Le ramblings of such and suches

Yeah, I know.. It's been sometime since I've last blogged! Life has been somewhat busy I suppose, well I have this crazy family (Correction, crazy MOMMY.) who enjoys planning for way too many field trips and outside-the-house-days and it kinda drains your energy and at the same time makes you value your at-home-time a whole lot more and since the boys and crazy Mommy are at the pool, I shall use this "Apartment alone" (Yes, we have been staying in an apartment for about.. 4ish or so days now, I can't remember cause time seems to be rather draggy here in this very small space! Ah well, at least I can get online!) time to blog.


Oh right, before I forget I might as well tell you what we are doing living in this tiny apartment that's located somewhere in Damansara..
I signed up for the 3 month City and Guilds patisserie diploma and the start of that three month course/diploma/thang starts on March 1st (Just a day before my fourteenth birthday!) and have I told you how much I love attending courses/diplomas/thangs?!
I mean.. It's always nice being surrounded by people who share your passion and being the youngest in class!
And by being the youngest you are usually-ish in the spot light and who doesn't enjoy getting attention, eh?
Oh yarh, that's basically why we moved down to this tiny apartment and I can hardly wait for March 1st to come! Even though I'm a teeny bit nervous on starting this super long course..
I think I read something about a uniform being included.. I hope a toque (I learnt what that white fluffy hat was called from Ratatouille! That show is AMAZING! My favorite line is probably Anton Ego's "Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from ANYWHERE.")  is included cause I've ALWAYS wanted to wear on and one of those white chef-y uniforms with them big, black and bold buttons and whipping up patisseries everyday for 3 whole months!


ANYWHOO.. Let's start this post of with some cakes!

I am pretty proud of this cake, well not exactly the cake since it's just a regular butter cake (The birthday boy's favorite!) that's wrapped in a layer of butter cream and grey fondant.. So let me rephrase that, I am pretty proud of the CAKE TOPPER/figurine/sugar thang since this is my very first mythical creature and it turned out WAAAAAAAAAY better than I expected it to look!

Oh righty and it's my first time using a 'Wire armature" (A metal skeleton in other words.) for my sugar figurines and definitely sticking to them! How on earth could I not have thought about using them before?! I mean they are SO easy to make and they support the figurine SO well! Mr Infernal (Apparently my brother is quite alright at naming stuff to and I wonder how on earth he knew what an "Infernal" is.. Eh, strange person.) is still sitting in my cakery with all limbs and stuff intact, well the ants are slowly eating it's toes up but it is overall still in good condition! Usually gum paste stuff in my cakery that's left without a dehumidifier (A dehumidifier is a caker-who-lives-in-a-very-humid-part-of-the-world's bestfriend!) would turn into a pile of sludge overnight, it's a wonder how he is still standing on his own four feet.. Maybe I have to thank luster dust a bit too, hmm..       

Oh, speaking of luster dust.. I CAN'T BELIEVE I FINALLY USE THEM AFTER LIKE.. 3 YEARS! 

Long story short-

One day after reading some Alan Dunn book, 11 year old KCC decided to go get some PETAL dust to dust her rather ugly so-called "Gumpaste flowers" and she went to the only cake decorating supply shop she knew and it was called "Cake Connection" ANNND too bad cause they only had LUSTER dust left AAANNNDD she bought the luster dust dust cause she thought it would work only too bad cause the LUSTER dust was quite glittery and she ended up with glittery leafs and flowers.. THE END.

So yeah, I had absolutely NO use for them.. Until NOW! *Insert evil maniac laughter here* 

But before I splashed the "Holly green" luster dust on something told me to use a "Base color" and that base color (Speaking of color.. I asked the birthday boy what color he wanted his dragon to be and he said "Blue and red".. Or something like that, I only recall it as a horrid color combination! So since he has a horrible taste of colors I decided to make it MY favorite color, turquoise! I think I am a horrible sister.) was SK's "Hydrangea", one of my favorite dusting colors next to this deep, dark purple color which sounds a bit like "Aborigine"only it isn't and I can't believe I actually forgot what it is called! And a light pink called Tangerine, only I think CK labeled that dust wrong cause aren't tangerines orange? 

