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.