We'll miss you!

"Looks old, not young"... I guess a little like the birthday boy? Hahaha

This was a cake that I had to make in under an hour with so much pressure from the other job. It was hard. I had the cake in the fridge and it did not have time to get back to room temperature. So there was sweating and condensation and worried me!!!

But condensation dries... just don't touch it!

And I am sooo relieved that that's Christmas baking done (mostly!) for another year!

So proud of our selection this year. We made Christmas Hampers!

Homemade jam

Biscotti

Sugar cookies

Belgium biscuits

Gingerbread men

Fruit cake

nomnomnom...

I love the Christmas Cake decorations this year. Navy and White (taking a leaf from the cupcakes!) is so striking and effective. I like the tree and reindeer the most.

I enjoyed packaging these the most. The more you put in the hamper, the better it looks!

Twice baked biscotti. Perfect for tea on Christmas day... or any other day for that matter!

I'm not quite at that age where I have been to very many baby shower parties. I can count how many I've been to on one thumb ;)

So it was a pleasant surprise when I was approached to make a cake for a baby shower and not a birthday! Whoop!

They wanted a rocking horse (it looks more like a horse on skiis as it was really humid this week). The horse itself is sooo cute don't you think? One of the friends of the mum-to-be was organizing the cake and picked soft yellow and blue. Classic baby colours with spots. Loving simple.

This cake was a triple layer of raspberry and white chocolate cake with homemade raspberry jam and white chocolate ganache. Delish.

Oh boy... was it a busy weekend or what?

However I love what I do and at this very moment in time, I would not trade it for anything else. 

And so starting 8 PM Friday night (after a loooong day at the office), it was vanilla butter cupcake time. 120 times!

I'm so thankful to have my mum around. She did all the perfect tying of the ribbons. Luckily, I thought ahead and pre-made the boxes a few days beforehand. When I had a few hours free and was watching TV (I actually never sit down and watch TV so this was strange!).

Again, great thing that I thought ahead and made the cupcake toppers a week in advance. Less stress the night before and also gave them time to dry out so they were stiff enough to just place on the top of the cupcakes.

Batch mixtures are really important. I think that batches keep the 'home made' and 'non commercial' taste in my cakes. I don't just simple double or triple recipe quantities to make more. I make a second or a third (or in this case 5 all up) batch so that each batch is made with the exact amount of love as any other. Trust me, it makes a massive difference to taste and how your cakes turn out. 

I think I managed to take some really awesome shots too... and my absolute favourite of the three was the rose. It also took the most amount of time to make too but ohhh so pretty. I would definitely do this again and again.

Then there was the daisies and butterfly. Plunger cutters put to work. Cute but not as beautiful and elegant as the rose (yes, I am going to compare them all to the rose!). If I was at the wedding, and I didn't get a rose cupcake, I would try and swap with someone else :P

And the bow. I really like this one too. I think it is simple but elegant at the same time. So this would be my second choice!

I had 4 hours of sleep in the wee hours of Saturday morning. And then was up as the sun came up to drop off three deliveries!

I tried to be really really organised this year. Planning lots in October for the December season. Mostly because judging from the past three years, I know how hectic it gets. How little time I end up with and on top of a quarter-end (year-end) month... planning was a necessity.

Funnily enough, I've already been to 3 or 4 Christmas parties and it is only the second week of December. So I thought I'd share what I've been doing to date. And I will need to post as I go because there's lots and lots and lots more!!! On top of the regular orders...

Sugar cookies: Snowflakes, snowmen & angels. These was painfully slow to make. The cutters I had were from Nordic ware but they were just so fiddly because of all the small arms and heads and legs. It was a really warm day too so each angel and snowmen made me increasingly frustrated!!!

 

I made a ton of houses last year that it was like my own city. This year... I decided to have make a few because I have other plans. And they are cute as I reckon! They've all got names on them unfortunately so get in early next year if you'd like one!

