ICCA Cake Competition

For those who did not manage to view the exhibits; what a waste.. I have downloaded some of the pictures here for all to share..... pls go to the photo gallery page. Congratulations to my new found friend, Shahril for his most deserving win.

I did join the competition at the persistance of my supportive husband..

His design was an engineering feat in itself....

He wanted me to do floating collars ... yes floating... that means two or more collars supported only by extension work...... challenging indeed but it was very tempting for me to live up to his challenge... and so I agreed to his design...

BUT I forgot all about the date of the competition and made a committment to take up a teaching position  -- I agreed to start on the 20th September.....

Again Vivian from ICCA called me and reminded me about the competition.... she had even helped me to register for the competition.... BLESS you girl...

When I heard that the date was on the 1st of October ; I screamed.... I had less than 2 weeks and the design Mr Hubby was talking about was still in his head....

I went back to the school management and asked if I could join them two weeks later... the answer was no.... they had been waiting for me for more than a month already.... and so the battle begins...

Daytime teaching and night time preparing the competition cake.....

One consolation.... I did not enter the competition to win... just for the stress, sleepless nights, the frustrations, the worries.... all these are invaluable experiences. Believe you me, you got to try it to understand what I mean...

I am one person who is aware of my limitations.... what am I compared to the big guns like Shahril, Man Kwan, Kelvin Chua, Mama Min........ but I did it for two people.... HUBBY and ME....

And so the burning of the midnight oil started..... every night, we would make collars after collars of royal icing - they were big ones ---- 16" by 16" ..... then the embroidery pieces.....

My 2 sons received lessons on the spot; literally overnight they learnt how to make and knead fondant and royal icing ......

But rushed as we did, the collars did not have time to dry..... to cut a long story short, the big collars all broke --- all 6 of them. And so the bottom tiers had no collars .... we had to think of a new design fast  and that was already 3 o'clock in the morning... our minds went blank....

The smaller ones --- with the big piped lace work ... were fine.

I started 'floating' them at six o'clock the same morning of the competion..... as I was piping the extension work; I noticed one string that was not so straight..... I broke it with a pincer and as my luck would have it, it fell under the lace piece.. Against my hubby's advice, I did the UNTHINKABLE... I manouvered a pair of pincers under the lace and attempted to pick up the broken piece of royal icing..; got it in mo pincer but as

 I was pulling it from under the collar, my wrist knocked against the collar and a cracking sound was heard.... and thus the sinking of the lace collar piece began.... I deserved the stern glare I got from Mr HUBBY.... I felt like crying but it would have been no use... and there was not enough time for me to start 'floating' another collar.

And thus, my cake turned out very different from what we had planned.... but as I said... an invaluable lesson learnt indeed.... Eddie Spence and Rosalind (ICCA) -- 2 of the judges-- gave many pointers on how I could have improved my cake and Eddie shared on how I can guarantee my royal icing collars would not break.... those advice was worth each drop of sweat and stress we went through to get the cake done.....

Please feel free to comment and provide pointers.....

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My sincere apologies

Assalamu'alaikum to all my muslim friends and a very good hello to everyone else.
First of all ............I am SOOOOOO SORRY..... for having 'vanished' from the blog world since July.

One project after another... challenges after challenges...... struggles while trying to catch the rainbow..... time flies and suddenly I realized that I have abandoned my blogspot for the past few months..... Once again .. my apologies and my sincere thanks to those who have remain loyal and sometimes send me a gentle reminder.... 'No new post?'..... a gentle reminder but a good wake up call..... Anyway..... we at The Weddingcake Boutique are BACK.... and boy do I have lots and lots to share....... so please bear with me..... I will upload story by story.....


Demo Session with Eddie Spence

This year I could not afford to attend the handson session with Debbie Brown and Eddie Spence.

However, Vivian from ICCA (the organisers) was so kind to have told me about the demo session Eddie Spence was conducting and so I went....

I did not regret a minute of it altho it took precious minutes and hours from me as I desperately needed those minutes and hours  to try and complete my cake for the ICCA competition.... thats another story in itself...


