A Meaningful Cake for a Wacky Wedding

This could be my favourite cake for this year.

Ideas from Nora, a bride who knows what she wants, and among the very few that I did not get a chance to meet.

The topper for Nora and Hasnul's wedding cake.

Dusting of leaves.

Using 18 gauge wire to form a horseshoe shape.

Wind a ribbon around it.

Wind the leaves starting from top to bottom. 

Monogram using Wilton's Color Flow for strength and puffyness.

Air-brushed with black mixed with pearl sheen, both Americolor. 

Using Satin Ice Chocolate Fondant for both birds and branches.

Attaching the leaves.

A simple designed cake full of meaning.

Horseshoe shaped topper for luck.

Monogram of the couple's initials under it.

Two love birds, one flying towards the other perched on a branch.

Autumn coloured leaves, starting from green, turning dark brown to signify a long marriage life. 

I was told these was done by the bride and groom.

A photo booth for guests to take their pictures.

Totally wacky!

A carnival like atmosphere for the wedding, I can imagine the guests having fun.

A side table near the photo booth with the sign "Take One Each".

Marshmallows, colourful pencils and bookmarks.

Momento bookmarks.

Gift packs for all guests...and me too!

The colourful item in the middle is called "Agar-agar Kering"...a traditional Malay jelly seldom found nowadays. Among the procedure is the drying in the sun for at least 3 days. Tastes like Turkish Delights but with a crisp texture on the outside.

Traditional + Wacky + Meaningful

I have great customers. :)

A Cupcake Tower with Brown Cymbidiums and Rose Buds

A wedding cupcake tower on brown, beige and gold for Lya and Ezan.

The exortic brown cymbidium orchids and rose buds to accompany them.

In terms of flower grouping or arrangements, orchids are seldom placed together with roses.

But I like how they turned out here. 

These are cymbidium buds...in their undusted form 

Cymbidium throat.

The final result of the brown cymbidiums.

 

The Wilton method of making roses, or rose buds in this case.

Air brushing the cake in light gold.

Painting gold lustre to royal iced letterings.

The final assemble.

Brown and gold, earthly and elegant at the same time.

An Impromptu Cake Idea

Occasionally, customers do call up for last minute birthday cake orders. Last minute would mean at least three days in advance which I can accommodate, but again it depends on my workload. At such short notice, they just want a cake in any design, as long as there is a name and the age written. 

 This is a cake for lucky Thashan, ordered by his aunt. 

An aeroplane theme birthday cake using cookie cutters. 

An opportunity to experiment with merging two colours, inspired by the current wedding trend for ombre wedding cakes. Here's a link to view examples of such cakes using different techniques.   

Two aeroplanes and a helicopter, part of my cookie cutter collection. 

I shall one day sit down and group my cookie cutters into themes, an interesting activity! 

Will do another post on that if I ever get to it. 

Cut-outs from fondant.

By the way, Wilton has this technique of cut-outs, over-lays and in-lays.

Applicable for this project.

Lastly, decorate and position your cut-outs and add other details, 

according to theme, such as the clouds here.

A fast cake decorating technique...and interesting too! 

You just have to start a cookie cutter collection and group them into different themes. Each theme could be re-used many times but with different positioning of cut-outs and in different colours with different details which would result in a different looking cake each time. 

Lightning McQueen: Carved Cakes and Cupcakes

Lightning McQueen, a character from the Disney/Pixar Cars 2 animation movie.

Having a soon to be 12-year old daughter has left me outdated with the cartoons kids watch nowadays.

Therefore, it calls for more time and effort researching on the character requested for kid's birthday cakes, also known as novelty cakes.

Here's my Lightning McQueen, for Alexander who turns 3 last week.

Notice the spoiler? The words should be the other way around. Note to self.

Assembling and carving the cake.

Crumb coating with buttercream. 

Cover the cake with fondant and then only transfer to the cake board. 

Stick on all the fondant decorations.

 

This is a smaller carved cake on top of a 6 inch cake and some cupcakes.

They are for Alexander's celebration in school with his friends.

Lightning McQueen banners and poster decorating the classroom.

That's Alexander with his friends singing the Happy Birthday song.

A memorable 3 years old Lightning McQueen birthday for Alexander.

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.