Took one to my friend's house for their annual christmas party bbq (I cannot believe that 12 people can consume so MUCH FOOD). Anyways, it was a total winner and everyone loved it. Yay!!! I've actually never deconstructed a gingerbread house myself so it was lots of fun. And I love gifting.

A more-ish cake - it was our contribution to a cake day fiesta. And it was sold within minutes! :D

It was the week of lots of cake orders at work (by that, I mean myself and the other resident baker at work were both delivery cakes for colleagues!).

I made this super cute fantasy land princess cake for one of my colleague's daughters over the weekend. The figurines are plastic - their choice so that they could have a keepsake of the occasion. I love the mushrooms! It was no where near as much work as the LoL cake but still required some decent TLC.

I make no secret about it. I like my cakes to have a good height. And by that I mean a good inch or so higher than the usual cake tiers that you find in cake shops. I think it makes it look more grand and less stingy... to put it lightly.

So I always have 3 or 4 layers in each tier. Just like in this photo (excuse the non-straightness of the cake slice... it was cut with a butter knife) but you can distinctly see the 4 layers of cake with 3 layers of white chocolate ganache and raspberries between each layers. Very happy.

Another shot of the League of Legends cake. Thank you to one of my godbro's friends for taking this. Looks amazing!

If you have a teenage or young adult male living in your household or even within your circle of connections, then more than likely you would have heard of the game League of Legends that seems to take over the internet world and zap smart kiddies into playing online for endless hours forgetting pretty much all else - sometimes including the basic necessities such as eating and sleeping.

So I was a little surprised that Leonard (who is my godbrother per say) actually approached me to make his cake in advance. Well, all he said was "I want a massive cake". Yup, thanks for the details! At first, I was going to go a basketball cake... maybe with a jersey and a 3D basketball sitting on the top. Then I thought, well, I did the soccer ball cake a couple of months back, let's take it up a notch.

I spent a few hours on the web browsing. There wasn't much available. Oh-oh... I was on my own. There are hundreds of LoL characters (called "champions") in the game. As you can imagine, I would have picked the easier ones. :P I like to save time! And already this was taking lots and lots of my time!

I knew he was having a big party. Teens these days seem to have a lot of friends.

So as usual, I tried to be prepared and used the Sunday before the cake to do all the figurines. Estimated time: 6 hours.

I came to realise awhile back that I like to make cakes for the outcome. Sure, all the steps along the way matter (duh) and sometimes those steps are therapeutic (especially after a busy day doing the 9-5) but my favourite part is sticking the figurines on and watching the cake come to life. More detail, more wow.

I didn't have so much fun today rolling the fondant. I'm not a huge fan of fondant and the smell of the sugar today made me a little queasy... :S I couldn't wait to wash my hands and be rid of the smell. Too bad the most fun bit takes the least amount of time! I thought it was quite clever to use dessicated coconut for a grassy effect (that means I don't have to whip up green buttercream! Score!!) and make basic icing in green to spread along the cake so everything would stick. Made the perfect amount of figures, trees, flowers and mushrooms. Very happy and very proud. :)

Rustic is the new expensive and posh. 

But to actually try to make something look rustic and "as is" is actually a lot harder than you think! 

The frosting was so yummy (so the feedback came back!). White chocolate, coconut and raspberry. Lots of people came back for second servings! ;) Yay!

When I was first approached to do a dinosaur cake, I was pretty anxious. How on EARTH was I going to be able to do something like this? No idea. Nooooo Idea. I can do round cakes and square cakes but... 3D cakes?! Anyways, it pays to break things up and allow plenty of time. And to take risks albeit calculated risks. Ones where the payoff  is > failure.

And I would love to thank Montreal Confections for her awesome and amazing tutorial. Made it so easy event hough I don't have an airbrush!

Weekend before cake due: make all the scales, cut out letters and allow plenty of time to dry. At least 5 days. The more time you make it advance, the less stressed you will be and more time you'll have to fix any mistakes. Always make extras as these as fragile pieces.

