Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Wedded bliss treats

This wedding called for an elegant understated design in white and a light blush colour, in the form of delicate lace arond the base of each layer. The angular lines of the square shapes were offset by the soft large open magnolia on top, made out of fondant.
Bonbonierre for the guests were mini cupcakes in seven different designs individually packaged in white pail boxes tied with a pink gauze ribbon and thank-you tag.

Unlucky ducky

This cake requires a bit of explanation! The recipient was a chef who owns a Chinese restaurant. No confusion over what he serves... yes you are right, roast duck! Oh and he also has a wife, daughter and adorable lil pup. OK so maybe that was pretty straightforward... but one of the more unusual and realistic cakes I've made to date!

Red black and white is alright on the night

Couldn't make the birthday party for a dear friend so I sent a cake in my place. I think here the colours maketh the cake. I had to choose carefully, the cake was for a girl AND a guy, and I wasn't sure what the party setting was going to be like. All I knew was that there would be dancing, and lots of it... so I opted for something loud with a bit of glam.




Sunday, May 1, 2011

Pucker up!

What better way to show the birthday girl some love than with a larger than life ruby red pucker! This cake pretty much says it all!

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Read me right

Following on from the post before, this is the reader herself! Casually perched reading one of her four favourite titles, in her living room made of cake. At bottom left there is a fireplace... coz you always need a cosy fireplace for a good bout of reading!

Book smarts

For a book lover passionate about her reading. As she has four favourite books, we had to have each one as cake!

Friday, March 25, 2011

All sliced up

It was a privilege to provide a cake for Joanne my sometime extra-pair-of-cake-hands. I decided that one cake design wasn't enough for her, so I settled on six in one - each slice a different look. I think we only ended up eating two 'slices' that night. Sometimes I get carried away with cake! The figurine is exactly as she is all dolled up - sleek in (usually) black and full of sass!

It's a dog eat dog world

Here is a friend's adorable French bulldog Poggi immortalised in cake. Where do I start! Once again I love the challenge of something life-sized, realistic and detailed. The shape of the head was not as tricky to carve as I'd anticipated, but the weight of the head required a bit of engineering effort to support. Cake Poggi is sitting on a styrofoam base because extra dowels were needed to anchor it upright. He was threatening to lick the countertop :p Dusting with edible chalks was the fun part... Once the cake began to look disturbingly real, I knew I'd achieved the look I wanted! The most satisfying part... when my friend thought she'd brought the real Poggi in the car with her when she looked over at the cake - forgetting for a second that she'd just picked up cake Poggi.

Hollywood take two

Another take on the Hollywood theme. The usual suspects are there - dazzling stars, red carpet, film roll, but this time a giant bucket of popcorn takes centre stage. Litle bit of oversized nostalgia to set the mood :)

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Roll out the red carpet



I always love Hollywood-themed cakes, there's always a bit of glitz and glam, a real sense of celebrating the birthday boy/girl. The trademarks are almost always there - the gold star, the red carpet, the shooting stars, sometimes the film roll too. This birthday girl was going all out, dressing up as Minnie for her 21st do. Hence the Minnie figurine lounging atop the cake. As much as I love Disney characters, they are always the trickiest to create as they have such exact dimensions. One little millimetre off and they run the risk of looking like some other generic character. I was quite happy with the way this Minnie worked out, just need to be more prepared for her large oversized head in future Minnie projects (though that IS what makes her so adorable)! Egg-less chocolate cupcakes accompanied this order for some egg-averse guests.

Monday, February 28, 2011

Push the little daisies

This was one of the first wedding cakes I had the pleasure of cakeing this wedding season. What a nice opener - strong bold purple on white. Purple seems to be the colour of the season, in various hues. (More purple-themed wedding cakes to come!). The decision to be made here was whether to let the butterflies stand out or the mini daisies. In the end the daisies won out as the butterflies take the cake top anyway. Nothing flat about this cake, everything pops out!

