Hats off for a kitchen tea

Boy did I jump on this one with spatulas ready to fire! It was an understatement to say I was more than a little excited by the proposed cowgirl theme. We looked at various incarnations of the cowgirl hat on a cake and the customer who ordered this eventually went for a bold statement - the whole hat being a cake itself, atop a cowprint base, to feed up to 80 people. In shaping the hat, I realised the contours of the hat needed to be well-defined and in the correct places to look realistic, so I paid special attention to that. The customer requested the upturned sides. The little flowers I thought added a soft feminine touch. After all, don't we always imagine cows in the meadows surrounded by daisies? Maybe that's just me...

Olive to have another martini

This 30th birthday was a classy martini affair. The cake was designed to closely tie in with the theme, a mosaic collection of squares and lil mirror tiles in black, white and silver. An extremely detailed concept on the birthday girl's part and a fun challenge for me to extend her ideas into cake!

Mauve and lavender

Inspired by a cake I saw on an episode of Ace of Cakes, I chose this lovely soft colour scheme for a sweet birthday gal who always has a smile on her face. I tried to keep everything understated and simple but when allowed free rein, my problem is knowing when to stop. I couldn't resist adding the lil bows, butterfly and tiny flower. I think little details are the icing on the cake if they don't overpower it!

A shoe-in for the job

The ultimate cake for me - er, for my shopping/shoe/SATC-loving twin, here to visit me in Oz for the first time. In a no-contest, she HAD to have a Manolo, the closest either of us have ever been to one! Needless to say, the research for this was pure fun.

Honey I blew up the doll

There's a range of Kimmidoll accessories out right now which are just too cute to behold. They are all miniature sized collectible figurines. Usually when I cake something, I'm making it small. This time, I blew it up about 20 times its usual size. It was quite funny to see my Mum's reaction when she saw this cake when you're usually used to seeing them tiny, but not so funny when we chopped it up head first. :(

Kick it to me!

They asked for a life-size rugby ball... this turned out to be a little larger after it got the fondant treatment! A challenge first in covering the entire ball, even underneath, in fondant - a true 3D experience. Another challenge in making it stand. If footballers played with a ball this heavy, they'd never make it to either goal!

Have her dress and eat it too

Another princess cake, this time modelled on Cinderella. Which little girl didn't want to have her flashing pink-and-blue dress in the very last dancing scene! What a lucky girl, Cinderella didn't have to make a choice that could've taken her hours, but fondant is not that magical - yet. :)

One slice to share nice

I was given a 'slice' of cake for my birthday one year (by my cousin the pro cake decorator!) and I loved it... the look, the design, and the enormous size of my one slice of cake!! I decided to re-create it for a special gal who turned 25 last year. However with the number of friends she has, one slice is not enough! So the bottom layer is for her to share :)

Oh my mod!

I loved cakeing this! The Vespa was the must-have; we created a mod theme around it. I loved the simplicity and the statement it made. I've seen so many cool mod designs in fashion, stationery, furniture, etc, but never had to cake one so I relished the chance! It is the spot on the target (mod for 'icing on the cake'?) that the birthday boy got a nice surprise when he saw it!

Roses are red, cupcakes match too

An elegant affair for a 30th anniversary. This is the largest cake I've created to date. Every layer is double the height and supported by columns. As you might guess, this sort of cake needs to be assembled at the venue! Matching cupcakes made up the placecards.

Safety pins and baby bottles

Cupcakes for a baby shower, with miniature bottles and safety pins to boot. Who could resist...!

Earned its pretty stripes

Here we have a couple who had so much fun with their wedding invitations, they extended the idea to their cake too! I took great delight in helping them transform the invititations into a cake. (The invitation is actually purple where it looks brown).

You will notice - no flowers on the cake! Happens less often than more. That means the details on the cake needed to make enough of a statement on their own. We decided to let the stripes be the main feature and tone down the rest of the cake, only adding the ribbon to top it off. As the stripes were to take centre stage (and we also needed to feed more people than a 9", 11", 13" cake would cover), we made the middle layer twice as high as the rest, which made it super heavy (!) but also allowed more surface area to play up the very pretty lolly-coloured stripes.

Exquisitely fresh and floral

A wedding cake for an extremely lovely couple. Prior to the wedding I find it inspiring to meet the couple in person and sit down to discuss the ideas and dreams they have for their big day. Small details that might be seemingly unrelated to the making of a cake all add to my process, in this case even their lovely home and warm hospitality.