Day before: bake cakes and allow to cool completely.

Morning of: assemble cake. It does not take as long as you think! Layer cakes, ice, repeat until you get a dome. Mine was 5 layers of cake. As this is a 3D cake and the more natural and rustic looking, the better, you don't need to allow the icing to set. 

Go ahead and roll out 2 front legs, 2 hind legs, a head and a tail. Rough estimates will do just fine and the fondant will cover the rest. Roll out your fondant, and push into cake carefully. Place scales on and add decorations and buttercream grass. Simple, see? That is my newest motto... I got it from my other job ;)

Surprisingly, this did not take anywhere near as long as I expected. And all the marks on the cake make it look even more ... dinosaur-y! With the battle scars, markings, etc. Awesome! You don't have to be perfect to make a beautiful cake. And I thought it was so cool that I could find chocolate rock. Makes the cake look so cool!

I hope there will be a bunch of happy children tomorrow and one very excited little boy! Happy Birthday Oscar!!!

So good that I just had to share. I think this is my 4th annual High Tea that I host for my friends. Another successful year but oh so tiring! I wish I had more pictures but everyone was just so eager to dig in that it was a little chaotic!

A very decent spread this year: Cheese & Chive scones, sandwich board, cheese platter, momofuku inspired pork buns, salmon and cucumber canapes, prosciotto and rockmelon and bocconcini and cherry tomato sticks.

And for sweet: banoffee pie, earl grey chocolate tart, green tea chiffon cake, scones with jam and cream, macarons, brownie cookies and peanut butter caramel tartlets.

And a special belated Lemon Meringue tart for Cherry. 

Perhaps it's time I think about adding tea time options to the catering menu for others to have something just as special?

I don't share many of these photos. Mainly because I don't want all the little things in my personal life to override all the hard work I put into making cakes for others and sharing that happiness. But I had to share this one because it was part of a group/team cooking competition and we it was so much fun.

I am (not so) quietly confident that we've won!

This dessert was my team's and the competition's last dish: Black Sesame Cheesecake, Green Tea Macaron, Green Tea Ice Cream and Red Beans. All made from scratch!

I have to say that the feedback on the cheesecake was mixed. Some loved it, some thought it was an acquired taste. The macarons and ice cream were loved. All gone in a heartbeat.

Blue skies and clouds... first thought is Spring!

Like I said before, I am a fan on tall tiers... it makes the cake look so much better. One caramel and one chocolate. 

Last cake for the quarter and in fact, I am not sure why I decided to take this on so close to the end of September. I just love burning the candles at both ends!

Luckily, nothing went wrong this time around ;)

Have a great birthday tomorrow Jasper!

One of my colleagues who has been with the business for over 10 years is taking sabbatical tomorrow and travelling to Spain and Morocco and having some 'me' time. So I created this colourful cake for her to celebrate her last day! No doubt it will be filled with an extended lunch and cake and not much else! ;)

I'd LOVE to cut into this one to show you - it's orange sponge, chocoolate sponge, almond meringue, jaffa mousse, more meringue and sponge and topped with strawberries, blueberries, grapes, pistachios and rose petals!

Speaking of which... yes! It looks like the Black Star Watermelon Cake but it's not! I'm going to make that one soon though! Watch this space!

I like making tall cakes. I can't help it and it just happens. Even when I don't plan on them to. I think they look better and if you eat with your eyes, then it tastes better too!

A cake stand usually helps but I just don't think its fun cutting into a shallow cake and pulling the knife out. Which makes it a problem for me when I package my cakes in the standard cake boxes... I find that a lot of the time, I'm cutting it mighty close if it fits in the box at all!

Here's another moist chocolate cake (4 layers!) with salted caramel filling and loads and loads of walnuts! 

I made traditional mooncakes with white lotus paste and salted egg yolks for the first time this year. It's a lot of hard work! Hope everyone has a great night with loved ones and family. 

