Marco's One Month Old Cakes

Hi,

It's been like forever since I got a chance to update my blog. I had a super fun month on August with the arrival of my nephew early June which mean early August is filled with preparation of my nephew's first month celebration cakes.

My brother and sister in law ordered 32 cakes to giveaway for well wishers to celebrate my nephew, Marco's first month. Actually, I never knew the rational behind one month celebration as I took it just as tradition. Into my third project of one month cake I came across a blog with the meaning of one month celebration. Apparently one month celebration also known as manyek or mak nyek for some is to celebrate baby's first full moon (mun yuet).

OK back to the cakes, my challenge is to create a unique design but not too complicated so I can replicate it 32 times. After searching trough the net I found a cute design with baby sleeping on top of cloud and I pitched the design to my brother and sister-in-law, first time I have to pitch a mun yuet cake to the parents usually the parents are too busy with the newborn they gave me free reign with the design. They love the design and set up a challenge for me because this will require more work than my other baby cakes.

The other challenge is on the week I have to deliver the cakes I have a business trip so I have to rely on BakerzMum to step up to the plate and take charge of prep-ing the cakes. I got to say I'm very proud of her because she did all the babies and all of the fondant decorations by herself with me checking every 5 minutes from interstate to make sure she's on it.

Since I have to go on a business trip and I happened to work for my brother we agreed that I will get the cakes ready separately, half of it on Saturday and the other half on Sunday. I touched down in Melbourne at 6.30pm and reached home at 8.00pm on Friday night and work non-stop until 3 in the morning. Got up at 9am the next day and continue working until 3pm when my brother came to pick up the cakes. I managed to finished 22 cakes that day, and finished the other 10 on Sunday. Felt like I ran a never ending marathon and after that I really really want my weekend back, but all done with love to little Marco.

I designed this message card to be placed on the cake box to match the cake design.

View from the top

I think at the end of the day I'm really happy on how the cakes turned out. I received so much compliment for the cakes and it makes countless hours of pipping the royal icing cloud paid off.

I can't say I enjoyed every moment working on this cake because the timing is not really on my side with me had to go interstate and all but I'm overall happy with the cakes. Thanks for checking my blog, I have a lot of other projects that I'm not yet posting on this blog but I assure you that soon you will see more posting. Over and out....

Flower Baby Cake

There's no more joy than welcoming newborn baby. As this year is the year of dragon, we're expecting to see many babies popping out trough out the year because having a dragon baby considered lucky, if none of the parents Chinese Zodiac conflicting with dragon, isn't that confusing? Align with Indo-Chinese tradition of celebrating the first month of baby's live parents are preparing favors to distribute among well wisher, traditionally the favor is 'nasi bungkus' rice meal in a box completed with red eggs as sign of prosperity and fertility. However, nowadays people replacing the 'nasi bungkus' with cakes or cupcakes or cookies or anything too keep the tradition alive. For some the only thing they keep is the red eggs.

Looking trough the year with many potential baby projects, I decided to invest on this beautiful baby mold from First Impression. It's the most baby mold I've ever seen and had been eyeing this mold since my first baby project back in january. Unfortunately the only shop in Australia stocking this particular mold was still close for Christmas holiday at that time. I bought this mold originally for my brother's baby due to see the world in June.

 What came out of the mold...teeny tiny baby

One Monday morning I received a message from a dear friend of mine ordering 32 cakes for her baby girl one month celebration and I accepted in a heartbeat. I just received the baby mold the day before and very excited to start using it. The baby came out of the mold has endless possibilities to decorate, I can put clothes on it, or a blanket, a hat, even costumes (I saw some people put bee costume to mimic Anne Geddes photos) hehehehehe.

At the end I decided to put nothing on the baby, I want her to wear her birthday suit. The idea is to put her on top of a flower, it's a simple but nice idea. However, creating 32 flowers will be a challenge of it's own especially I don't have flower cutter big enough for the baby. At the end I had to cut, curl and mold to shape each petals one-by-one, it's 10 petals for each flower, so at the end I cut, curled and shaped 320 petals all together. But the result is sensational and paid for the hard work.