For those who have never heard about Eddie Spence... here's a short intro:-

He started at the age of 14 as an apprentice; he was not allowed to do any deco direct on any cake for TWO years --- all these apprentices do is to practice and practice on the side... and if their decorations are good enough; then they are chosen to be placed on the actual cakes .... and so he had to hundreds and hundreds of royal icing birds, figurines, collars......... BEFORE he was allowed to touch a cake..... I wonder how many of us have the patience to tolerate that.....I have heard of some people who are brave enough to conduct a class of their own just after a week or two of them attending the very same class......

Anyway, he started teaching at the age of 23 ... and today guess how old our good friend is ?...... A good ripe golden age of 78 !!!!! mind you.... so he has had more than 50 years of experience..... WHO can beat that?

At his age, he puts almost of al to shame  ... Why? you may ask....

First he is 78...... most of us are at least 2/3 his age.....

Second, his hands are shaking all the time....   even when he is holding the piping bag BUT the minute he starts piping, the line he pipes is a lot more straight than any of us.... he pipes a bird in less than 1 minute, a picture of a girl holding a basket of flowers with chubby cheeks (yes the cheeks are chubby) in less than 5 .....
All those in the picture below was done in less than 15 minutes.......

 

Let me share with you something very useful  from Eddie --- for royal icing work.

--  Do not use fresh egg whites; if possible separate the yolk from the white one day before you need to make

     the icing; and leave it at room temperature for one day; in our weather, we need to keep it covered with a

     piece of clingwrap and refridgerate -- this will stabilize the white .

--  For extension work, add about 5 drops of lemon juice  or vinegar to your icing sugar... to strengthen the icing.

--  Its VERY important for you to remove as much air as possible before you use your roya icing.
     Paddle it against the side of your bowl or even on the table before you use it to coat your cake or to put it in
     your piping bag.  This is very important when you do pipe with royal icing.


All in all, we went away feeling very happy but very worried about our cake..... even managed to have a chat with Robert and Bev ; owners of Squire Kitchen and took a photo with Debbie Brown.

A time well spent indeed.

Masterpieces  by  the  Master  himself.

 

 

 

 

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Sharing Session and the Hantaran Project

Last week, a good old friend offered to have a sharing session for us to exchange knowledge, ideas and experiences with regards to the pillow bags and range of handbag cakes and shoes. The best part is she and another friend were willing to travel to KL. I immediately jumped at the suggestion and the day was set for a Wednesday.

But on the day she confirmed that she had booked the bus tickets, another new friend called to say that she would like to give me the pleasure of making the cakes as well as the bridal gifts (hantaran) for her daughter's engagement on the Friday of the same week.  This was NO ordinary invitation (for reasons I cannot reveal here); it was a great privilege for me to recieve this order and yet it was also daunting at the same time. The expectations and standards were high.

                                                             Arm of the Samurai Sifu


As usual, I said 'yes' then panicked . This is because in theory I had only one day to do a total of 9 different of  'gifts'. But that seems to be the trend with my orders.... Thus the mission began.... and the challenges.....

On Tuesday night, after whipping up 6 batches of the butter cake needed for the sharing session, the electrical sockets in the kitchen suddenly played up on me... all the equipment in the kitchen could not be used as the electrical system was tripping all the time.... Tried as we may, changing the fuse in the plug; changing the plugs itself, even the electrical sockets in the living room tripped on us.... At last, desperate and frustrated, I make the omnious decision to carry the oven to the shop to bake the cakes and that was at 1.30 in the morning. My poor children and hubby kindly obliged and accompanied me to the shop. We ended up baking till dawn-- 5 a.m.

At nine Wednesday morning, picked up my friends and went to the Bake With Yen and bought all that we needed. Official sharing session started after lunch until 1.30 in the morning... But boy did the three of us had fun... We kneaded and kneaded the fondant (after a while, my adopted brother was roped in to help the ladies with the kneading), carved the cakes into pillows -- a story in itself (husband was roped in for this part), had a brainstorming session on how to create different effects of the dented look on the pillows... After lots of trials and errors, the three of us sat back and laughed--- coz the tools were all staring in our faces and we had been imagining and cracking our heads how this and that effect was created..... Soon the pillow cakes were on their way. The youngest of  us (not me) was designated to complete the cake.

