Butterfly Cake

A good friend of mine asked me to do a birthday cake for her as she's turning 30. For some 30 is a milestone to celebrate it's the time when you evolved from young adult to more mature adult. She requested butterfly theme but warned me not to create a butterfly shaped cake.

This girl has been known all her life to be a fan of anything yellow but when I dug more how she wanted the cake to be she said that she has grown to like red more now. So it will be like a yellow catterpilar metamorphosing into red butterfly.

First idea came to mind is to make an elegant white cake with butterflies surrounding it from pink color butterflies descending into red color butterflies.

 

I made the butterflies days in advance and placed it on a V shaped paper to allow enough time to set. At the end I have 4 shades of butterflies from pale pink to radiant red.

I said to my friend that I will try to make flower for her cake, but I've never done sugar flower before I got the cutter but never got a chance to give it a go. So I gave it ago and I did it, it's not perfect but at least it looked alright. I placed 1 butterfly on the flower as accent and the climax of the spiraling butterflies.

 The cake turned out quite elegant the way I picture it should be. I have to admit not many technique involved with this cake yet this is might be one of my favorite, it proofs that simplicity can be beautiful.

I have tons of photos of this cake and can't get enough looking at how the butterflies descent. I really enjoy doing this cake and I hope you enjoy looking at it too. Thanks for checking my blog, I will update you with my next project.

NCIS Cake

A family friend contacted me for a surprise birthday cake for her husband's birthday. I have to admit making cake for an adult man is a little bit tricky than a woman. For woman you can always resolve to girly stuff such as flowers, pink color etc. but for a guy is not always that simple. So we did a little bit of brainstorming and she told me that her husband love to watch NCIS and CSI on TV. She we came to an agreement to do NCIS/CSI themed cake.

I did my research and have to admit not many NCIS cakes floating around, the only idea came in mind is to make the yellow banner 'CRIME SCENE DO NOT CROSS' after I saw CSI DVD cover with that sign on it. After pitching the idea back to this family friend she throw in the idea of NCIS cap and it agreed that it's a great idea.

So I did the cap with Rice Krispie Treat (RKT) covered with fondant, it's quite a job but I think I did alright. The only regret is I didn't allow the eyeshade enough time to set. As the form is a little bit curved and should be like duck beak it will need to set and harden with support. But I didn't do the cap untill the night  before I have to finish the cake so when I put them together I have to let the support on the eyeshade. I know it's not perfect but I'm quite happy with the result.

The harders part doing this cake is to cut the letters for the yellow banner. Cutting letter is not the fun part of cake decorating but sometimes we have to do it to write the message, but for this cake the writting is actually part of the main components and it took a long time and team effort between me and BakerzMum at 1 in the morning. At least the end result looks great that make the time spent is not wasted hehehehehee.

Another view of the cake

View from the top

This is quite a unique design and I quite enjoy doing this cake, it might not seems complicated but a lot of labour and love spent on creating this cake. I hope you enjoy this post, thanks for checking and I will update you with my next project.

Domo Fashionista Cake

Out of the blue I received a message from a friend to make a birthday cake for his wife. Easy, she's a well known fashionista among our peer with extensive designers collection. And I know for sure her passion is designer bags, and things are started flooding my mind Chanel...Gucci....LV...Balenciaga the possibility is end less. Yet her husband requested something to do with Domo....what the heck is Domo? Or should I say who the heck is Domo?

So a few click later on the internet I found out that Domo is 'that' chocolate square monster with gigantic teeth that I saw nearly every week, last time I remembered was in a form of back pack carried by a teenager with Beiber haircut in the city. Turned out Domo is the official mascot of Japan's NHK television station. 

Well my friend wanted a Domo theme I understand, so I pitched in the idea to add some designer bags and he agreed. So I decided that this particular Domo will have to carry designers bag and surrounded by girly things. To accompanied this fashionista Domo I replicate LV Alma BB which my friend's wife actually has in real life, it is to be wear cross body by lovely fashionista Domo.

I added more bags and shopping bags in tune with fashionista theme, and a tiffany & co. box what kind of girl wouldn't love tiffany's jewelry? The cake is Lapis Surabaya covered with butter cream then fondant. I made quilted marks on the cake to make it more glamorous and I think it did the trick.