Baby resting on flower, or baby born from flower...use your own imagination

So the other challenge is baking 32 cakes and cover them with fondant. The cakes are marble cake with vanilla butter cream with pink royal icing garnish.

 Production tables, 31 cakes iced 1 cake is still 3 weeks away because the recipient still on holiday...lucky them.

The cake without garnish, BakerzMum still on progress garnishing the cakes

Gotta love baby bum

View from the top, the baby looks so peaceful

Another view of the cake

At the end, my friend couldn't compliment me enough on the cakes it makes hours of hard works paid off. Next time I'll be using this baby mold is for my little nephew plenty of time to think about different execution, or should I start preparing the baby now? Anne Geddes website would be a great place for inspiration. Thanks for checking my blog.

Baby Cake for a month old baby celebration

Hi All,

Thanks for visiting my blog, this time I will share with you my first big project. A friend of mine who gave birth to a beautiful baby girl 9 days before Christmas contacted me and inquiring if I could bake some cakes to giveaway for her baby girl's one month old celebration. I was so thrilled, but it was only one week away so I had to move fast.

Just a little bit of background, in Chinese tradition which we happily adapt when a baby reach one month old the parents should celebrate by giving away food or sweets to well wishers who came to visit the baby. Well, it's my version of the tradition anyway please correct me if I'm wrong. On the modern day people turned to cake or cupcakes or even cookies to make it more fancy. And the food usually accompanied with red eggs to symbolize happiness, prosperity and fertility.

So back to my project, the mother contacted me a week in advance and I have to think and move fast because she ordered 25 cakes including packaging and the mandatory red eggs. With the time constrain I conducted Bakerz Mum to source any baby related cake decoration in our trusted cake shops. And she came back with a baby silicone mould which I think was a great a idea. So here's the baby cake with sugar baby on top.

  The baby cake, and yes the baby is made in sugar and hand painted by us.

Work with silicone mould is not too hard it's just time consuming. Basically what you need to do is color your fondant with flesh food coloring, put some tylose in, take a small amount and roll it into ball. The next step is pres it into the mould and make sure you have smooth surface and no crack on the fondant, flattened the bottom and took excess fondant off with very sharp knife. And chuck it into freezer for 30 minutes (that's the time consuming part since I only have one mould) and take it out once the fondant harden. Quickly peel it off the mould and voila you got a sugar baby.

The sugar babies, the top row babies had been colored and the rest is still setting, don't forget to let the babies set for at least 10-12 hours before you color them.

My babies are full colored now, coloring babies is time consuming but it's fun.

The other thing that daunt me is the time constrain that I have, I have to ice the cakes 25 of them in one day to guarantee freshness and because you can not refrigerate fondant....my oh my....At the end I think I can ice a cake and cover it with fondant with my eyes close hehehe.

My production line, and this is not all of them

Once the cakes are covered with fondant, we have to move quickly and methodically. Please follow the flow as bellow.

We moved the cake to the flattened box, and the box is sitting on top of turn table. The reason being is because we're not using cake board but we're using doyley instead so we can not transfer the cake after we finish decorating.

The cake sits nicely on top of the doyley

Placed the lace on top, I prepared the laces days in advance so their pretty set by then.

Bring on the baby

Sugar baby positioned perfectly on top of the sugar lace

And I pipped pink royal icing to give sweet accent to the cake

The almost finish cake

Add some sugar flowers to give it a nice touch

The finish product plus the red eggs for good luck.

I know it's not an extravagant cake, but I think it looks pure and nice just like babies are. The challenge is to bake 25 identical cakes, iced them and decorate them according to the deadline. Well the other challenge is at the same time I have to make a 2 tier birthday cake and organizing a garage sale. Bakerz Mum was by my side every steps of the way and at the end I can say we've done a pretty good job.

Thanks for checking my blog and I will update you soon with the birthday cake I did with these 25 cakes.