(More) Adventure in Sugar Flowers

After being so busy with work and the holiday, I finally have the time to "exercise" what I have learned back in Cake Love 2012, making sugar peony from the fabulous Jacqueline Butler of Petalsweet Cakes.  I even made my own gumpaste this time!  I used Nicholas Lodge's recipe. I tweaked the recipe to my liking, which using a little less tylose.  By reducing the tylose, it allow me to work a little longer which benefits novice like me, as the gumpaste doesn't dry up too fast.  I made the pistils earlier, and made some extras.  Thank God for the extras as my curious two years old thought those pretty colored pistils are drum sticks.  I managed to save 2 sets, and the rests, all the pretty pointy tips were all chipped *sad face*

I made not one, but two peonies!  I was playing with the size and colors.  One I left with no colors (first photo), and the second one, I dusted with some greens (second photo).   I really like the gumpaste as I can roll it very thin, almost paper-thin.  You can see from the second photo, the petals were almost see through as it was sun-kissed by the morning light!

Although I am quite happy with them, by no means they are perfect, I still have to make sure do tweak a few things as I make them later.  I got positive feedback from the Facebook page by friends, families, and cake friends.  The one that made my day was from Jacqueline Butler herself:

"..Your peonies are FABULOUS! Meticulously crafted and beautifully made...you are a perfect student! Congratulations...they are really gorgeous! Jacqueline xx"

Thank you for your guidance Jacqueline!  You're a fabulous teacher, incredibly generous, patience, and kind in sharing your wealth of knowledge!  I am so privileged to have known you!

Pocoyo Revisited

Pocoyo is probably one of the anime that I like for little children.  My Robert grew up on that series and he (used to) love it.  It's very simple anime, but very effective.  The characters don't say much, but they have all the expressions.  It's narrated by Stephen Fry and oh, he's so fab with his British accents.  Pocoyo was one of my very first few cakes that I made, back in 2010.  Back then, I was spending days and nights trying to get the details right.  Elly's (the elephant) hand kept of falling because I did not know how to attach them properly.  Pato's (the duck) hat was weirdly placed, and Pocoyo looked like a lego character... haha... I still remembered that I was almost in tears since the bottom of the cake was ripping and I had to re-do.  Those were the days....  So here's the two Pocoyo cakes: the first one was the recent one, and the second picture was the one that I did back in 2010.  I am very happy that I have come so far and I am very proud when I see the progression of my cakes.

 

circa 2013

circa 2010

Princess, Blings, and Baubles

I might have 2 boys but I am a girly girl at heart.  I love my simple blings, baubles, and the girly things.  I have been making all boys cakes for my little ones and the only way I can channel my inner girly girl, is through my cakes and cupcakes.  This one is for Little Princess named Kaitlyn!  She has a fabulous Aunt who loves Hello Kitty.  I was happy to get her stamp of approval when I previewed the figurine to her!  *Happy Dance*

The tiaras for this set were created by making a custom mold, then painted in edible silver luster, and a tiny little dragee (pronounced as DRAH-jay) on them. To make the "tiara," I molded a scrapbooking photo corner and shaped them up as "tiara" before I started to color them.  Here are a couple of pictures of the set.

 

 

Happy New Year!

Wishing everyone a very Happy New Year!  May the new year will bring new hope, joy, love, and peace....
We've been busy this year!  New skills and knowledge acquired, new friends bonded, and new, exciting adventure in caking ahead!
Here's a year in review of all the cakes that we did!  (it was almost impossible to put this collage together!)

Adventure in Sugar Flowers

It was not an easy journey, but I am embracing it.  Breakages, tears, some wires pushed through the petals, and my 2 year old smashed them on the table were all part of the "fun."  Lesson learnt and we're moving on. 
It's so exciting to seeing the petals all there as I am waiting for them to dry up. There's a sense of urgency in putting them together. And just like that a flower is born.
Sugar flowers are something new and exciting for me.  Creating and imitating what nature provides for us is quite an adventure.  I always intrigued with sugar flowers, of how sugar flower masters like Nicholas Lodge, Alan Dunn, and Ron Ben-Israel do it.  I slowly learned how to make them.  I pored through books and online picture tutorials of how to make them.  Then, I found craftsy.com, is where I learned to make sugar hydrangeas through the fabulous teacher, Jacqueline Butler of Petalsweet Cakes.  She is a fantastic teacher and I was very lucky to be able to learned from her in one of her classes during Cake Love 2012.  What an eye opener that class was.  When I looked back to the craftsy online tutorial, I was more confident with the technique and although my flowers are far than perfect, they are significantly better than before.  I braved myself to make more flowers and bought another tutorial from craftsy again, and this time it's making sugar orchids with James Rosselle.  I ended up making about 5 of those sugar orchids.  By orchids no.4, they look much better than no.1 or no. 2 and 3. 
I used the sugar flowers as part of my Mom-in-law's birthday celebration.  She wanted a show-stopper cake and a table spread.  We looked at what we have at home and we did a simple yet effective table spread with a very minimal cost.
Here are some photos from the event, and the picture of the cake that I made for her.

