuckle down to the challenge! I decided on two round chocolate cakes covered in fondant. The designs couldn’t be too complicated due to the shortness of time. This time I wanted to make the cakes from scratch and not order them from a bakery.  Monday was spent cutting out many many white daisies with simple yellow centres and baking four layers of dark rich chocolate cakes.  I  crumb coated the cakes with coffee butter cream and went to bed at 2am covered in icing.

The next day after a long meeting at school, Pete and I set to work on covering the cakes. Since I am a beginner, it took quite a lot of tries before I could get the fondant to the perfect consistency. Rolling out the fondant was frustrating as well as it needed to be big enough to cover the whole cake. With a LOT of praying and carefully choreographed manipulation, we finally managed to lift the big sheet of fondant off the board and cover the cakes with blue and green fondant. I added a few drops of almond essence to cover the slight taste of gelatine I used to make the fondant more manageable.

It was now 11pm and I still needed to decorate the cakes, this is by far my favourite bit!! By now, I knew exactly how I wanted to decorate the cakes so it was quick but careful work.

The green cake had ring of daisies bordering the top of the cake with some cascading down the front. I don’t really like the lettering on this one but it is my smallest alphabet cutters. Must look for nicer ones when I go to UK next

Second blue cake had the names of the bride and groom on it so I thought it would be nice if the daisies this time would frame the base of the cake to create contrast.Can’t decide which one of the two I like better!

So there you go, my very fist (and second) attempt at an honest to goodness wedding cake. I think if I had more time, I would like to do a better job at covering the cake and maybe do one with white or pink roses.. maybe next time.

All in all, I am quite happy with my two new masterpieces and a few days after, I had a message from my friend that said the bride and groom were happy with their cakes too..

Now, isn’t that just icing on the cake? Hehehe