The 2 'older' ones proceeded with the handbag cakes.... to cut a long story very very short.... we ended up with a completed clutch bag, a crocodile skin Prada Bag (with no handles yet), one shoe and a mini mini bag.....

And because all the projects were carved from actual cakes and not from polystyrene foam, we decided to give away the white clutch together with a scarf to the bride (whose mother ordered the hantaran gifts) as a surprise gift.

My friends left on Thurday afternoon with loads of stuff... some are left with me for delivery later.... happy and satisfied at the achievements made.... Thank you .....


Then my REAL nightmare began.... by the time I got back (just my luck,the whole of KL was jammed with traffic that day), it was already five..... the baking of cakes and the kneading of fondant continues throughout the night till the next morning.... I literally fell asleep while cutting the ribbons and worst still, while beating chocolate into the cheese cake batter (needless to say, some batter ended up on my apron en route to the floor) -- my hands were moving but my eyes were closed.... woke up to a loud exclaimation of 'MAMA!!!!!!!!!'.....

Thanks to the Grace of God, the pick up time was postphoned a few times that day...... HE was just giving me more time to complete my task.... at 4 Friday afternoon, EVERYTHING was actually completed......

 I must also covey my thanks to Nomie who had graciously agreed to do the Lapis Sarawak Cakes for this project... poor Nomie... she must gotten my panic bug coz when she delivered the cakes; she was short of one... She panicked when I reminded her there was another one...... finally she 'negotiated' for a slightly less complicated design and I agreed.... My eternal thanks to Nomie for having delivered her promises.

When we presented this cake to the bride, she went 'Oh My GOD!!!!! Its so BEAUTIFUL!!!! Thank you... Thank you so much...' Later that evening, my friend called, "Ainee.... FANTASTIC!!! Thank You Very Much'

Those words ALWAYS make my day and was it worth the sleepless nights.... YES.... Thank you Yong and Nana.

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Cupcakes & Minicakes

This post is long overdue....

I had the pleasure of making the above minicakes and cupcakes below for a special lady called Syikah.
She is the representative for her office and was ordering this for 3 people. The birthday boy ordered Ultraman cupcakes, one birthday girl ordered princess cupcakes and the other girl ordered minicakes for her girlfriend.

Feedback? All the recipients were over the heels with their birthday presents..

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The Deuter Haversack Cake

I received a call one night(Tuesday) asking for a last minute cake hantaran order to be delivered on Friday... I accepted.

The next morning, I received another phonecall pleading to do a Deuter Haversack Cake Bag instead... the groom wanted this or nothing else.... It would have been fine if I was free that day but I wasn't ... I had appointments back to back the whole day that Wednesday and half of Thursday. So I had only Thursday afternoon and the whole Thursday night -- it means no sleep for me. I declined at first but eventually gave in to the  pleas.

This is my first time doing such a bag.... after lots of trials and errors and remaking.... here it is. It is 12" high and Im happy to say that the bag lasted the journey from my house to the groom's house ... still standing tall..  

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Squire Kitchen Magazine

I attended both the Squire's Kitchen Professional  Intensive Diploma (5 days)and the Professional Wedding Cake Diploma (3 days) Courses in October last year. Taught by renowned and talented ICCA founder , Rosalind Chan, it was a grueling but fruitful experience.

We refused to go out for lunch right from the very first day; much to Rosalind's amusement. Litte did she realize then that she would have to accompany us way beyond the 5 o'clock end of class dateline. Almost of all us stayed till 8 in the evening for the next 5 days; continuing till the wee hours of the morning at home. Nevertheless, we all came back fuly recharged and ready to absorb all that Rosalind was generousy sharing with us. I dont know about the rest but I certainly soaked in like a sponge. All of us are not new to cake decorating but for me , I left the cake decorating more than 10 years ago. I have come round a full circle and decided to take it up where I left off. Thus. although alot of what was thought was not new to me; it was certainly a refreshing revision. But I must also add that I did pick up many useful tips from the 'expert' too. For one thing, I managed to do the 'collar'; something which I never had the confidence to do on my own.

