My current manager has a saying, "sweet young things". Then pointedly says to me that I am neither sweet nor young. How would you interpret it?

Anyway, and with this cake, you're all up-to-date with my cake and baking stories! Finally! It's only taken two years...

And for some reason, and by luck because to be honest, I don't spend that many weekends in Singapore, I had two cake requests in the same weekend. It's not even often in Sydney I had two cakes for the one weekend so it's really luck of the Irish (is it??) that I had two requests for the same weekend.

Good that they're both buttercream based. Bad that they're both for Sunday. But I prepped early and didn't plan anything else (the irony is that the day job keeps calling this weekend) so I'm literally just working the weekend away. Till next time! :-)

Another one where I wasn't going to take it on. 

I think I was having lunch with one of my colleagues who mentioned that she got a quote from a local lady for a Paw Patrol cake (see photo below) for her son's 6th birthday. I know Paw Patrol... my nephews went through the same phase and wanted a Paw Patrol cake for their birthday too (so sad that I'd already moved to Singapore by then). I remember being absolutely flabbergasted at what she was quoted... almost SGD 360 for a one tier, 8 inch cake. The price was broken up into shaping, piping, premium flavour and an additional $20 for FONDANT LETTERS. WHO ACTUALLY DOES THAT?!?!?!

So as an offhand comment, I said something along the lines of:

I'd do it for half the price.

I didn't think she was serious. But she was.

(insert hyperventilating moment).

Okay, I'll admit, I thought it was going to be harder than it actually was. And I actually managed to put this one together in half the time that I'd set aside. #winning

And that's the story of how I made a buttercream cake in SG.

I pretty much had a mental battle with myself over this one for weeks. Whether I was even going to take on the challenge cause:

Singapore. Heat. Humid. Melting ganache. No tools. Expensive ingredients. No kitchen space. No oven. Where do I even get the speciality ingredients? What brand fondant do they sell here? 

In the end, I scrapped together this 2 tier cake for my colleague's son's 2nd birthday. It was stressful... like mega.

First off, two tall tier cakes takes a long time to bake. And well, my fridge isn't all the big either so I just didn't have any room anywhere. Then I had to let the AC run pretty much all the days that I was putting the cake together. That's just a waste of money and electricity (as humid and hot as it gets here, I absolutely loathe AC...)

Then I had like the tiniest rolling pin (think something you'd use to make dumpling skins, not huge ass pieces of fondant to cover 8 inch cakes!) that I had to make do with to cover the cake. Oh and I had no lazy susan so I pretty much had to turn the cake manually whilst at the same time not dent the cake in anyway. I had no wooden or plastic dowels to hold up the second tier but I learnt this amazing trick of using thick drinking straws instead. Luckily those are easy to obtain.

I also had to express order cloud shaped cutters and ebay isn't really a thing here so they don't have the cheap options online. I still got them online but it was like same as store prices except that stores don't have stuff like this readily available. So stressful.

In the end, managed something that I think looks ok. Will I do another fondant cake here? Umm...

Ever heard of hummingbird cake? So many people say it's better than Carrot Cake (which is one of my all time favs). So I wanted to make it for my buddy's birthday (he eventually left our team for Germany, still haven't forgiven him but really happy for him as well).

Verdict? Carrot Cake rules. Anytime. Everytime.

Hummingbird cake is super dense and super sweet and super not me. Even with the nuts and berries and banana, it was just... more like fruit loaf than cake. And I made it again just in case I did something wrong the first time. Nope, just no. Cream cheese icing always saves the day and why am I posting a photo with candles? It makes the cake look 100 times better!

Another one of those random cakes I made because I had things in the pantry to use up and I wanted a nice instagram photo. 

Common occurrence in Singapore: bring so much stuff back from Sydney that I eventually need to do a pantry or fridge clean. In this instance, it was earl grey tea. I basically bring things to take up luggage space and feel good about having items from home. I rarely consume it... fail.

I also made this cake so I didn't have to make pandan which is the local version that everyone harps on about. TBH, I think mine is better than the stores... :D

 

We had a little party in the office and of course I made cake!

Fruit cake and Ombre cake. 

And they're still asking!

Easy to make, hard to dress up! But managed to scramble some passionfruit curd and papaya to make it local. I think this was literally because I wanted to post a new photo on instagram. hahaha.

