Cake Reference Books

Since I was little, my parents always teach me how you can enrich yourself by reading books. We created a little "library" at home and it was always fun to receive books from our parents. I read countless of fictions, from murder mystery like Agatha Christie's to classics like F. Scott Fitzgerald; from the Mallory Towers series to "Pride and Prejudice." Though I don't have the luxury of time to read these days, but I still have a small library, filled with Harry Potter books, Stieg Larsson's trilogy, and of course, my growing collections of cooking and baking books.

My first baking book, d from my darling friend in Dubai, called "Cupcakes!" (by Elinor Klivans). My first real cupcakes that I made was through this book. Sorry, Betty Crocker, not buying your products anymore... Thanks to her, that book unlocked my passion for baking!

I am a self-taught baker and every knowledge that I got was through trials and errors. There are a few books that I considered as my reference book like Michel Roux's "Eggs," Martha Stewart's "Baking Handbook" and the list go on. Martha Stewart was like a real teacher to me, showing how important in taking the time in creaming the butter, diligently put the eggs separately before putting them in the batter, and showed me the difference between a soft peak and a stiff peak in beating egg whites. Oh, how I love her! Michel Roux is also one of my hero, as he showed me lots of fool proofs recipes of all wonderful things made of eggs! I even learned how to make a perfect hard-boiled eggs... ah, merci Monsieur Roux! I recently acquired (the word I like to use) a few more in baking books, such as this one, a wonderful little volume from a beautiful bakery in San Fransisco called "Miette." I was so charmed by this book, from the layout, how the pages have scalloped (!) edges, and the double-chocolate cakes are super yummy!

I always on a lookout to find new baking and cake decorating books. While there are so many out there, not all books are created equal. I like Maisie Parrish's books for little character modelling, Debbie Brown for her amazing and creative cakes, and Alan Dunn for his brilliant sugar flowers. Gosh, all of them made it look so easy, but there are a lot of labor and love that you have to put into it. All of these books are a great step-by-step, very detailed instruction of how to sculpt and model.

Alright, off I go now to spend some gift certificate I received as a present from an online survey company. Totally made my day... now, the question is which ones to buy?

Busy, Busy, Busy

It has been a whirlwind of cake-making for these past few weeks. It started with the beautiful cherry blossoms-themed cake and ended with the Angry Birds birthday cake. Between taking care of the household chores, the kids, and the cakes, I was exhausted. BUT, on the other hand, I am very happy with all of them!

Cake (and cupcakes) ONE:

I love the simplicity of cherry blossoms that the bride picked for the theme. I cut more than 300 little flowers out of gumpaste, shaped, dusted them with edible petal dusts, and added dots on each one of them. The flowers stood out against the white background and some brown accents (ribbons and 'branches' out of chocolate fondant). The cupcakes and the cake were displayed on a beautiful acrylic stand (available for rent, contact me for detail). My husband and I had a great fun at wedding reception, thanks to our wonderful Mom-in-law, who let us had a 'date night' and attended the reception while she took care of the rambunctious little ones. It was a fun night, lots of laughter, great company, and yummy feast! Just wanted to give a shout-out to our friends, RY, HS and FW who helped me to arrange the cupcakes on the stand in such pressed time. You guys rock!!!

Cake TWO:

My darling niece, AK, turned one just a couple weeks ago. I felt an special attachment with her as my youngest son who is almost the same age as her and both of them born prematurely. Now who can resist of making cake for her?! AK's Mom aka my sister-in-law chose a very darling theme for her, sweet bumblebee. Everything was so adorable and so sweet. I made only the top cake since AK's super Mom made the cupcakes for her. I helped by putting icings on the cupcakes since we're so pressed for party time. I felt like I was in a Cupcake Wars! Chaotic and crazy, but we made it!

CAKE THREE:

I am an avid fan of photography. I love looking at pictures and quite amazed with some of the talents out there. One of the talented photographer that I admired is Athalia's Photography. I've been following her blog and secretly wished that she can take another wedding pictures of ours... ha ha.. But for now, I was just hoping that she would take a picture of my cake. She did offered Sugar Penguin to be involved with one of the many amazing photo projects. Unfortunately, I was way too busy with my two kids at that time. But I promised her that I would love to be involved later in one of the projects. Finally she emailed me and let me know about her latest project! I was pressed for time, but I managed to make lots of tiny sugar flowers. Again, I always think simple is best, so I came up with a very neutral, earthy cake. I started with gumpaste, cutting, shaping, forming, and dusting all of the tiny flowers. I can only do this after all of kids already sleeping. I was exhausted, but making these flowers were almost therapeutic.

This photo is courtesy of Athalia's Photography.

Finally, Cake FOUR:

Speaking of therapeutic, playing Angry Birds also therapeutic. Ever since we got our new ipad, we jumped into the bandwagon of playing Angry Birds. We've been obsessed, and it's not good. I've managed to wean myself out of it and so far, it has been not quite successful. Oy vey.

My dear friend, JK, was asking me if I can make an Angry Birds cakes for her son's 6th birthday. Of course, I said YES! Who could resist making those characters..?! Great thing, she gave me a sufficient notice for me to work on the characters modelling. I worked on the characters for about 2 nights, right after the 'tiny terrors' are all asleep. They're so adorable, I had such a hard time letting them go... haha.

So there, my end of July/first two weeks of August experience.... Hope all of you enjoy looking at these photos and my ramblings, of course... Until then, off I go to prep the sugar flowers for an upcoming wedding with B & W theme color, CAN'T WAIT!