Helloooooo Kitty!

Oh Hello Kitty, you are so hard to make!  I took a challenge to make Hello Kitty figurines and hoped for the best.  One wrong placement of the eyes or nose, it's no longer Hello Kitty, it's more like "Hello Katty" (quoted from Bonnae).  First night of making Hello Kitty, I almost die with frustrations.  I took a full day break and strategized of how I am going to tackle this character.  I rarely took a commission doing existing characters since they are the hardest to make and if you don't do it right, it's horrible.  I did tackle that achilles heels of mine and I am pretty darn happy with the result.  You don't look so bad, Miss Hello Kitty!  Then I got another call from the hubby (who ordered the cake for her lovely wife, aka my buddy, FC) and requested another small cake with another small cake for a surprise cake.  Oh.  Help.  Me.  Lord.  I couldn't say no to him as they are super nice friends of ours who always so generous and kind.  

And so I did it.....  Here are the two cakes:

The above cake is a 4" personal cake.  The cake is a double chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream.  

This is the second cake for the surprise celebration:

Happy Birthday to my dear friend, FC!

                                                    

Black and White

I love the most basic colors in the world, black and white.  Nothing more versatile than black.  You can pair black with ANYTHING.  I don't know how many black items that I have in my wardrobe.  

This month, it's been black and white themed month, well so far.  It's quite striking when they are paired together, beautiful bold contrast.  I've been very privileged to be a part of one of my maternity doctor's wedding.  She picked the elegant, black and white color as her theme color.  It's such a beautiful venue that she picked as her intimate celebration, overlooking a lake.  

It was such a gorgeous day too, perfect for wedding.  

The following week, I made a black and white cake for my husband's close friend's wife's birthday.  The husband requested for an elegant and chic cake.  Very appropriate for his wife, who is very elegant and chic.  I did a lot of handcut fondant, using my x-acto knife.  It was challenging at first, but the looks are lovely.  I wished I took a better pictures of these cakes, though.  

  

Oh, I just can't get enough with Black and White theme cake... I made this one back in March:

  

Beauty Shots

Oh, after waiting (not) so patiently, the beauty shots of the cake that I made for the Enchanted Forest photoshoot are done!  This dreamy photoshoot was done by Athalia's Photography.  This was one of the wonderful themed-projects that she does from time to time.  I was very flattered when she asked me earlier to  be involved in the project.  Unfortunately I had to turned down the earlier project due to my crazy busy household chores, looking after my 3.5 years old, a baby, and my husband.  At the end of July, she asked me to be involved in her latest project.  She gave me a picture of a bride, in the forest as an inspiration.  By God's grace, I was able to pull it off, though it was such a crazy weeks for me, 4 cakes in a span of 2 weeks.  
I was a little disappointed that I was not able to be there to see the photoshoot.  In the morning of the photoshoot, I handed the cake to her and I knew that it will be a great photoshoot.  I was wrong about that part, it was not great, it was AMAZING!  I was blown-away!
So, without further ado, here are the pictures of the cake.  Enjoy!
(For more pictures of the dreamy photoshoot, do stop by at her blog and her website).

 

all photos courtesy of Athalia's Photography

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!

Here's My Latest Obsession (not cake related)

I am glad that I took on my dear husband's recommendation on watching "Game of Thrones" on HBO. I was a couple episodes behind, but thank goodness for our hard working PVR, my husband was able to record the first three episodes aired. The first episode got me hooked! I watched the second, and the third (and felt and looked like a zombie - or the white walker for that matter - the next day) consequently and thirsted for more. It was THAT good.

So you asked what is this Game of Thrones business you asked? "A Game of Thrones," is a 700-plus-page novel by George R.R. Martin that's the shortest in his "A Song of Ice and Fire" series. I am not familiar with his work prior watching this series. I am intrigued and so tempted to read the book. BUT, I decided to just enjoy the ride and follow the twist and turn whatever this series would take me. Sunday used to be just another Sunday, but my Sundays have changed ever since I watched the show. I've been looking forward to Sunday for the past 6 weeks.

The cast is strong and superb, for both the adults and the younger actors. Sean Bean was perfect as Lord Eddard "Ned" Stark, Mark Addy as King Robert Baratheon, the beautiful Lena Heady as Queen Cersei, and the one who stole the show is the brilliant Peter Dinklage as Tyrion Lannister. The young Maisie Williams is so amazing as the young Arya.

Be forewarned that the series are not for the faint of heart nor those, for lack of better word, sheepish. I assure you there are plenty of blood and there are still subjects that made me cringe. Plenty of bloodbath, plenty of nudity counts too. Oh dear.

HBO is doing a rerun after this Sunday's season's finale (**sad face**), go watch it! Since I have nothing to look forward to after that season's finale, I am going to get the book and start reading.

"Earth Laughs in Flowers"

Earth laughs in flowers. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Hamatreya"

I thought that quote is appropriate as we are in Spring where the earth is decorated with colorful blooms of vast array of colors and sizes. Those flowers brighten your day, make you smile.

We just celebrated Mother's Day just last week. Since the day was nice, we did a luncheon/BBQ at our place. Steaks, crab cakes with lemon garlic aioli, risoles (Indonesian snack: chicken ragout-filled crepes, breaded, and deep fried!), and all the trimmings were served. And let's not forget the cake! I've been trying to make sugar flowers all week.. Boy, it was not easy to make sugar flowers! There were lots of steps to follow before I can actually make them. I have to prep the wires, the inside bulb, the gumpaste, and waited for them to dry first. Prepping the petals were another thing, I had to vein them, thin them, ruffle them to give them "movement," dust them with colors, and waited for them to be "semi-dry" before I can arrange them into flowers. The leaves were another thing, same process, but coloring them are hard!!! I supposed to glaze them with confectioners glaze to make them very realistic, but it was almost 2 am by the time I finish, so I said fuggetaboutit... hah! Oh, sugar flowers and uber-curious 3 years old son doesn't mix either, he decided to want to "just look" at them and cracked a few petals here and there... Oh well. What can you do, right?

I would love to learn more about making those sugar flowers, although I know it's a long and extensive process, but so rewarding at the end, specially when you see your design come to life with those flowers.