Bunny for your thoughts

My friend requested a bunny for her cake. Trying to avoid it looking like a kid's birthday cake (I did consider a giant bunny or a 2D bunny face) since it was a 30th, I kept the bunny small but still centre stage. I never usually use more than 3 colours in combination (unless it's a realistic cake) but I loved the various shades of purple here with red and neutral white. I wanted them to make the statement keeping the rest of the cake muted. Tiny flowers and bows added a soft touch especially the flower in the paws of our cute lil bunny.

Self-raising flower

I've always loved baby pink, mint green and latte brown together. This was a love job for a 60th birthday. Simple flowers make a statement when placed strategically and not overdone. I much like the pop-out look of the mini daisies scattered diagonally around the middle of the cake. A few little details in royal icing piping and voila! One birthday cake to go.

Cookie Monster Cupcakes

I haven't been uploading many cupcakes lately but they're definitely still gracing my countertop. This is one of our favourite Sesame Streeters with his favourite snack. Didn't have to think of how to fashion cookies out of fondant... I just used actual (mini) cookies! Cookiieeeeeee.....

Bakin' a Birkin


I thought it was about time I uploaded another handbag cake. This is an Hermes Birkin bag, supposedly one of the most sought-after bags according to SATC! Instead of making a giant bag to feed everyone at our relaxing lunch party, I decided to keep it small and complement it with a dainty lil cake on the side in matching colours, using the buckle from the bag itself as an embellishment. This way we could tuck into the lil cake and let the birthday girl take home her Birkin. Each girl there also got to take home their own little LITTLE Birkin (top right) - I just couldn't resist!

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

A tall storey - five storeys of cake!


My first 5-tier wedding cake, constructed with columns no less! Deep red always looks striking on white - an incredibly romantic colour scheme that will always be in vogue.
Thanks Joanne for lending an extra pair of capable hands on the day, rolling fondant and setting up!

Monday, January 31, 2011

Wheel you carry me?

Vroooom! Still love cakeing the big boys' toys! With all the details a Harley has, the challenge was in deciding how many to include to make it realistic without overcrowding the cake. Feel like you could ride this bike? Well you'd have to be a tiny 2" cake figurine but I hope the answer was a 'yes', even if just in good spirit!

Tiffany boxed up

I've lost count of the number of Tiffany boxes I've caked so recently for a Tiffany-lovin' girl I decided to put a little twist on the design with a mini Tiffany box inside the larger gift box - all cake. And because who wouldn't want their own piece of Tiffany, separate mini Tiffany cakes for the guests, each packaged individually in tiny pail boxes. Cake for everyone and some for the birthday girl to take home! (However I was later told that she couldn't bring herself to cut up the cake hence didn't 'open' the cake to find the lil Tiffany inside till a few days later!)

Hats off to the chef!

A small thank you to the chef who single-handedly cooked for my entire birthday party. I love occasions that allow me to show some gratitude to the people who have done me kind favours through the years. Also lets me show them what I think of them. When I see this birthday boy I will always see 'chef''! By the way, this was a tiny hat and I thought I could get away without dowels but note to self, aaalways use dowels. Especially with a soft (yet oh-so-delicious) flavour like white mud.

Hues of engagement

Two friends of mine - a lovely couple - got engaged recently and ordered a cake but gave me no direction on design *yay* my lucky day! Like any cake decorator who dreams up more designs than she can cake, I turned to my scrapbook (powerpoint) of cake pictures I've admired over the years and immediately a yellow, black and white cake caught my eye - three colours I would never have used together before but I loved the b&w of it with just a tinge of yellow to bring it to life. Moreover it matched the elegant b&w invitation - the only hint of the party theme I had to go on. The third layer was hand-painted - a technique I've taken a liking to especially with the finished product looking a little like it's been printed on and a sunny yellow flower topped it off, taking the hard edge off the b&w and straight lines.