Sad to say though, I no longer have physical proof of all my works that I did during the course... thanks to the RAIN.. monsoon season in December. (This drove me on a relentless  hunt of a 'humidity-proof' fondant recipe -- glad to announce that I found it).

We all completed the 5 days; much to our amazement. Like me, a few of us were continuing onto the 3-day Wedding Cake Intensive Course. We were given a 1-day break ... to recover ; I guess..

I was all gung ho for the 3 day course; my design ready in my head. But God had other plans for me. He put me right in the place where I belonged ... nowhere... But mid-morning on the very first day, we were all already wondering whether we could actually finish accomplishing the GREAT designs that we had in mind.

Rosalind (smarter from the 5 day course) warned us that the cut off time to exhibit our cake was 3p.m. on the third day. "Must finish by then!!" she declared. My confidence shot through the roof. I had planned to do a 4-tier pillow cake (3 dummies and 1 real cake). This time, I had to rope in my beloved husband and at the end of it all, he had literally joined the class (albeit in the background) helping me to smoothen out the hardended fondant... (a story in itself).

But God is also fair. We ALL finished our cakes on time ; I was the last one though. But the GREATEST compliments came from the 'GURU' herself when Rosaling announced that we were the fastest class to finish so far and our cakes displayed variety in design and complexity. THANK YOU VERY MUCH, Rosalind and to all the instructors at ICCA. Rosalind later admitted that she had came up with the cutoff dateline after she remembered that the previous class finished at 8p.m. on the last day and even so they were not so gungho like our class... so she had to come up with something to push us further. Her 'trick' worked but it was all for the best.

That wasnt the end of the story. Rosalind had managed to negotiate with Squires Kitchen to give 4 pages of their quarterly magazine for Malaysian cake decorators. And she was going to submit all of our pictures for selection. Guess what? 8 of us in my class got our cakes selected for the inaugural first issue (Issue 34 -- Jan 2010) -- and including MINE ... whoopeeeeeeee!!!!!

I had to wait for 2 months before the magazine reached our shores --- my cake was really in it..... the feeling was simply great. Thank you Rosalind, once again. And congrats to all .... Kyoko, Raiha,  Zareena, Lyphine, Mok, Man Kwan, Habsah..... and me.

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The Longgggg Overdue Cake ......

This cake has a history with me. It is one of the very first cakes my friend, Sahila and I ever came across when I first decided to join the cake decorating world.(That's more than ten years ago) Its simple yet beautiful. I have aways told myself ...must make that cake... must make that cake.. but well....... you know....

Anyway, one fine day, Sahila said this ," Remember, the hat cake we saw years back. I want to try and make it for my nephew's upcoming wedding (as a gift to his bride)." And I said,' Go ahead. Its about time one of us made that cake." And so weeks passed by ... again as in yesteryears....

Then three weeks before her nephew's wedding, she called me and asked the million-dollar question :- "Ainee, can you do the cake for me?' Well, to cut a long story short, I agreed and made the cake.

So here it is......

Feedback was :- Some found it beautiful for its simplicity; others thought it was too simple.... Well.. you just can't please everyone, can you? But the important thing is, my customer was happy.... so Im happy.

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Crazy but we all did it !!!!

I always do this --- agree to something almost unthinkable then when reality sets in, even my little toes shake.

I agree to do an initial 700 mini cakes and a 3 tier pillow wedding cake. The number increased to 800 after much plea from the bride.

And so the mission impossible began...one month before the deadline -- 19th Feb 2010

Thanks to Kak Yom, I managed to get the plastic containers for the mini cakes -- they were a perfect fit for the look the bride wanted... thanks again, Kak Yom.

Then I persuaded my husband to drive over 400km away to the north to plea with the manufacturers to make 50 of the mini cake tins..I had aso persuaded another manufacturer friend over 300km to the south to make the other 50.. so eventually I managed to get 100 of the mini cake tins...

