Land of Dinosaurs

When my boy celebrated his 5th birthday in early March with a Monopoly cake, I remembered my sister-in-law asking whether I know how to make a dinosaur cake for my little nephew. I told her then that I will practice how to make one for his 4th birthday. I wanted to try out using modelling paste as the usual fondant is too soft and can't hold its shape well. But I didn't have the time (or maybe too lazy to practice) prior to making the actual birthday cake. As usual, I relied on the internet and googled on "how to make dinosaur using fondant". I chanced upon my saviour, A Baked Creation - exactly what I'm looking for and there's even a step-by-step tutorial on making T-Rex & Stegosaurus. This was 4 days before the birthday party! Imagined the stress and anxiety if the cake flops and how disappointed the birthday boy would be ;(

It was a right choice to use modelling paste as the dinosaurs keep in shape, whereas my test-dinosaurs using fondant looked miserable. Alrighty, I can be more adventurous and creative in my future fondant figurines! Nevermind that I had to stay up till the wee hours for 2 days @@ and can't think straight!

Modelling Paste
Ingredients/ Method:
a) 200gm white marshmallows
2tbsp water
500gm icing sugar
2 tbsp Crisco shortening

b) 1 tsp Gum Tragacanth (can get it from Phoon Huat)

1. Put marshmallows with 2 tbsp water in a microwave-safe bowl. Microwave on high for 30 secs.
2. Stir marshmallows till they are fluffy using spatula. Add half the icing sugar and mix well.
3. Grease hands with shortening and knead the remaining icing sugar into the fondant.
4. Weigh 225gm of fondant with 1 tsp gum tragacanth and knead till well mixed.
5. Add colour gel to the modelling paste as desired.

Notes:
a. Keep fondant wrapped in cling wrap and store in ziploc or airtight container. Can keep up to 2 months.
b. Modelling paste turns hard fast so prepare it only when you are ready to use.

So presenting my Land of Dinosaurs, which I'm pretty satisfied with the outcome and of course the excitement from the birthday boy's face when he saw the cake was most rewarding! Happy blessed birthday to my cutsy nephew KH! Also special thanks to the 2 men in my house for throwing ideas on how the cake should be and placing the dinosaurs on the cake <3 p="p">

 

Full month celebration

One month seems to have passed so fast and we were celebrating my younger niece's full month yesterday. From a tiny baby at slightly more than 2 kg at birth, she has put on healthy pounds with so much tlc from her mommy, daddy, grandma & "auntie" (the confinement lady). If my beloved late mom is around, she would be very very happy to see that all her children have settled down and started our own family. But I believe that she can see us from above and continue to give us her blessings from wherever she is now. Most importantly, wishing bb YL healthy, cheerful and happy always!

For the full month celebration, I have again* offered my brother & sis-in-law that I can prepare cupcakes for the party. (*again = the last was during their wedding dinner!) Thankfully they agree and I had another opportunity to play with fondant modelling. I did a simple chocolate cupcakes using valrhona cocoa powder and top with nursery themed fondant.





Valrhona chocolate cupcakes
(I doubled the below recipe to yield 55 mini cupcakes)
Ingredients/ Method:
185g butter
250g fine sugar
200ml evaporated milk
2 eggs, lightly beaten
125g all-purpose flour (plain flour)
70g valrhona cocoa powder
1/2tsp baking powder
1/2tsp baking soda
1/2tsp vanilla essence

1. Sift flour, cocoa power, baking powder and baking soda. Set aside.
2. Combine sugar, evaporated milk, vanilla essences and butter in a saucepan.
3. Stir over low heat until sugar dissoclved and butter melted. Remove from heat.
4. Add the beaten eggs into the slightly cooled mixture and stir till well mixed.
5. Add egg mixture over the flour and stir till well mixed.
6. Spoon batter into baking cups using ice-cream scoop till slightly more than 1/2 cup full. (The cake rises a fair bit, so if you want a nice dome cupcake, fill up about slightly less than 3/4 cup)
7. Baked at pre-heated oven of 180 deg C for 18 to 20 mins or till the skewer inserted into cupcake comes out clean.
8. Transfer to wire rack to cool.

My boy turns 5!

