Zodiac

Chinese Zodiac/Horoscope wheel.

The idea for this cake, like most of the other cakes, came to me out of the blue...
After sculpting all the little animals, I was afraid that the cake might look a little childish, but I was pleasantly surprised with how it turned out! The ying&yang and the 'gold coins' gave it that finishing touch...

I nearly got the cycle a bit out of whack even though I did my research on the net! Think I was too excited to get those little critters on the cake.... Thank goodness Mamafia checked the sequence with her chinese rhyme and realised I had put the tiger before the ox!
I had to rearrange them quickly before they got stuck to the icing... :)

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Used different nozzle heads to create a pattern on the Ox's sam foo (it only takes a couple of seconds but adds a whole lot of character to your figurines) and added gold glitter for his sleeves and scroll.

The horse and the ram were the easiest to do...

Use uncooked meehoon (vermicelli) for the whiskers

Busy but satisfying....

The cupcakes ready for pickup!

This wasn't even the half of it!

Thank goodness for Mamafia and Regina who are excellent assistants.... completing all those little cherry blossoms, oranges and lanterns while I was in the clinic! Couldn't have done it without you....

The different stages of completion of the Ox.

Ong Lai Tart

You must try Mamafia's pineapple tarts!
Crumbly pastry surrounding a tangy pineapple center with a touch of sweetness ....

Different packaging for Chinese New Year.

How to eat a pineapple tart....?

One bite at a time.....

and soon all you'll be left is with crumbs on your fingers. Repeat till satisfied!

NST

Mr Mathews is an ex-NST journalist who loves reading, especially to his beloved grand-daughter.

His daugthers created headlines for the newspaper and I added an advert right at the bottom wishing Gong Xi Fa Cai from Isis as his birthday fell on Chinese New year day.

He was also the editor-in-chief of Chronicle of Malaysia...

The Journey of Life

My sister Anita came up with the concept of this cake for my parents 40th, Ruby wedding Anniversary.

My parents are avid travellers especially in their younger days. They drove from Madras to London in a Mercedez Benz in the 70's...driving through Afghanistan and other exotic destinations. This cake shows some of their favourite destinations...actually there were so so SO many more but I couldn't fit them all in!

And the red carpet shows (bottom tier) first their quiet lives with just one son (single pair of blue footprints plus their own in silver and gold). Then as the years passed by (going upwards) another addition of my brother then sister (pink foot prints) and finally me! The carpet getting smaller at top shows less time for each of us as family grew bigger and the seemingly smaller space we shared with each another.

So many toes, so little time! But Anita did a good job helping me ~Thanks Ta!~

Me, Papa, Mama and Anita posing away.....the boys were busy entertaining the guests
ie. ~polishing off the bottles of wine~

Far, Far, Away

Ma wore a saree for their wedding so depicted them the way they were on 18 January 1969, their wedding day...

Japan: Mount Fuji, cherry blossoms and the Red Gateway.

India: The Taj Mahal and it's reflection on the water's edge

United Kingdom: Big Ben and the London Eye

Russia: The Red Square in Moscow

Far, Far Away...2

Egypt: the Pyramids in Cairo plus a little camel

The United States of America: The Golden Gate Bridge in San francisco

China: A Pagoda and a reprisal of my Panda bear :)

Italy: the Leaning Tower of Pisa

France: the Eiffle Tower

Ruby Roses

Ruby roses for an amazing couple!

The Year of the Ox

Let's bulldoze through 2009 with courage, resilience and strength....

Gold Rings & Lace Hearts

The guest's gifts.

More later....

Footprints

It's been an absolutely crazy week......with the hours in the clinic and the hours preparing a party I had to turn down a couple of orders :(

My apologies....

My parents just celebrated their 40th, Ruby Wedding Anniversary... Imagine that!

You see, we have the best parents in the world!

I might be a little biased ~heehee~

They provided us the best home when we were born, the best toys when we were little (excursions from Klang to Kathy's Toys in Jaya Supermarket PJ were a weekly event), the best gadgets when we were teens (and tolerated our tantrums!), the best education (all of us ended up doing medicine abroad) and most of all unconditional love, support & guidance. And we were very lucky as if ever we stumbled they awaited with open arms without judgement. But of course a couple of hours of nagging if we deserved it ~haha~

So us kids, my 2 brothers, sister and I decided to throw them an intimate and very special dinner with their closest friends and relatives. We wanted to create a warm ambience in the Ballroom so we used Ruby red rose balls, water and candles. Buying the flowers at the florist created a bit of unease for me as they were quite inefficient and unfriendly, but they managed to deliver the fresh flowers to me after some negotiation. Thank goodness I had so many helping hands the night before the party, to help me prep the flowers. We wanted to keep this all a surprise to Ma but she ended up helping me do the floral arrangements because we were running out of time... and Ma's an expert home floral decorator! We finished in the wee hours of the morning...~yawn~

Ma plucking out damaged petals and trimming the stalks with my aunt (wearing blue)

I'll show you the pictures of the final arrangement in my next post.

My other project was the gifts for the guest...what else? cupcakes! I'm too predictable... Again, thank goodness I had so many little elves to help me assemble the motives of gold rings and lace hearts.

These intricate lace hearts were difficult do initially as I had to figure out what nozzles to use to cut and print patterns on each white heart to create the lace effect. But once I got it it was a breeze. And the gold rings were yellow fondant cut outs painted with 18K edible gold dust.

And the most fun and interesting part of this whole week for me at least, was creating their 4 tier 40th Anniversary cake. My sister came up with the main concept, I chipped in some ideas and executed it, so I can't take full credit for it :)

It was the first time I worked with dummy cakes for the 1st 3 tiers, the last tier was a scrumptous brandy fruitcake (Ma's famous recipe)... so again it took me a few tries to figure out how to do it well. But all those hours were worth it at the end!

I'll post all the pictures later this week.

So have a lazy Sunday you guys, I'll be on snooze mode all day :)

Life's a beach!

This cake was inspired by the invitation card sent by Kaerlan's parents, a combined 1st birthday and New Year's Eve beach bash...Vibrant colours, flipflops, hibiscus and a surf! and so I added miniature buckets of sand and scribbled ONE on the water's edge to complete the effect of the cake.