The most tiresome part of this particular figurine (My inspiration for Mr Infernal was from EVERYWHERE! I literally pieced together all my favorite parts of dragons I found on the web into one and he turn out looking quite handsome! Not Frankenstein-ish in anyway!) was probably the skin.. Each scale on that monster's body is HAND-POKED! ..With a Wilton 1L piping tip cause I was WAAY too lazy to actually cut out scales! Thank goodness I didn't do that or the cake would NEVER be done on time! 

The reason why Mr Infernal (I think I have got to stop calling it that..) has "Battle wounds" are because the birthday boy wanted him to be like you know those, errh.. Victorious hero from battle thingmajig, umm.. I think I'm ain't a very good explainer but basically Mr-Ahh I mean INFERNAL just won the battle!

One of the things I was MOST worried (Actually I was kinda worried about EVERYTHING since I have never made a dragon head to well, any part of a dragon before!) about was probably the claws and the muscles (I know them muscles are pretty minimal! I'll try to make my next dragon buffer! Hahaha!), only somehow they turned out the easiest to be made and I REALLY enjoyed making the feet! I make TERRIBLE human hands and feet but good dragon ones.. I think it's because the human hand and feet making was TAUGHT to me, I usually do better when I invent the whole thing and not to mention it's funner and free!

Zed Dabaliewee (She's one of my best pals!) came over to our Port Dickson place for the very first time on Fai's birthday and we made this poster together on the day after the party and now it's up on my cakery's wall! 

Okay, MOVING ON!

Equally as proud of my garbage truck! It's my very first pair of gumpaste "Wheels"!

It was rather exciting, getting an order for a gumpaste garbage truck topper (Unfortunately it wasn't a cake!)! Well, aren't all "Firsts" exciting?!

Never made SO many templates for a project before and never appreciated my craft knife this much too!

Again, it was interesting.. Exploring new techniques!

Since it was a garbage truck I decided to go ahead and paint garbage juice all over it and it made Mommy and Papa scream but I think a garbage truck with sludge all over lets the truck have a little more "Character" and after all, it's a garbage (Speaking about garbage.. I think I need to make better garbage bags next time round! These look a little like wontons.. Omnomnom!) truck and I doubt you have seen a squeaky clean one!

Making the maggots (Yes, that's what those mysterious white spots that are on the garbage are!) were fun since I had actual maggots to look at!

The day before making the maggots, Papa and I were plucking some weird fruit thing from our garden because he wanted to try to make wine out of them and MOST of them were crawling with maggots! I think these turn into fruit flies..

And I kept them in a container like I usually do when I find snails/slugs/maggots/other creepy crawlies in the fruits and vegetables! Oh lookie here! I actually found an old post of my no-need-to-look-after-muchie-pets: My arys

So.. Sometime a month back or so, I suddenly fell in love with YouTube again! And this time.. With fashion and beauty videos! Yeah, that's my current secret, I mean not-so-secret-anymore obsession (Speaking about obsessions.. I am officially a scarf freak! No thanks to those "Forgot-how-many ways to wear a scarf video"!) !

I don' know why but I think playing with fashion is fun and I DO feel like I want to go into the fashion industry, it sounds fun!

And along the way I also found some jewelry making and re-vamping/re-using old stuff videos, I guess you could say I was pretty inspired by them and decided to try some stuff out by turning that old t-shirt to an off shoulder half top AND making bows..

Only I don't recall watching a bow making video but one day I just sat down making cloth bows and soon moved to ribbon pinwheel bows! 

As the days passed all my plain hair clips and hairbands has bows stuck on them and soon ran out of stuff to stick them on!

So one evening while we were out we went to a "Pasar Malam" and I stumbled across half a dozen hair starf-y shops and went on a buying frenzy! Who knew it was so fun buying plain hair accessories?! 