table spread with the view of the red velvet cupcake tiers

side view of the cake with sugar orchids and hydrangeas

"beauty shot" of the cake

close up of the sugar orchids

Interlude, Educate, Contemplate

It's been a whirlwind of excitement and change in Sugar Penguin's World.  I've been taking a step back in caking as I am now back in the work force.  I've limited myself in caking as you can take only so much in a month as I want to spend a lot of time with my family as some of them has been dedicated to work.  Back to work has been a tons of fun, meeting my old friends, my old customers (who still remember my name!), and making new networks.
Though I've been taking a step back, but it really means another step forward for me as I am educating myself in more intricate techniques and sugar flower making from craftsy.com.  I have learned so many things these past few weeks through the classes I enrolled.  The first lesson I learned is that patience-which I am lack of- is definitely a must in making sugar flowers.  At one point I was too excited to put the wired petals together and ended up remaking all the petals again as they all broke (the wires pushed through the semi-dried petals) **SIGH** But all is well, I really enjoy my journey in making sugar flowers.

Here are a couple of things that I made in October:
A cake for my buddy at work (an avid golfer and he has a mini schnauzer named Tonk)

Then, this one is my favorite, making a figurine topper for a co-worker's granddaughter's first birthday:

  

Cake Love 2012

I've been waiting for this event to come for a whole year!  This is the second year of The Vancouver Cake Society held the "Cake Love" conference.  You probably read my previous post in regards to this fabulous event back in July and FINALLY, it's here!!  And out of the days that I got a soft tissue infections, this was the week that I had to endure.  *SIGH*  The rain and the pain did not dampen my spirit and I decided to make the most of it.  

The first workshop I took was with James Rosselle.  What a delight to finally met him in person.  I have admire his works as he was not one, not two, BUT THREE times Food Network Challenge champions.  He is very down to earth and we had such a great time in his class, the Ba Da Bling! Mini Wedding cake.  He was very patience with us, who kept on dropping those super pretty dragees (DRA-jays).  Nevertheless, we ended up with a cake that it very, very pretty and glamourous!  Thank you, James, for sharing your knowledge with us! 

My finished cake and with James Rosselle

Ba Da Bling! Mini Wedding Cake with James Rosselle

My next class, it's the class that I've waiting for, for years!  I've been a BIG HUGE fan of Jacqueline Butler's work.  I was dying to learn from her.  I took her online class with Craftsy.com, learning to make hydrengeas and filler flowers.  I love how she is very precise and methodical and the result is just breathtaking!  Thank you, Jacqueline, for being so patience with me and sharing your tremendous knowledge in making your signature open peony.  Thank you!


The very awesome Jacqueline Butler

 

My peony from Jacqueline Butler's Petalsweet Open Peony class

All of us were so grateful for Norm and Zane for spending an hour (and more) of their time by giving us a free demo.  Norm and Zane have a valuable bag of tricks that they shared with us.  I had a whole day class that day and exhausted, but I am SO glad that I went and met with two of my cake heroes!  Thank you, Norm and Zane!

With one of my cake heroes, Norm R. Davis

with the wonderful Zane Beg

I had a lot of fun when I took Ruth Rickey's "Blings, Bows, and Fantasy Flowers."  Ruth has a lot of fantastic and neat tricks up her sleeves that have added a whole new level of knowledge for me.  Ruth is very kind and generous and I loved every single minute we're at her class!  Thank you, Ruth!

(will add picture from Ruth's class later) 

with the awesome and fun Ruth Rickey

This is my display cake.  I wished I have done a bit more "wow" to it.. The cake was done in less than 4 hours altogether.  I had 4 months to do it, but between kids, work, and cake order, and myself being the biggest procrastinator, I left it to the last minute.  Lessons learnt.  Nevertheless, Norm was giving me a very kind criticism, and I know he is being kind to me.  He said that my work is very clean, and "clean" is awesome!  The only thing he would add is a few flowers by the bear.  Thank you, Norm......

My display cake at Cake Love 2012's display room

BIG kudos to all the ladies and gents at Vancouver Cake Society for bringing this awesome event to Vancouver!  I had the most fun weekend, I was exhausted, but absolutely inspired: new sets of skills acquired, new bonds of friends formed.

Looking forward to Cake Love 2014!