Green Tea

Irish Cream

Milo

Passionfruit

Salted caramel

Homemade Blackberry Jam.

Hello!

I picked up a copy of the Coles magazine the other day from my local supermarket as I was stocking up on my baking essentials and did a 2 minute flip through the pages last night. The cake recipe they had caught my eye because I had a lot of frozen berries (I made my own AMAZING jam too... definitely doing again for Christmas - stay tuned!) in the freezer and it wasn't a great day to be outside.

So I adapted the recipe (reduced the sugar, increased the almond meal and added a little hazelnut too) to make this cake. It reminds me so much of Christmas for some reason and I think I'll definitely be doing this as an alternative to the traditional fruit cake as I know so many people who don't like fruit cake!

And the cake is soooo beautiful both warmed up and as is so I think it'll be a perfect choice. Great tea cake too. All-rounder.

Even better is that the syrup is so easy and the cake itself is so easy to make pretty. Throw on some reserved blueberries and almond flakes before you bake. Then, drizzle over your orange syrup whilst the cake is still hot and carefully place the thinly sliced orange zest over the cake. Voila! Serve with greek yoghurt or double cream if you want to be decadent. 

These are for a special friend of mine who turned 30 over the weekend. I didn't really know what to do with these Vanilla bean & Passionfruit cupcakes until the very last minute! I just knew I wanted colours, pretty things and flowers.

I wasn't sure I was actually going to share this cake. It didn't quite come out as I had planned looks-wise. And to me, it is rather... inept. I had actually wanted to pipe little beads onto the cake and turn them into petal flowers - hard to explain but I saw it on pinterest and really liked it. But then I decided that it wouldn't look very nice with just green and i grabbed the spatula and started running it around the cake but not too much that the green would blend completely with the white. So I ended up with something like this!

This was a cake for the lovely Miss E's birthday and I was quite nervous bringing it into the office. Green Tea... what if they didn't like it? What if the flavour was too overpowering? What if it's a little too out there?!

Funnily enough (and I mean absolutely no disrespect by making this distinction) but those more inclined to Eastern flavours thought the green tea was too subtle whereas those not use to Green Tea thought the flavour was quite strong and could really be tasted! Personally, I would add more green tea into the cake batter next time. I am yet to find a green tea powder which bakes with a beautiful hue though... perhaps not quite possible. It is mostly a earthy, murky green.

Don't you just love those regular customers of yours? But at the same time, when making such a special cake, it kind of reminds you that another year has gone by.

Little Nelson is 6!!! I still remember the days when I was still studying and working casually and he was only a few months when he and Mon use to come into the store and visit... and even the time he spewed on my work shirt... time flies and I'm thankful to be a part of his life - even in cake form! :)

I had to get the special Wilton ball cake tins express shipped to me on Wednesday. Luckily, Australia Post was reliable this time! (Not so much in the past...).

And its pure chocolate inside. Chocolate Mud Cake with Whipped Ganache. Its sooooo good and chocolately!!!

Did you know that a real soccer ball has 20 hexagons and 12 pentagons? Think I was actually not too far from that figure and some excellent online blogger has already worked out the exact measurements for the shapes for me! (Thanks google and confessions of a cake addict!). The sides of each shape at 3.2 cm... and more "give or take" the lower on the ball you go...

I was actually most stressed about the cake ball not rolling around. It's not exactly flat... even with a little of the bottom shaved off. I'm hoping that all the fondant and ganache will keep everything in shape and intact before it is devoured! Enough for a few photos and for the kids to admire! ;)

Recently, I took a week off and headed to the hot, humid likes of Taipei and all its culinary delights!

And as is the norm in their huge multi-level and sometimes multi-building department stores, level B1 is usually the supermarket / gourmet food / fresh food floor. And boy, were there heaps of take in!