Making your own accessories is a pretty fun way to pass time I suppose! And not to mention you can wear what you made out!

Above: My re-vamped ballet flats!

Below: More bows accessories! The white cloth is from a long pant lining!

Above: Made this today after watching a "How to make a bohemian wrap bracelet" (I LOVE bohemian stuff! I mean, I have ALWAYS loved them since they are so "Island/vacation-ish"!) about a week back, only I made it without that troublesome threading!

-Karen Cuppy Cake

13

YES! It was a success even though I didn't get a 3 tier topsy turvy.. I guess that will have to wait for next year, huh?

Yesterday I thought all hope was lost for the cake when.. My so called topsy turvy cake turn out HORRIBLE!
It had torn fondant and it was bumpy! It was a MESS! (It was one of those type of disasters where I felt like giving up cake decorating because.. because.. I just couldn't do such a 'simple' thing.) 
I am the worst cake carver in world currently, hope it changes before I turn 14.  

So... I dumped (Not really, they are still sitting in my kitchen.) the other tiers and worked with the top most tier, it was a 8 inch round butter cake.
(I am SO sticking to mini cakes, love 'em!)
First it was 're-straightening' it again, it was a topsy turvy remember?
I stabbed the cake a couple of times as well because I felt so frustrated, yes I do stuff like that some times.
(I love caking. It doesn't mind me stabbing it to pieces then making it pretty again..)

And... I was out of butter cream, FABULOUS!
Grr... (Pretty sure I turned into cupcake monster.)

I am glad everything turned out smoothly after re-crumb coating and re-fondanting (The topsy turvy tiers were already fondanted but I peeled it off because they were faintingly UGLY.), if it didn't... I would pretty much be died from the cupcake monster taking over my body, that sorta thing..

Since I had already sketched everything out, I completed it within an hour or so..
Color was going to be the most important 'thing' (I ain't no goodie explainer..) on my cake, I am glad it turned out REALLY colorful!

Now.. It's time for the Purple Masquerade party! Woo hoo!

~K
 

Castle Cake

It has been ages since I posted in here! Feeling so guilty... (I usually do if I don't post for more than 3 days or so.)

Maybe I shouldn't feel guilty because I have been SUPAH busy collecting 'Ang Paos'!

A SUPAH (I seem to like the word 'SUPAH' a lot today in this post, wait.. It isn't even a 'Real' word. Oh well!) Late GONG HEI FATT CHOI/HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR To All My Followers out there!

Anyway... Back (Oh right, we weren't even there yet!) to the cake!

It was a rather last minute-ly done cake, was busy with "See above"!

But I managed to bake and decorate this rather huge castle cake for my 7 year old brother in 2 days!

I am so proud... Of MYSELF!

This was going to be my 2nd "Carved/Sculpted" cake ever! 

I felt rather nervous 'Sculpting' the cake!

I wonder when I would be able to sculpt such beautiful cakes like Debra Brown... Hmm... (Whoops! Daydreaming again!)

The Castle Cake in pictures (And some words!) :

   

 Above: The 'Cutted' and 'Stacked' soon to be castle.

Below: Looks like a pile of scrap cake doesn't it?! (I am pretty sure mommy fainted when I 'carved' my pretty golden brown, perfectly domed butter cake!) It is the soon to be 'hill' below the castle.

 Above: Ta-dah! See, it worked out quite well eh?!The birthday boy and me spent ages making the grass with star tips! 

Below: The steps in on!

 Above and Below: I guess I had to take a break from 'sculpt-carving'.. The knights (Took the pictures before dusting them with sparkly dust! Looks shinier now!) were inspired by Debbie Brown's. Eu Fai (The birthday boy) designed his own flag, I heard it looked like the Swedish one.. Haha! 

Above: THE FINISHED PRODUCT!!

Below: Eu Fai and his castle.

~K

Rosey Posey

My latest cake creation!

