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

Bothers

I mean bRothers, my brothers who are bothers. Weak smile*
Oh and some other ACTUAL bothers...

I just realized I haven't posted ANYTHING in about a week... Oopsies?
Anyways, half way through that very silent week... There was this day when it was raining horses and ponies the ENTIRE day and the next morning after (Didn't want to enter and cake since it was wet and I was positive that working with gum paste was going to be hard so I kinda "ignored" the room that whole day.) I went in to find that...

1. My humongous white 22" cake board (I only use such HUGE cake boards for competitions, they somehow scare me that's why I enjoy making mini cakes and mini wedding cakes! But of course what's the point of entering a competition and not err... I mean staying in your comfort zone. Like last year, I used square cake dummies instead of the usual round because I wanted to get over my square sharp corner phobia...) that I was in the middle of completing a gothic lace on top was the color of yeast (And sticky to the touch, all the fondant cover dummy cakes were too! And it felt more like some sort of icing instead of fondant!), obviously it was some sort of yeast colored fungus... (And the 3 mini bottom tiers that were a "continuation" of the gothic table cloth like thing were fungused up too! I took a day for EACH mini bottom tier things with such a small tip that made my right palm almost disabled!)

2. My black gothic (This years entry is very goth/vampire inspired, I think you realized that already..) necklace inspired,  #0 tip was... was... A black puddle of muck around the round grey cake dummy, with the runny, melted black royal icing running down, all round the cake like messed up eye liner!

3.
My (I think I need to stop saying my but that was my SUPER hard aching hands work that was a cake wreck in a DAY! No one would ever know how frustrated I felt at that moment, EVER.) multi colored, hand painted (And piped.) stained glass window inspired tier separator was another eye liner running down mess with a brown not black pool of VERY watery royal icing at the bottom!
I spent about... 3 Days in total on that tier, all ruined, sigh...

That day was another one of those days where I absolutely HATE the country I live in, WHY did I have to be born in such a HUMID country?!
WHY couldn't I have been placed um... A bit... Higher up?
Not long after, the flood gates couldn't stand it.
And not long after that my whole shirt was soaked with tears and I was curled up in a fetal position on my favorite couch trying to concentrate on reading a horseback riding book I borrowed from the Science center library but... My eyes didn't seem to be able to focus on anything.

Now that I recall... I cried last year too, working on my entry.
In the end my entry only had 3 tiers and a cake topper when it was supposed to have five, I am PRAYING that wouldn't happen this year.
And hopefully they won't ask me to go on stage to speak again and if they do I hope I don't start crying.

Conclusion= I think I cry too much... It's amazing how I did not die of dehydration.

So anyways, the only thing that could make me happy was...

You guessed it (Or maybe not...)! K-pop/Kapoop.
So after a couple of days of full time kapooping I think.. I am finally mentally, alright to start over again.
And this time... Armed with those dehumidifiers!
I have my fingers, toes and any other part of my body that I can cross, crossed now and I am also praying that it would make the 1 1/2 hours rather pot holey (Believe me, I tried counting the amount of portholes/bumps on the way to KL! But somehow lost count!) journey to Sunway giza at some very scary time in the morning and I would be 3/4 asleep so... Errh. I think I should think too much about it right now.

Anyways (I LOVE this word! It's my "change subject" word, I think.), my laptop was being hogged by some people/person so I was getting a bit restless this morning...
I can't start my day with out my "coffee" (That's what Mommy calls err... it.), it used to mean just Facebooking but now I think... My SHINee is more important.

(I was supposed to complete this post last night but my Dad managed to grab it from me to do his Rotary work so since I had to wake up early the next morning, today, for horseback riding, I went up to sleep.
ANYWAYS I am "half leasing" KC now, can't remember if I said that already in my previous post and "half leasing" give me the ABILITY to ride him 3 times a week, chose Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, if you must know, 3 hours a day! Before leaving I mummified myself with... Looks at tape dispenser*, apparently it is surgical tape but it is just expensive masking tape to me... Let's see I had to tape both my ring fingers at the "middle joint", my left finger had a bubbly blister burst, skin peeled out, healed slightly, cut, healed, peeled off and now it looks fine I think, hopefully I won't cut it again and my right finger is fine but I will be "mummyfrying" them forever because even my right alright finger seems rather painful after riding WITH the "surgical tape"! And... Patching up some random parts of my body. For the record I ACTUALLY ran out of plasters! KCC never runs out of plasters, EVER. So I had to use some nail polish remover cotton and surgical tape to make my own plaster and "patch up" my body..
ANYWAYS, I am going to purposely overuse this word in my post today. Since I was "half leasing", full leasing is 6 times a week I think, I would DIE if I full leased a horse... KC, I OFFICIALLY know what it stands for! KC= Karen Cuppycake's horse, HAH! Okay wait, let me start again, Since I was "half leasing" Karen Cuppycake's horse there of course, were no "instructors" and I could... Go clockwise and anti a billion times so I could sploosh in the big fat puddle that the little bit of rain created at dawn! Disadvantage= No people yelling at me. Kinda miss that...
ANYWAYS after the usual 6 rounds of "fast" walking, not the usual "sleep" walking I do with Key, I mean King, I keep mentally calling Key, King today, I mean King, Key, sigh... Started on the sitting trot, it was getting easier but I think I was getting used to the bumps so I decided to try what Zarina and the riding book I have been reading's technique but somehow I... Bounced around even more!
So I somehow tried err... Different ways to sit in the saddle?
After a couple/handful of minutes I had ACTUALLY got it! I was supposed to "relax" my waist and follow the flow but it was somehow rather tough so instead of concentrating on keeping your waist stuck to saddle your stomach! And kinda push it down and forward-ish, kinda hard to explain so when you concentrate on your stomach your waist is free to do what ever it pleased so whatever it pleases = relaxing!
YESH! I felt as though as I had crack the Da Vinci code or something.. Humongous grin*
So instead of my behind being painful it was my stomach but I guess after 1 1/2 months horseback riding... You are used to pain!
The rest of the 1 1/2 hours on Karen Cuppycake's horse was bliss...
So I had a VERY enjoyable "leasing" today, yippee! Can't wait to ride again in the evening!
Okay! Back to the story!)  