Pardon my lack of update on this blog and though I still visit my favourite list of blogs, I seem to have lesser time to do so these days. Lesser time to bake as well. Hopefully I'll be freer come 2nd quarter of the year!

Today is an exceptional and joyous day, my boy turns 5 and he sure has grown and changed alot! Long before his birthday, he'd made many requests and threw ideas on how he wanted his celebration. Not one, but two parties; one with family members and another one in school. A Monopoly cake and an Angry Bird cake. Since AB cake is more readily available at the bakery, I did a Monopoly cake for the family celebration. I'd to bring out the Monopoly boardgame to mimick the details, not an easy feat since I had not been baking or playing with the fondant for a while :p And instead of name of places, my boy specifically and repeated reminded me that we should have our family members' name on the board. I'm pretty happy to know how much thoughts he put in for his party and everyone was pleasantly surprise to see their names on the cake. Even the peanut-butter cream for the chocolate-flavoured cake, which was an instant hit with the guests, was decided by the birthday boy. The at-least 3kg cake was 'wolfed' down and requests for 2nd servings/ 'ta-baoing' (packed) would made any baker a happy (wo)man.

My best wishes to my lovely darling to be ever so healthy, all-rounded and successful person. Not forgetting to have fun and smell the roses along the way <3<3<3

Here's some pictures on Zakris' Monopoly-themed 5th birthday party and cake.

With Feb's month Aspiring Bakers' deadline extended, I'm glad to be able to participate and therefore submitting this post to Aspiring Bakers #16: Fun with Fondant! (February 2012) hosted by Yvonne of iceamericanos.

Happy eventS

Before I start blogging about my bakes & such in 2011, I want to complete this post about the happy eventS that happened in 2010.....

My Madagascar Vanilla Beans - one whole packet of fresh vanilla beans! ..... and

One big bottle of Nielsen-Massey Pure Vanilla Bean Paste - 944ml! ......


...... I think these are going to last me for many good years of baking!

However, the anxiety of waiting and happiness of receiving these vanilla bean (paste) does not beat seeing my dearest sis, who's residing in States, once again! Now, I'm looking forward to my trip to visit her this year ;-))

02102010 - These were cute little wedding cupcakes that I made and received positive feedbacks, there were some "ohhs" and "wows" .....

.... but what made me much happier is that my youngest brother has finally tied the knot!! I believe my mum would be the happiest at wherever she is now ;-))

To end our year 2010, we had dinner at Tims Restaurant & Cafe - a no-fuss place that served good food ....

From left to right: Cream of Asparagus with roasted almond, Chicken caesar salad, Oyster rockafellas

Fish & Chips

NZ Ribeye topped with sauteed pacific clam with black pepper sauce

Grilled lobster & panseared cajun spiced salmon fillet with basil cream sauce

Desserts: Blueberry cheesecake & strawberry ice-cream

I'm counting my blessings to be surrounded by many loved ones and good friends. Of course, there were many other happy, not-so-happy, ups&downs in 2010, but with a beginning of new year 2011, the goods will be remembered & the bad be bygones, everything will be refreshed. I'm wishing EVERYONE a very happy, healthy and smooth sailing year ahead! Cheers o(oO)o

Aspiring bakers #2: Xmas cupcakes

This post is jumping queue and ahead of a few posts which have been kept in the inbox for months. The only reason is that there's a deadline for submission to Aspiring Bakers #2. I'm keeping this post very short, but nevertheless would like to wish everyone a

Merry Christmas and enjoy the joy the festive seasons bring you! Cheers <3<3<3

These decorated xmas cupcakes are all handcrafted as gifts for my colleagues. I used steamed chocolate cake recipe, but instead of steaming it, I baked them for about 20 mins at 180 degC.

These are very simply decorated with store bought figurines and dusted with snow powder, using the same recipe as above.

My first cake order

A month ago, I'd got my first cake order from my friend, E and for her dear prince Dylan's 4th birthday celebration. When I first started to bake more regularly about 2 years ago and also my blogging journey, I'd never knew that I can bake and decorate a cake, and what's more baking for a friend now. I'm fortunate to have a friend like E who places so much confidence in me as she'd not tried any of my bakes before, and her little gesture became my first-hand experience in doing cake order.