This cake was a really fun to make, and mashing between Domo and fashion theme proven to be a brilliant idea. I love doing this cake and hoping that this fabulous couple enjoy it as much as I do. Here are some more pictures.

Side view

Side View

View from the top

Thanks for checking my blog, I will update you with my next project. Cheers.

Kitchen Sink Cake

This is the biggest and heaviest cake I've made by far and I think this is very unique, not everyday you got to make edible kitchen sink.

I received a message on Facebook from a dear friend of mine stating that her cousin looking for a cake baker for her mum's birthday. I jumped to the opportunity thinking that it's going to be easy project, 2 tiers of cake with flowers or other feminine decoration. BakerzMum was the one who talked to the customer and she mentioned that the time is around dish washing (what?).

She sent us the invitation and it shows a lady in front of kitchen sink with latex gloves and apron on. First came in mine is making 2 tiers cake and drape it with apron and latex gloves, and we pitched the idea to the customer. But she came back whether we can make the cake like kitchen sink. So I went to the internet and got to be honest not many kitchen sink cake that I can refer to but at least we got some idea.

The cake is 50cm (20') x 25cm (10') and this is the biggest cake I've ever attempted to make and iced.
BakerzMum baked 4 10' square chocolate cakes, I stack them together the filling is chocolate ganache with raspberry. It's covered with vanilla butter cream and fondant.

The cakes stacked together

I've been watching Cake Boss and really inspired by him, one of the technique that I adopted is lining the cake with butter cream before I put on the filling therefore when I iced it with butter cream there wont be any nasty chocolate smeared on the butter cream.

My new cake cutter/leveler, found this beautiful equipment while visiting Good Food and Wine Show last weekend. I used this cutter for this cake and loving it already, really good investment.

The cake iced, look how big it is compared with the tissue box

To make the kitchen sink with dish washing theme what more that could capture the essence of the theme if not dirty dishes. I made the fondant tea cup, bowl and plates days in advance to make sure it's set and harden by the time I need to stack it. I painted them with gold and blue trims, blue because the color on the invitation is blue. I used skewers to support the plates so the wont fall down during transport.

For the water I used royal icing base and pipping gel for the water effect. This is the first time I've used pipping gel another inspiration from Cake Boss and I'm loving it. For the bubbles I pipped some sphere with royal icing. Love the overall effect of the water and bubbles.

The latex gloves follows the color of latex gloves on the invitation. I add tea towel because I think apron will be too big and I used the apron color on the invitation as inspiration. I used BakerzMum hand as a guide to make the gloves and scale it down a little bit to fit the porportion.

When we asked what message they want to put on the cake they said it's great to put Happy Birthday message but specifically asked to put Carmomatic instead of Carmen (the customer mum's name). I think it's really cute and wondering if Carmomatic can come and help us with the dirty dishes got a ton of them in my kitchen sink at the moment hahahahahaa.

I have to admit this might be the most challenging cake to cover with fondant by far. It's so big, I had to spend around 20 minutes just to roll the fondant to the right size. But I'm happy with the end result and make all the hard work worth.

The lady put another request, a cupcake for her father's birthday that fall on the day of the party. I think it's really sweet and selfless that the husband organized a surprise over the top birthday bass for his wife on his own birthday. So we think cupcake will be to simple, we made a small cake instead. The customer told us that her father love classical music hence the music theme.

It's long weekend here in Melbourne and I spent my Saturday finishing these two cakes. It's really tiring but looking at the cakes turned out make it all well worth the hard work. Thanks for checking on my blog, I will update you with my next project.

Dragon Cookies

This dragon cookies are created for a very special baby boy, a fighter and a survivor. I've know his parents for a long time and BakerzMum used to work with his dad. This couple has been trying to get pregnant for years and after several miscarriages they finally blessed with a baby boy but not without a twist. Baby Kayden arrived earlier than the scheduled C-section and everything went well until his mum suffered almost undetected internal bleeding and had to undergo 4 hours surgery. At the end mum and bub are healthy and save but there were point that his mum almost gone. It's a very touching story of motherhood and perseverant please click for Kayden's story.