One of the specialties that I've never seen before are these Swiss Rolls with animal print on their 'skin'. They even had the matching soft toy to match and it was adorable! The kind man behind the counter also let us sample the cake and it was the softest sponge with whipped cream. Delectable...

Sky high salted caramel and chocolate ombre cake for a last minute birthday order! Asked to make it look pretty so a little flower, some strawberries and crushed nuts helped with this one. Would have loved a piece of this one... delectable. 

Next up, a kids chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream roses. I was anxious with the piping buttercream roses as I have always felt that mine weren't good enough to look good but decided to try it out and I think I like it! The trick is to have the buttercream consistency correct. Not too runny and a cooler room temperature helps with the buttercream holding shape. And huge hint... don't ever try and pipe whipped ganache like buttercream! It makes for one melting mess...

And another 4-layer chocolate caramel ombre cake. It is proving to be very very popular...

I've never had much luck with yeast. Ever.

Until these croissants. It started off as a challenge and I was intrigued.

Day 1: Create dough and rest.

Day 2: Laminate dough and rest.

Day 3: Roll, shape, proof and bake!

They are the pinnacle of a labour of love ... patience and a gentle hand required here. And the result is so worth it and they are infinitely better than those bought from any bakery. Makes the 4 a.m. wake up so worth it. I even dabbled with ham & cheese for a few.

It is Bastille Day on Monday so I've decided to make another batch for work. Perhaps this is the beginning of a new partnership with yeast, starter and dare I say... BREAD!?!? 

Flowers, frangipanes and chocolate for Cath's retirement. She is travelling with her husband to Europe indefinitely. Buying a motor-home and doing as they please. I only wish that one day, I will do what I say I want to do, not just dream about it. . .

And to finish the week (cake-wise), whipped up a frosted raspberry and vanilla cake for a birthday in the Hunter Valley. Wine, country roads, scenery, open fires and good company. My kind of weekend!

I'll admit that making cheesecakes with fruit as opposed to chocolate or liquor or cookies etc etc is indefinitely more popular and perhaps more refreshing and lighter than other cheesecakes. Baked cheesecakes are known for being dense (try Japanese or unbaked for a lighter texture). I do love experimenting with other flavours though and its been awhile since trying green tea, black sesame, etc etc. Will have to find an occasion. 

I'm quite fond of piling fruit on top and leaving it rustic looking. It sets it apart from the cakes in the shops and it personalizes each cake. It also shows that the produce is 100% fresh :)

Haven't made a custom-cake in a few weeks so it is very exciting to get back into it! ;)

I had eagerly done my research on gummy bears and more specifically the little mascot. Apparently, there is a song and TV show decided to it??? Not sure if that's available in Australia but we have the Haribo Gummy Bears in the shops everywhere. Yummy. Got a bunch of them left over and if I was younger, I would totally make vodka bears out of them!

Made a 1.5 batch of vanilla cake today. Decided to be clever and used two baking tins to bake the bigger cake so that they baked and cooled much quicker. It worked! And it just so happened that I put all three cakes in the oven at the same time and they all took the same amount of time to bake - so was perfect. Happy with the result. Even happier with the thin perfect layers that I cut from them. There is just something about thin layers of cake.. more delicate, elegant and refined.

Not long into the cake prep, I realised that what i was most looking forward to was actually just to stick the gummy bears onto the cake (duh... the easiest part!). And as I hadn't really planned ahead, I had to make Mr Gummy Bear as the cakes were cooling. Luckily, it's cool and dry today so the fondant held its shape quite well. And thanks to toothpicks, Mr Gummy Bear is sturdy and intact. And he was quite easy to make too. Chucked in butter, icing sugar, passionfruit and homemade lemon curd for some tartness into the kitchenaid and out came some delicious buttercream... :) Easy peasy!

I amaze myself sometimes... all up, this cake didn't take long at all. I fluffed around a bit this morning and took my time baking the cake but it was only probably another 90 minutes or so to assemble the cake and make Mr Gummy Bear. Efficiency makes me happy.