It so happened that Sat 18th Sept 2010 seems to be such an auspicious date, where there were many events on that day - Dylan's birthday celebration, my bro's guo-da-li (过大禮), chalet to celebrate my nephew's birthday. Therefore, i took a day off on Fri to prepare for the chalet's bbq stuff as well as Dylan's cake. Being my usual self, I'm bad with my time-management and spent almost half a day doing nothing, and started to panic when the time started ticking faster and faster. By then, it was almost time to pick up Zak from the school, and I only managed to marinate the chicken wings, and bake the chocolate sponge cake. Eventually I could only continue preparing the cake after our dinner, and by the time I was done with cream and decorating, it was already in the wee hours! Alas with the cake completed, I could finally heave a sigh of relief and have a really good shower before hitting the bed!

The feedback I'd received from E is most encouraging "Yep very nice.... the nicest cake I ever had.... thanks Esther! Dylan loves it very much and now Davier is asking for one *faint* hahaha...". Once again, I would like to thank E for her encouragement and confidence in me (*-*)

As a side note, I tried this Swiss Meringue Buttercream and I must say that it is really good! Although the steps seem daunting, I was pretty lucky to get it right the first time and couldn't stop licking the cream off my fingers...yummy...I'm a SMB convert for now (",)

Princess castle cake

A year ago, I made a Princess cake for my little cousin Winni's 9th birthday. One year wiser, she requested for a Princess castle cake for her 10-year old birthday. Although I did toy with the idea of doing a castle cake before her request, I was quite apprehensive as I could not figure out how to make the towers (P.S. I still could not figure out this part, anyone can help or suggest?). Thereafter, I had many question marks like the design, the assembly, whether using butter cream or fondant...etc, and these kept me thinking for many days. It also did not help that workload had not been kind for the last few weeks, and therefore I was totally drained when I reached home. Timing was ticking, and I finally sketched out the design of the cake plus whatever 'accessories' that I want to put on the cake. Only on the Wed nite that I finally got anxious and started to prepare the fondant, and did couple of figurines. Did some on Thurs nite. Did some on Fri nite. Did some on Sat nite. No more energy to bake the cake on Sat nite. The birthday party was on Sunday 6pm, and I probably spent almost the whole day to bake, decorate, and did the final touch-up of the cake. Phew! Finally, the end result .....

A Princess sitting on the garden with her lovely cat, and

surrounded by 3 towers at W I N N I castle.


She's pleased with her beautiful dress and pearl necklace,
bumble bees buzzing around her and the flowers, but oh
no, the castle towers are leaning towards each other. They
seems to collapse anytime ;p



Bright and sunny roses and petals flanked the castle gate,
to welcome all guests to W I N N I castle.

Diamond-shaped window with details and flower motifs. This

is a 2-storey tower.

This is the 3-storey tower that was constructed to lean like

"Leaning Tower of Pisa".

The main cake used is Steamed chocolate cake,

but the "tower" is oven-baked using the same

recipe and in muffin cups.

My precious' 3rd birthday

Although it's another 4 more days before Zakris turns 3 years old, we had an advance birthday celebration yesterday. Time really flies and it only seem yesterday that i was cuddling him in my arms, and now he's already running, jumping around everywhere, and we are having decent conversations or sometimes 'arguments'. In another blink of eyes, he'll be a young fine man ;-p (which means i will be an 'old lady').

Last year when we celebrated his birthday, i think he doesn't really understand what birthday celebration is all about. Now that he's 1 year wiser, he's requesting his favourite things like cars, buses, train, depot, heart-shapes, stars etc on his birthday cake, and also that he wanted to celebrate his birthday and 'blow candle, cut cake' in the school.

It was another attempt of fondant making, and it took me more than a week to plan what to put on his cake, and a few days to slowly mould the figurines. When it almost took shape on Friday, Zak let out a glee and the sparkle in his eyes make the hours spent ever so worthwhile. Every now and then before the party, he will request to look and touch the figurines, which i happily allow.

Not everything Zak requested went on the cake, but I try to 'accomodate' as many as possible of his favourites on the 2-tiers 6" and 9" cake. These are the little things that Zak like, and maketh his birthday cake ;-)