The actual countdown began a fortnight before ....worked out the size of the ribbon bouquet.. then the length of the individual loops..all in all 17 loops.

for a complete ribbon bouquet.. multiply that by 800 bouquet .....we had to cut thousands of ribbon lengths to cut and make into loops....... in between we had to go around gathering the ingredients and because of the huge quantity of gumpaste and the fondant needed, it only made sense that we buy in bulk.. but we overlooked the fact that it was approaching Chinese New Year and that the price of sugar had just gone through the roof, sugar suddenly became almost gold.. Numerous calls to friends and suppliers were made before we got what we needed.... 80 kilograms of icing sugar... 40kilograms of caster sugar... But being me, I forgot one of the most important thing -- Royal Blue colour paste.... remembered it at the time when the supply shops were already closed for the longgggg holiday...went around asking friends who may have the colour.. Adlina and Lai lai came to the rescue .. enough to start with..

At the end of the first week, the three of us (my husband, our sole employee and me) managed to make only 400 white ribbon bouquet and then the last Monday came and we had to start with the fondant making and the baking... the REAL nightmare began...

With the fondant making and baking of cakes an ongoing process(I had the help of my two sons to do this --instant training was done-- I must say they came up to expectations indeed -- thank you boys), I began the tedious task of wrapping the minicakes.. then to my horror.. found that I could not just wrap the minicake as in the normal process.. Its because for the design on the fondant, I was using a textured rolling pin and in the process of wrapping the patterned fondant, the rose flower pattern got elongated and the due to the pressure, the mini cake became shorter... an ugly sight indeed... so had to try another method.. more precious time spent

We decided to wrap it in two separate pieces -- makes for a more cylindrical look .. looks much better but sooooooo much more work too... Real PANIC was seeping in. -- we were already going to bed only at 4 in the morning then

Three days left and we had ONLY made the first 100 mini cakes and the wedding cake was not done yet.

SOS calls went out and Adina and my niece, Salwa  again came to the rescue. When Adlina saw what we were trying to achieve, she declared that I had indeed gone crazy to agree to doing the mini cakes this way -- the sheer number and the details I agreed to ... that was Thursday...the 24 hours shift had begun the previous day...

Wee hours of Thursday, managed to wrap the top two tiers of the wedding cake (dummies); while my husband scuplted the pillow out of the stacked sheet cakes. Friday morning ... mini cakes going only into the two hundreds..... PANIC ALARM was sent out to Kak Yom begging her for her staff to assist. This godsend lady calmly told me that she is in the middle of an order herself and that she herself would come over later in the evening. Relief awashed everyone... we finished covering the last tier of the wedding cake and prepared for a long marathon.

Meanwhile, my niece Salwa came by to drop off the bead necklaces which I had asked to help me buy. Thanks Sawa and hubby Jimmi.

Kak Yom fulfilled her promise and brought three of her girls . Adlina also returned (also thanks to her hubby's understanding). Together, we ALL slogged through the night and by morning almost seven hundred was done . That was eight thirty Saturday morning and my god-send angels had to go home --- Our deep gratitute accompanied their departute and the three of us finished the wedding cake and the mini cakes while my two sons started packing the car. Then lo and behold , we failed the last challenge.. tried as we might, we just could not fit all the mini cakes plus the wedding cake into the MPV. We tried and tried and tried ..... but to no avail. By then , my husband only had three and half hours to make the long journey of over 350 km to the wedding destination -- down south to Singapore. The bride's sister was already calling....

Meanwhile, my brother also pitched in and found the blue bead necklace that I so very much needed for the wedding cake and my sister-in-aw Siti Fatimah went dowm to my regular florist and bought the fresh flowers for the wedding cake.  Thanks ... both of you.

Last but not least, thank you Vivian. I cant elaborate on what she did for me but suffice to say that I owe her big time... thanks once again.

Finally, with God's grace, we reached the wedding just as the first guests were coming in. The mini cakes were recieved with a big 'WOW' and the wedding cake amazed even the photographer...

All in all... we survived the ordeal .. many lessons were learnt. But it would not have been possible at all WITHOUT my friends, Adlina, Kak Yom and her 3 girls, Evi, my two sons, Afiq and Azri and last but not least my beloved husband, Yusoff.. Thank you , thank you all from the bottom of my heart..

WIll I do it again ... YES, I will .. crazy yes.. but rewarding... so Yes I will... but a little wiser the next time I hope.

Last of all, congratulations to the bride and groom, Fadzlon & Ansari and thank you for the opportunity and experience...

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