 

The design of this cake is pretty much the same like my tiger lily cake.

Only different flowers this time.

Roses... I have always loved roses ever since I started my cake decorating adventure in mid 2009 (Gosh! It has been so LONG! I wish time would pass by slower...).

Roses and cakes (More on the traditional side though..) just seem to click together very well.. Mmm.

It has been a while since I made roses, the last time I made them was during my Squire's kitchen diploma (Took it like a month or 2 before the ICCA Annual Cake competition in October.)!

Since I REALLY REALLY wanted this batch (I assume this is the 5th time I made roses in my whole caking life.) of roses to look EXACTLY like the real ones, I actually READ (fine..) the FIRST half of the instructions     

in one of Alan Dunn's rose err... Page of the book?  

I find it a challenge reading his instructions sometimes, maybe because there are too many words and too few pictures? 

  I was finally able to make a perfect (Well to my standard, which has to be mistaken for real ones.) gum paste rose! 

YAHOO! (.com!)

The only part in rose making that NEVER went into my mind (Or maybe it is just the plain toughest part in rose making, for me.) was how to start off...

Making the bud...

AND I MANAGED TO FINALLY MAKE A PERFECT BUD! (On my first try! This time...)

Thank you Alan Dunn... Somehow, even though your instructions are horrible (Or maybe just boring or maybe it is just me..)! 

I guess if you look a picture of a rose and instructions 100000x a day you will be able to make it, eh? 

I took 2 days to complete this cake.

(Ehem.. 70% Of the days was spent on Cooking Mama on FaceBook! Yay! Finally! FaceBook has awesome games to play!)

Half way through the process of making the petals I realized that I DIDN'T have a rose vainer! (I know, imagine THAT!) 

So I invented my own..! 

It's top SECRET!

Plus it gives so much finer detail than store bought ones and it costs 2% off the price (Of the store bought ones.) so 'Tra la la' for me! 

The rose making went through quite 'Breeze-y-ly'!

Dusting the rose...

I ALWAYS find this part so BORING! 

Ugh... There are like a BILLION petals to dust all in the SAME way!

I dusted them with tangerine (CK) and shaded tree (Sugar art).

As for the leafs...

I created my own vainer and technique too!

I am a bit of a budget caker (Most of the time..).. I invent tools/techniques and save where I can! I am glad I don't have a huge wad of cash to spend when ever I want, where ever I want. If I did I wouldn't have created my FAVORITE tools and techniques in sugar..! Smiles*

The leafs were dusted with shaded green (Sugar art. My favorite green for leafs!) and kiko (Sugar art.) for the burnt effect you find in most rose leafs.

I am REALLY proud of my roses and foliage this time round!

The cake is just plain butter cake, iced with butter cream and a 'Border-ed' with a simple bead border.

The 'Texture' of the icing (Yes, I did it on purpose.) was inspired by the first picture you see inside Alan Dunn's The Wedding Cake Decorator's Bible: A Resource of Mix-and-Match Designs and Embellishments!

Hope you liked my latest cake!

Comments are more than welcome!

~K

P.S Here are some pictures of my 'past' roses!

Above: My rose bud (I don't have one of my fully bloomed one unfortunately..) from The Squire's kitchen diploma. 
Below: My roses from Wilton Course 3! (My 2nd try at roses! My 1st try is just too embarrassing to upload!)

Birthday parties!

Gosh! I am SUPER tired out!

Everything started at 5 p.m or so yesterday...

My cousin's from Ipoh were here (Staying at our house!) in KL to celebrate their 2nd and 4th birthday!

You could say that I was pretty bored that afternoon because I completed the 2nd tier of my wedding cake and couldent start on the 3rd tier yet because I didnt have any fondant to cover it with!

I decided to make 1 mini cake each for my cousin's birthday party that will be held in Sakura restaurant the next evening (Today.).

Since they liked dogs I decided to make them a doggy birthday cake!