You wouldn't be able to walk into Coles or Woolworths and see microherbs and microflowers. But for some strange reason, the (very expensive) supermarket that I venture often to (because it is the closest and the stuff isn't all produced in China or Malaysia) has it... but charges an arm and a leg for them! And I still bought it... you probably can now guess why I never made any money off my cakes... -_-"

I am sure that the top here almost cost as much as I charged. Oops. But I love it!!!

Looks fugly (and yes, was criticised about having the JP flag above the US but I digress). Tasted amazing. Matcha cake with 70% cocoa dark chocolate icing.

Another one that was for the office. I had to get a cab to work that day because it was that heavy and that hot outside. Cake was for two farewells... one heading to each of the countries. Wasn't very pleased with this overall cause it looks so ugly.

Had a friend staying with me at the time so I really didn't have much time to think about this ... creation. Let's just say it's from outta space and leave it at that!

Haha, I remember back in the day - it was around 2010 - and I said to my then manager,

"OMG, 30 is so OLD!!!" 

My mind has changed dramatically on this statement / opinion.

This is a Sydney cake. Earl Grey cake with chocolate icing and whatever I could find that I could throw on the cake. Pretty sure that's Mozart chocolate (the souvenir chocolate from Austria), tim tams, Lindt and strawberries.

Around this time I realised that it is way more fun to bake in a large kitchen with a large oven and with room temperature that doesn't go over 25 degrees. Too bad that wasn't going to last.

Ironically, had to go back to Sydney for a few weeks for work. Even in Winter, it was amazing and I didn't want to leave.

Caught up with friends so basically threw some passionfruit, chocolate and caramel together and came up with the ugly-pretty thing. Tasted good though. I think we call this kind "rustic".

Another nightmare care to make in Singapore because you have to bake each layer separately. That means 4 times for 4 layers. Why do I do it? Have some dear friends here who also moved from Sydney to Singapore and this is her absolute favourite cake. #worthit

I have to confess that I went home (as in Sydney) for Christmas but not before I basically made a mess on the kitchen and tried to build some Gingerbread Houses. As it happened, I vowed I'd never do it again because it literally took all day to build three houses. I remember getting so frustrated that nothing would dry and that the walls would keep falling off.

My oven is about the size of a microwave here. Just imagine how many batches of gingerbread I had to bake. Cookies and just a no no here! Way too time consuming!

Wow, it's been (almost) 2 years. Time flies.

That's two mentally long but physically short years I've spent in Singapore. For sure I've slowed down on the baking - both by choice and not. Restrained by the head and humidity, outrageous ingredient prices on this tiny island and the small corner in my little condo that it called a 'kitchen'. I have bemoaned the fact that I don't have a 'real' oven for 2 years yet despite this, I've managed a few goodies. Take a look at what I've been up to when I haven't been collecting stamps on my passport!

I've had another extremely busy weekend (and week building up to it)! With a wedding in the Blue Mountains followed directly by a Kitchen Tea back in the Sydney CBD, it was always going to be a logistical challenge.

I did have an amazing (and rather cold) time away outside of Sydney on Friday evening and Saturday before hastily fitting in a morning bushwalk on Sunday morning before the drive back to Sydney. I was exhausted. The wedding was beautiful and very much what the bride wanted.

So was the Kitchen Tea - the cake, which I had completed by Friday morning, turned out well too! We were supposed to have a cake topper as well but my dear friend forgot it. No matter, flowers to the rescue and as she had already prepped everything, it was really easy! The cake was delicious just in case you were wondering! Very happy with how it all turned out.

It was a great afternoon (despite the dreary wet weather storming outside) at Doltone House opposite Hyde Park. Lots of laughs, competitiveness and general fun. Really enjoyed myself and was quite impressed by the service.

I'm at a point in my life ("career"; the day one) where I'm not quite sure if I'm staying or if I'm going so this lucky girl (and boy) were extremely fortunate to be able to catch me in town to do their wedding cake. It was a case of 'maybe' for a long time!

4 mega tiers of Vanilla Coconut, Chocolate Peppermint and Mocha Caramel cake sandwiched with lashings of buttercream (a request from the bride.. she really really LOVES buttercream). The waiter who took the cake off to the kitchen where they promptly butchered it (I was livid) carried the cake as though it weighed nothing... hats off to him because I'm pretty sure the whole thing was a good 20 odd kg?!?!