Long before the baby was due, my friend (the mum) contacted me if I could do some cookies for her baby' one month celebration. The theme was dragon in line with the Year of Dragon, I was thrilled and accepted the request. She was requested for me to do the cookies like I did for my daughter's first birthday which is fondant covered cookies it's quite simple really.

However, as I developed my knowledge on sugar art I came across so many beautiful intricate cookies which involved a lot of technique. One of the technique that intrigue me is flooding the cookies with royal icing to make design more interesting. It's quite a simple technique really but it might take some time for the royal icing to set, I'm not talking minutes or hours but over night.

I was planning to make the tutorial but I was so absorb with the project as it was quite labor intensive that I forgot to take pictures. I did the cookies, 60 of them in advance and let it rest over night. The following evening I pipped the royal icing borders and let it rest, I didn't got a chance to flood the cookies at the same day because it took me quite sometime to pipped borders on 60 cookies so by time I finished it was already late. So the following evening I flood the cookies with royal icing and did the polka dot design I think it's appropriate for a newborn, kinda remind me of my daughter's cot sheet. I let the cookies rest nearly 24 hours, packed it nicely and deliver it to Kayden's parents to give away to well wishers.

another view of the cookies

White on blue or blue on white design

This was quite labor intensive project and took a lot of room because I can't stack the cookies while it rest so my dinning room and lounge room was full with containers of cookies. I regret I didn't have enough time to take good pictures of the cookies but I can feel that this might not be my last cookies project. Overall I'm quite happy with the result and thrilled that I got to explore new technique and medium, royal icing definitely my new passion now. Thanks for checking my blog and I will update you with my next project.

Ballerina Cake

Ballerina cake with lots of pink, my friend commissioned me and bakerzmum to do her daughter's birthday cake. And yes you guess it, she loves ballet.....plie...jette....and pirouette. First thing came in mind is ballet slippers, I bought my daughter a key chain with tinny ballet slipper from Opera Paris and I think it would look lovely on top of the cake. Something that I didn't count is this is a cake for a 5 year old and as nice as ballet slippers idea was it might be too serious.

After back and forth with idea (mostly in my mind), my friend send me a picture of a very cute and sweet figurine of a ballerina sitting on a cake holding a bouquet of colorful flowers. So I drew all the inspiration from that picture and I created pinky ballerina cake yup it's pink overload but totally appropriate for a 5 year old.

Rainbow cake is a big thing in Indonesia at the moment, my facebook newsfeed full of people posing in front of their rainbow cake proudly. As if it's something special, all I know it consist heavily colored with food coloring layers of sponge cake yup it's glorified sponge cake yet people so proud that they've eaten rainbow cake and decided to brag about it on Facebook. So, as a trend conscious mum my friend requested the cake to be rainbow cake. With a little help from my dear cousin who posted her rainbow cake, the one she baked not bought we tested a recipe that suited to our need. hence you got 6 layers of colorful cake filled with cream cheese icing. My first ever rainbow cake, it's a labor intensive cake but looks really nice, close your eyes and stop thinking about the food coloring.

Okay, now I have to remake the sweet and cute figurine and I tried my best. At the end my version of figurine is decent enough I think. Yes it looked a little bit chubby and the proportion is a bit off, and my friend thought the figurine looks more like her than her daughter, so you got ballerina mum hehehehe.

I've been spending time watching tutorial youtube video on pipping technique and it seems doable so in tune with the feminine theme I decided to do a simple lace design using royal icing. One of the brief if the birthday girl requested silver balls so I incorporated silver balls on the lace design and I think it worked well with the design.

View from the top

The little ballerina and her cake

They cut the cake...and look it's rainbow cake, very happy with the colors

Look at that little hands I think they tried to pinch the silver balls

A slice of rainbow cake anyone?

As much as I think the buzz about rainbow cake is a little bit ridiculous I have to admit that it's a one gorgeous cake. This is a really great project and I have to say that I enjoy doing this, thanks to BakerzMum that spent a whole day baking 6 layers of mutlicolor cake and whipping delicious cream cheese icing. Thanks for checking my blog, I will update you with my new project.