I love the fresh floral look of this cake. Royal icing piping on the sides added to the texture and provided a little contrast with the ivory coloured fondant. The piping design was based on the embossing on their wedding invitations (though it is hard to see clearly from this photo).

Flowers were provided by Stef of Chic Floral Design http://www.chicfloraldesign.com.au/. I would highly recommend her services to anyone looking for a wedding florist. Not only do you get the beautiful flowers you envision, you also get exceptional service and the benefit of her creative floral concepts for your big day. Always great to work with you Stef!

Santa crashes Christmas for Altrex

Have I mentioned how much I love working with corporate logos? I think what I like about is letting the owners of the company see their logo in a way they've never seen it before - and edible too!

Altrex wanted a Christmas theme, so I took the liberty of adding Christmas embellishments all over, including a lil Santa Claus caught in the sidelines.

Cake under construction

I'm flabbergasted that a whole month and a bit has passed since my last update (as one friend kindly pointed out to me, thank you for bringing that to my attention!). Where does a whole month go? To cakes obviously, but this shows me I must learn to stick my head out of the cake-cloud more often!

This cake was commissioned by one of my very regular customers, and from the start I could see how much fun it was going to be. It was for a little boy named Braith on his Naming Day. Not hard to guess he must have a keen interest in construction, as little boys do!

We wanted a little mud pile - but how to make it look like mud but not TOO much like mud - organised mud? That was my biggest challenge. It's still got to look appetising! Loved creating the little men - they are doing various things among them splashing each other with the mud (fun fun hehe).

More to come to make up for the long period of absence...

Masterchef Asia

Quite an appropriate time to ride on the Masterchef brand... but this was actually done about 6 months ago. I was extremely excited by this idea, taking one element of the theme - the chef's hat - to be centre stage. Especially when you know instantly what it symbolises - food but not just food, DELICIOUS gourmet cuisine. It was also such a fun shape to make a cake out of and there was a LOT of cake inside.
One thing I remember clearly about this cake was that it was unexpectedly heavy. The height and proportion of the hat and its position off-centre on the cake board made it a quite difficult to carry. If you supported it from underneath in the middle, the whole thing would topple over - a caker's worst nightmare!
Oh and to clarify, the Asian detail on the figurine was specially requested. Her exact words were "yellow-skinned, nerdy with square glasses", lol. I have to admit I felt more than a little politically incorrect but since I'm Asian too I figured it's OK hehe.

Flying Miss Thirty

I love making a cake as personalised as possible... straightaway you can tell from this that the birthday girl was turning 30 and she is a seasoned world traveller. Well I HOPE you can :) If you could see all the flags on the '3', you'd know exactly which countries she's been to. She was in our part of the world for only a week or so and happened to turn 30 here so I grabbed the chance to cake her birthday special.
The earth is loosely based on our earth's actual map but I have to admit is somewhat not to scale... when I'd finished it I realised I managed to fit ALL the countries on.. er.. a half globe lol. On the bright side, it was easier than I'd envisioned and even carving the dome-shape wasn't too hard... helps alot if you have a turntable - thank you Diane!

Giant rings or tiny cake?

And this is the wedding cake that followed the lingerie party. Clean elegant lines with elements of silver and a hint of colour softened with the natural curves of the oriental lilies. I think this is a good example of how a bold oversized ornament can share the cake with flowers. The key is the flowers being understated (ie same colour as the cake) and having just a few (in this case two big ones) rather than lots of little ones. Out of curiosity... can you see this cake as being really tiny, as it would be if the rings were life size? The cake would be about 3 inches tall. Maybe if you squint your eyes... hehe just a thought!

A way with lingerie

A lil cake to celebrate a lingerie party. You can just imagine how much fun I had with this. I've seen so many corset-style cakes but never had the chance to create one myself. The orderer also kindly let me have a free hand in the design - thank you! Remember my rule - anything mini is cute... well I now think anything mini with ruffles and polka dots is irresistible! As people are usually reluctant to cut the cake, for ease of pigging out, matching cupcakes were also on order. I picked out various features of the corset to be used as the decorations.

Tiffany & Cook

This is based on a popular cake design that I see a lot of cake shops have already done. I think it's such a great combination of the luxury Tiffany brand and domestic goddessness! I love it when brands are taken out of their context to make a statement. And this girl has definitely got the right idea... "I don't mind cooking for you but first things first... which gorgeous piece of Tiffany bling did you buy me today!"