Showing posts with label Butter cake. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Butter cake. Show all posts

Thursday, February 23, 2012

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

Monday, February 7, 2011

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

Sunday, January 30, 2011

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!)

Friday, July 30, 2010

Oven mitts missing!



Notice: 2 Stripey oven mitts named Mr and Mrs rainbow stripey oven mitt MISSING!
NOO! I will have to use the kitchen cloth to take them out from the oven!

Yum yum!! Deliciously fresh hot butter cake coming right out of the oven! Sadly taken out without my favourite oven mitts :(

Searched high and low but no Mr and Mrs oven mitt to be found :/
Sigh..

I LOVE you oven mitts! Come back SOON!!

~K

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