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!