And the flowers, oh they were so pretty: blushing brides with yellow chrysanthemums, billy buttons, baby breaths, lavender and roses. It made having to get up at 5 AM with minimal sleep so worth it!

There have been a few things I've come to a realization with in the past few months. It's probably been simmering on the back burner for a long time but it's kind of come to fruition with my time away from home and not having baked it so long. And the main one that stands out is: I would not want to do this full time and for a living. As much as I love baking and doing it in small doses, I don't think I'd enjoy it if it was anything more.

So this cake was a lot of fun and it made me realize that I still had it in me to pull something out of the proverbial hat. And I still loved (almost) every minute of it. But I was so stressed that the cake would fall over or something would go wrong and I just don't ever want to be responsible for something bad happening to the cake!

In short: time permitting (and that's not a lot of time), I would love to do more but here and now, I have other things I also want to do with my time...

Hello Friends!

It certainly has been a long time. This one feels like a practice cake as you can see the drips are well not really drips... more like blobs. I knew I'd be busy back home but not entirely sure how busy!

This was a small chocolate cake with vanilla bean buttercream and random lindt balls, kit kats, salted caramel popcorn and walnuts on the top for a last minute birthday bash.

Make sure you tune in to the cake that comes next!

Ohayo from Tokyo!

This has got to be one of my most the most crazy things I thought I could pull off: limited space, limited resources, no electronic equipment (I did buy a set of cheap egg beaters, they literally died after 5 minutes), NO OVEN!

But world had gotten around the Tokyo office that I baked for fun and as a leisure thing (I wonder how that happened?) and so a challenge was set that I should bake a cake for our boss' birthday. I am always up for a challenge so over 3 nights in my tiny apartment where my 'kitchen' was made up of a sink, one induction burner, a bar fridge, about 50 cm x 50cm of bench space and a tiny microwave oven, I set to work.

I love their 100 yen shops - got my spatula, whisk and cake board and box there so at least some things were easy! My sister had shipped over some plain flour, Cadbury chocolate, cocoa and sugar for me - if you lived in Japan for a few months and tried to buy these items, you will quickly understand why I had them shipped over... $$$

So this was it...! Had to cake the layers individually three times due to the size of the oven. All these constraints really tested my patience :) But we got there in the end, three yummy looking, still moist layers of chocolate cake. Then came the buttercream and butter is about 4x the price in Australia and without electric beaters, I was beating for a l-o-n-g time. Again, excellent patience practice training.

Assembling the cake... another wonder how I managed with such limited space and using the butter knife that I had in the apartment, it kind of came together. I wasn't going to come up with any fancy design and again, the abundance of confectionery and snack items in Japanese shops is a wonder because it literally made the cake look beautiful - just by throwing on as much chocolate, biscuits, sugar, pocky sticks and wafers on the cake as I could and trying to get some 'height'.

Anyway, I called it a success... and it was definitely a yummy cake. But it also encouraged me not to attempt it again in my time in Japan. Thankfully, there was lots to do anyway so I was more that okay not to bake but to sight see. An experience of a lifetime in this little kitchen and I would not have changed any part of it.

For those of you who don't know, I am on hiatus aka, shipped my operations to Tokyo, Japan. No seriously, apologies in advance but I will not be taking any orders until August 2016.

This was another special birthday - my old man's 60th. 

And we had a BIG party (it's said that the organisers of the party never enjoy themselves. I can see where this statement comes from as the stress and the planning is quite a challenge. However, I'd like to think that I did enjoy myself).

I was so excited as we were having enough guests to warrant a dessert table. I've always wanted to do one but I also knew that it would just go to waste and usually guests will be too full to want to pick at the sweets. I'd decided long ago we were going all out - and on top of the gazillion other things I was overseeing, I did a small dessert table with a strawberry & ferrero tree, flowers, cake pops, chocolates, jelly shots, macarons and of course the CAKE!!!

An impressive 6 layers of chocolate cake soaked in kirsch with coconut, glace cherries and spiked ganache. It was so moist and yummy! We had a lot of cake leftover.... but everyone wanted to take some home! Yay, it didn't go to waste.

The day was hot too so I had to pick items that could stay out without melting or deteriorating. Not such an easy feat.

We also had a pig on the spit. It was delicious. The kids loved the balloons and the bubble machine (so did our crazy welsh corgi). So tiring but so worth it. Happy Birthday Dad!