I was REALLY new at making dogs because I have never NEVER EVER made a single fondant/gumpaste dog before!

I thought to my self...
Hmm... It wouldent be TOO bad... I mean I can making teddies, elephants, rabbits... Why not dogs?!

So as usual I drew my cake plan out mentally...
(I only draw my cake plan out physically if it is complicated one!)

So this one was just going to be...
A nice simple doggy cake!
Nothing more nothing less...

Somethign that I could complete in a days time!

Mental plan:

Nigel: Blue cake, blue dog, blue kennal...

Katrina: Pink cake, pink dog, pink kennal...

Simple enough!

Lets start workin'!

Everything was going according to plan my timing and speed until...
I started with the legs!

UGH!

The first doggy I made was the pink doggy for Katrina and I wanted it laying down on the ground and playing with a ball...

I needed to crack my head finding out how to make the doggy look as if it was holding the ball with it's paws not as though it is in walking position but holding the ball...

I do a mentally big HUGE dinosuar RAWWWWRRRRR!





Ok found a silution to that and now for the hind legs...

That I not only needed to crack my head but ALSO my brains!!

Now I not only have to do the leg which is rather simple now...
I have to make that hind leg like a drumstick mixed with a paw...

This is one COMPLICATING dog!

After lots of cutting, bending and shaping the fondant I finally got it!

Whew!

I rolled out some brown gumpaste (It is the strongest 'paste' that I can use in my house becasue pastilage actually MELTS in my house! Can you believe that?! But well I am not sure what brand you use but the one I got from my Squire's kitchen diploma course does!!) to make the sides of the dog kennal.




Some blue for Nigel's roof and pink for Katrina's...

I made 2 pink and 2 blue dog food and water bowls after that...

The dog food was little round brown bolls inside the doggy bowl and the water was glucose!

After our dinner I started my baking...

The next morning= Carving the cake+crumb coating+Fondant-ing!

Before going to Sakura for the dinner birthday party we had to go for another birthday party at Melia hotel...

It was a cowboy themed party!

Yee-haw!!

It was one of my Dad's Rotary friend's son's 1st (I know there are LOTS of 's LOL!) birthday...

If I tell you more about this party youwill get too bored so it is not worth mentioning...

I liked the part where me got free cow boy hats, guns and bandanas!

Dressing up me and my brothers was fun!

Ok Sakura time!

It was a rather typical family gathering...

Nothing THAT interesting but meeting up with family was fun :)

I need to get on with today's post!

~K

I am home!

WARNING!!
Get ready for an extra LONG post!! Please DO NOT die reading :P








Sobs...! It has been a VERY short 3D 2N holiday in Genting highlands!!

It was So nice and cool up there and it is SO scorching hot down here in KL!
One of the things I really miss is the weather ha ha!!

We went to Genting Highlands with my cousins Nigel and Katrina and their Mom and my grandma! Lots of people so it was very merry! Ha ha! Remember the more the merrier?

Mommy had already planned what to do first up there and it was to visit the strawberry and mushroom farm in Gotong Jaya!

What a LOVELY sight! Strawberries here, strawberries there, strawberries EVERYWHERE!
Once you entered the farm you would be in strawberry HEAVEN ha ha!! (I am not much of a strawberry fan so I didn't really go CRAZY over them!)
It was a self pick farm... (RM 8 for 100 grams)
We got a basket and a pair of scissors and then of we GO (Picking strawberries!)!
I had a fun time picking and choosing the reddest and the yummiest (I couldn't really tell which one was the yummiest.. But I tried :P) strawberries!

Nothing much in the mushroom farm but I still cant stop thinking about the mushroom called 'Monkey brain mushroom'!! (Looks like one though..!)

We bought lots of different types of mushrooms (Including the monkey brain one! Ugh..!) and veges (There was a sort of dry market after the mushroom farm selling toys, veges, food, clothes etc etc..) for our steam boat dinner!

Went to a nursery (It was after the dry market.. Yeah the place had more places to visit then I thought!!) and saw some lovely flowers :)

STEAMBOAT time!!
Yum yum yum!!

