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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