My Other Cake Projects

Practice makes perfect. I wanted to improve my fondant decoration skills and I volunteered to make for cakes for friends and families.

I used the rose mold for this cake and used water to glue them to the cake (the sides) before realizing its too 'plain' This was for my grandmother to celebrate her 81st birthday, so it had to be more festive, so I used red petal dust to paint the roses.

 The problem with painting with the glued flowers was that the colors bleed. Thus, I piped buttercream and painted the swirls with gold.
Lessons learnt: how to cover shaped cakes and don't glue down until sure of the cake design

Challenging myself to make 3-tiered cake. Everything went well except... Making a bright color from colored gel and mixing them to cover the cake was tiring and disappointing. I used Americolors and the Fuchsia color didn't even come close to bright pink. I had to use petal dust to wash color over the cake. Lesson learnt: buy ready made color fondants

Reason why I like to bake and decorate cake: to see the outcome and the children faces when they see the cakes

One of my favorite cakes. Simple and elegant

Used royal icing to make dots and sticking the daisy flowers. Then, I painted pearl petal dust on the dots. The tricky part was attaching the crystal brooch on the cake.

My First Tiered Cake for Cally - 2010

I know this is backdated a bit. Found some pictures and thought if I don't document these, I won't remember them. Going through my external hard drive brings back some good memories. I realize I haven't blog in 2011, and my last cake project in 2011 was for Grace woodland birthday cake, which then I was off on baking hiatus. And my pregnancy with #3 and growing my company came to prioritize above my baking hobby.

This was my first tiered cake using real sponge cakes and not cake dummies.

 Frosted both cakes and chilled them before placing the fondant. I found that using plastic gloves is so much more neater than using the cake smoother or greased hands. I had more control, no sweaty palms, and need I to mention- more hygienic? Next I inserted cake dowels to hold the weight if the top tier.

Using cake spatula to place the top tier on. Cover the imperfections with fondant pearls and ribbon

Use piping nozzles to make the circles. Paint glitter on the name

The cake sweated a while after out from the fridge into room temperature but it stabilizes after a while.

Airplane Cake For W - 2011

My nephew, Walter, is the same age as my daughter, and I asked his mom if I could bake him a cake. She told me he was into airplane and I went online to research for airplane cake.

The inspiration.

The carved cake. Base was double layer cake from loaf pan. Lots of stacking, speckling, and frosting for the desired shape.

Looking like a fish with the fins and all, floating on water

Added windows and clouds

Finish!

Into the fridge for cake and me to sleep

My sister-in-law added the candles and I thought the cake became cuter and happier.

Woodland Party - 2011

3d decor done by Balloon Imagination

My beautiful girls! The two cousins and BFF.

Baby J & I love the balloons

Better snap a quick picture to document the cake before the kids dig into it!

End of the party, the girls continue to play with the decor. Dresses are by our favorite brand- Luna Luna Copenhagen

Woodland Birthday Cake

Source of Inspiration - Andrea Sweet Cake

 I made some sketches of some woodland animals and tried to make my first fondant 3d characters from scratch. It would be easier if I purchase books on how to make 3d fondant characters step by step... All I can say after this cake is that - I will be on a long hiatus to make characters

 The base was my sister's favorite Rose Levy's Grand Marnier Chocolate Chip Cake. I will probably find time some day to post the recipe up. Frosted it with chocolate ganache, then fondant the cake.
 

 The tree trunk needed a extra layer of cake and each layer was frosted with vanilla buttercream.Since I don't have brown fondant, I made chocolate from scratch with marshmallow and cocoa, which was surprisingly not very difficult as I expect it to be. Using toothpick and fondant veiner tools, I tried my best to give textures to make the trunk look somewhat real.

Use buttercream to pipe the vines and leaves

The birthday girl and her woodland friends

More friends. Making the wordings was another challenge.

The cake

 Grace, my darling niece, I hope when you are old enough for your mommy to let you use the internet browser, and that you come by to read Auntie's blog, you can feel my love for you. Hugs and kisses from Auntie!

Crimson Laser Cut Invitation

Lovely laser cut invitation by Siem Offset

Pillow Invitation with Headbands for Baby J & I Birthday 2011 Party

I first bought the princess crown headbands for my daughter and my nieces from Pasar Pagi (traditional wholesale market in Jakarta) and decided to go back and buy more to give as invitations so all the little girls can be princesses. Since they sold out of the crowns, I went about to buy few dozens of other cute headbands from  for average $10 for a dozen.

After making few boxes of these, I decided to save paper and make these:

Pillow case envelope! Inspired by Watermark invitation for my bridal shower

One pillow case envelope only uses one A4 paper. I used local bookstore bought Conqueror 250gr fancy paper, drew and cut a prototype. Once I have the prototype done, its easier from there to draw the sides to cut. Using the blunt side of scissors to pressure carve on the curves so that it will be easier and neater to fold. I the double-taped the sides. To finish the envelope, fold in the curves. One done...30 more to go...

 Next to do was printing the invitation. Cut them and used a puncher to punch round corners on the invitation. After that was to put the invitation and headbands in. Ummm... the double tape didn't do much a good job on sticking the sides and the envelope was bursting. I tried to a tape to stick the sides from the exterior then almost decided to overlook the imperfections... then finally, I resorted to staple the gaping envelopes.

Made the name sticker tags with vintage image found under free printables. The envelope looked very plain with just the name sticker so I spruced it up with ribbons. Voila! Invitations done!