We stayed up in a 2 bed room apartment in Awana... I like the free (But it is most of the time occupied so you have to try your luck to get it!!) Internet kiosk and the pool (Oh and I can finally do a PROPER handstand under water!!)!

The cable cars were down for renovation!! I was REALLY disappointed :(
The cable car was one of the many things I looked forward to up in Gentings...

So we had to take the old boring bus up to the theme park/theme park hotel :(
The roads were SCARY (Shouldn't be if you were driving a car but it is SCARY on the bus!) because they were so windy and narrow!

We didn't have time to go for the outdoor theme park (AGAIN!!)...
So we just went for the indoor theme park. (Boring?)
So bumper cars a 100x it was!!
I guess it was fun not THAT bad.. But secretly I still wish I went to the outdoor theme park as well :)

We met our Poh poh (Grandma) and Koong koong (Grandpa) on the (They came down from their farm in Karak) way down to Awana..
They brought LOTS of rambutans!! My FAVOURITE!!
I had a great yummy time munching on them :)

I suppose you guys know that we went there (To Gentings. Duh?) to celebrate (My brother's) Eu Han's 4Th birthday up in Genting highlands right..?
So well after the theme park we went back to the hotel to have cake and sing 'Happy birthday' too of course!!

Went to our favourite restaurant in Gotong Jaya for the dinner after having cake :)
Had a BIG HUGE feast! I enjoyed it tons!

Home the next morning...

Hope YOU enjoyed my story on my holiday to Genting Highlands!
Thanks for reading such a LONG post!
Hope you didn't die!! Ha ha!!

~K



My basket of strawberries... Posing with my Kucheah (Aunt) and Katrina!



Steamboat... Yummy!



My ship wreck getting torn apart!! AHH!!

It is DONE!!

Za Ship wreck (Winks*)!

~K

Bits and pieces of the underwater ship wreck cake..

Stay tuned for pictures of the whole ship wreck cake!

~K

Eu han's underwater ship wreck birthday cake 4

Yippeeee!! I am done with the underwater ship wreck! Hooo raaaaaaah :D
I am so proud of my creation and I could not do it with out Debbie Brown's book!
Thank you Debbieee!!

Well no pictures yet because I am still air drying the railings and there is tissue underneath it to support it and it will look kind of ugly in the photo so I'll take a photo of the whole cake later..

Enjoy the photos of the bits and pieces of the cake while waiting for a picture of the whole thing :P

~K

Eu Han's underwater ship wreck birthday cake 3

Whew! Am at the half way point of finishing the ship wreck cake!
1/2 Way till finishing the cake!! Woo hoo!
Gotta keep running!

~K

Eu Han's underwater ship wreck birthday cake 2

Stayed up till 1 am carving the cake, crumb coating it and adding timber on! It was VERY tiring but worth it once I saw the end result!
(NO worries I will post a picture of it later! Could'ent take one yesterday night because of the lighting.. My camera doesnt take good pictures at night..)

So... Today will be fun adding all my little sea creatures on and off board and my treasure chest that has over flowing loot!

Will start on the cake after dinner and hope to take pictures at every step :)

~K

Eu Han's underwater ship wreck birthday cake!

Tum tee tum tee tum.. Waiting for the butter to defrost!
Cant wait to start baking cause I haven't baked for quite some time :)

Well it is going to be my FIRST sculpted cake and it is going to be a ship wreck with lots of life around and in the ship wreck! I am REALLY nervous about sculpting the cake! Hope it goes well! Wish me luck! Haha!

I have prepared all the sea creatures ahead of time such as the octopus, star fish (Which are stuck to some of the rocks/pebbles), a school of fish and some VERY cute little crabs (Currently the photo under the title and discription) :D

Ok! Butter is done defrosting! Time to start baking!

Should be able to post pictures of the finish cake by tomorrow or the day before! So stay tuned!!

~K