A Love Celebration in Spring

A wedding with the theme A Love Celebration in Spring.

Planning was done by the bride herself, Man Yee and held at Royal Perak Golf Club, Ipoh.

A rustic themed wedding cake...the country outdoor look.

The bottom is a dummy painted to look like a tree stump, flowers in the middle are the peony, ranunculus, roses and hydrangea, and the white represents branches. 

Here's a link to my version of the ranunculus tutorial, a current trending gumpaste flower. 

A dessert table at the reception. Another trend at wedding dinners.

This is like a treat for the early birds, a chance for guests to mingle before they are ushered into the ballroom.

Bite-sized garden theme cupcakes with bluebirds, butterflies and ladybirds.

Chocolate ladybirds and Fererro Roches!

Macarons in pink and green.

Flowering cake pops!

At the reception, write a wish for the bride and groom.

This is the cake on stage. 

Table props in terms of bird nest, a twine of leaves and birds are used by suggestion of Mun Yee.

I like the whole idea of table dressing.

This is a unique flower arrangement next to the cake and champagne fountain.

The table number and it's matching menu. Each table has it's own flower. 

Another unique idea!

Ranunculus Tutorial

The Ranunculus, a ball like flower in vibrant colours, available in various sizes, is currently a popular flower for weddings and wedding cakes. 

This is for a wedding cake sometime in December last year. I made it in shades by colouring the paste as I go. It looks good among the bouquet of roses, peony and hydrengea.
Below is a tutorial on my version of this flower.

Tools and materials needed. 

I used the teardrop cutter in various sizes.

To make the centre you will need an 18 gauge wire, loop it at the end.

A small teardrop cutter and gumpaste ball rolled slightly more that half the size of the cutter.

This is how it will look like. 

Use the piping tip no.12 and 4 to make circles, and a knife or blade for the lines.

Cut out some petals using the same small teardrop cutter that you measured the ball with. 

Thin the edges. 

This is done by placing the ball too half on the petal, half on the sponge.

Cup the petals.

Use the same motion as thinning the edges, but this time, place the ball tool completely inside the petal.

Attach them to the ball. Overlap the previous petal as you attach a new one.

I used a total of 5 petals to complete a circle.

Continue until you find that the petal is too small. 

This picture is just before I changed to the next cutter size.

It is also time to give it a stronger support. 

This is Wilton's flower former, the smaller size.

After more layers and another 2 changes in cutter size, a change in ball tool size (to a bigger one) and a change to the bigger flower former.

This is the biggest I could go. Notice that the edges started to frill?

For it not to frill, a bigger sized ball tool will do the trick.

A total of 3 ball tool sizes has been used for this particular flower.

Making the ranunculus gives understanding to the workings of a ball tool.

An easy but time consuming flower to make.

What I like most are the colours...fun colours!

Challenging Oneself

Tom Cruise said it best when he said 

"I demand a lot of myself. I want to learn. I can't sit back. 

I like a challenge, so I create a lot of challenges for myself."

And that's how my peach challenge started. I live in Ipoh, a quiet and peaceful city, rich in history, two hours away from the capital. Unfortunately, it is known as an old folks place because the young has migrated to other nearby cities for work and only comes back during festive seasons and weekends. As a result, continuous orders for the peach cake for the birthday celebration of elders, which to the Chinese symbolises wealth, health, love and longevity.

The challenge is to be able to give a twist to each cake so that it is different from the rest, and created special, just for the recipient.   

This is my latest cake. A cupcake tower ordered by Ellie for her mom. Therefore, I added some flowers to go with it. They are piped royal icing flowers taught in one of the Wilton course (the apple blossom and violet), which to me looks more delicate than fondant flowers. 

Here's a pictorial on carving the peach. 

From top left clockwise, bake a cake with a dome top, carve it, 

cover with fondant and dust with pink petal dust, lastly make leaves and gum them to the sides.

This is my first peach. Fondant peaches on cupcakes. 

The Chinese character (means longevity) is piped with royal icing.

This is a combo of peach cake with cupcakes ordered by a granddaughter for her grandfather.

Looks funky!

This is a 12 inch cake iced with buttercream. 

Ordered by a company having a birthday celebration for the boss's wife. 

A simple clean looking eight inch peach cake for a father-in-law...it looks empty and lonely, 

so I put in two fondant peaches as accompaniment. 

I look forward to more longevity peach orders. 

For future works, kindly refer to updates in my facebook album.

Kids and Cupcakes...5th Year!

I made it to the fifth year!

The fifth year of setting up the cupcake decorating corner for kids to decorate their own cupcakes in Kinderland, a local kindy where my daughter used to spend her days while I go work.

I made some Kinderland boys and girls cookies in their sports attire. 

Happy with how they turned out.

 Took this picture of the cheer leading performance...they looked just like my cookies!

That's the Kinderland bear mascot behind.

A helping hand.

Not many pictures of cute kids this year...short-handed as usual.

My regulars from last year.

Mommy love decorating too!

Pretty cupcake with its decorator...my favourite design this year.

A close-up.

Poster done for me by Kinderland. 

Something I look forward to see as it is different every year.

And now, we shall patiently wait for next year.

Hope you enjoyed the happy pictures!