So, yesterday my Dad was hogging the laptop from morning till late afternoon from his Rotary work, rolls eyes*
Wait, I think I already said that and the fact that I was half dead without my "coffee".
Somehow... Fai managed to drag me to read a HUGE Pokemon book (I think it was some annual or something we did "Number coloring" too, 1=Pink, 2=Green typa thing. I kinda forgot that he couldn't color very well since he enjoys drawing more I think and he is pretty good at drawing his knights and other mythical stuff, no way I could draw those when I was 7! I think my favorite things to draw then were fat giraffes and butterflies... So I kinda taught him how to color "evenly" and of course teach him colors!) to him, I think need to tell you that I don't read to my brothers very much but I found it kinda fun and tongue drying so I managed to read about... 3 stories and after every two minutes Zed dabaliewee would reply to my text so I would have to run from the hall to the study since the phone was charging!
It was a fun sister-brother bonding time thingy, then me, Han (Fai wanted to play with the uno stacko..), Mommy and Ean cycled (I cycled with Han, Mommy and Ean walked. Han wanted to stand on the "extended back seat" at first but after 10 seconds he slowly started to squat then after 5 seconds he was sitting because... Apparently (I seem to over use this word too..) I am too skinny to hold on too while he is standing.) to buy some Malay kuai (Nice fresh currypuffies, om nom noms.) for tea, Mommy and ean didn't follow us back because Ean wanted to go to the beach and the moment we reached home Papa was done with his hogging and went to the beach as well, unfortunately for me the "remaining" boys got to the laptop before I did to play their Poptropica, couldn't stand my kapoop urge so I asked them to open up a new window and type "Y" in the search bar and press enter (Hah! Auto youtube. Winks*) while I put head phones on.
Then type "R-I-N-G-D-I-N-G-D-O-N-G" in the youtube search bar (It amazing how happy they can get while typing something out..) and press on the first video that comes out, they were pretty pleased with themselves, still have no idea why.
After a couple of seconds Han yelled out: I LOVE this song (I think he remembers listening to it on Machika's iPod..)! It has angels in it right?!
They were supposed to just go back to their Poptropica after pressing "Play" for me but they wanted to watch the angels then Han yanked out my headphones and said: I want to listen too! Fake frowny face*
After rewatching it for the second time he pointed at Onew and said: I like this angel.
And when he came on again he said: THAT'S my angel!
I was pretty shocked that he could recognize him since I could only recognize all off them after like... A couple of days! I think he has better eyes/brains than me.  Laughs*
Showed him Lucifer but he said he liked the "Angels" one better but this one was O.K and Hello but he said he liked the other two better this one is boringgg... Annoyed face*
Not long after the loaf of bread Ean or was it Han or Fai? Baked was done so we had a nice bread and a slab of butter picnic. Smiley face*

When we were half way through (When the "rest" came back and after dinner was cooked.) dinner Han suddenly went "Fantastic Elastic Fantastic Elastic Fantastic Fantastic" (I still don't understand why ALL kapoop songs like putting in random English words in their songs, I suppose that's like their... Trade mark?) and I kinda fell off my chair laughing and choked on some rice! (Got a deathly what did YOU do to Han when we were away glare from Mommy.)
I didn't expect him to remember ANY of the lyrics from the song..!
He sang that awkward verse again when he was brushing his teeth, hahaha! He enjoys singing the awkwark verse at awkward moments...
I hope this doesn't continue...

~K

P.S
I changed my mind about having no pictures in this post, here are the disaster photos I took while clearing out my cake room: Entering crime scene*

 Above:

My "Stained glass window" inspired cake separator, I guess now it REALLY is stained, the grey dummy cake was the gothic necklace inspired one and now the top of it has a photo copy of the stained glass inspired cake's RI piping!

And... Try spotting the pale pink (Un-dusted, whew!) roses.

Below:

My stained glass inspired cake separator working place, notice the black watery pool, it was stiff consistency black RI awhile back... (Ignore piping bags.)   

Above:

My 3 tiers on 3 base (Inspired by the royal wedding cake.) with a half completed cake board. FUNGUSY!  

Below:

At least I managed to save two tiers of work... They are now "drying" in my cake room.

Above and below:

YEAST FUNGUS THINGY

Above:

Managed to save the cake board as well by scrapping off the paper!

Goodbye... My beautiful (Freehand piping in monochrome...), sob.

Below:

More fungus?

Peek-

A-boo?

I have a feeling I haven't posted in ages, I wanted to but after writing half a post I got, as usual... Lazy. Grin*

Anyways just in case you were wondering what I wanted to post about it was about our trip down to KL on... Thursday to the science center since Mommy organized another one of her lab experiment trips there, the boys went for some air/parachute experiment/making thing and I went for some robotics with Lego thing.

Let's see we were there a COUPLE of hours early, I think we were there at 11+ when the lab session things were supposed to start at 230 PM so we had a bit of brunch (I don't think we had anything before leaving PD so I suppose it's more of a breakfast.) at the Malay cafe that was right outside the science center, the last time we visited the cafe, it was newly renovated and VERY empty but at least now they had some Malay "Chap fun" (Lets see that's basically... Rice and a range of dishes to choose from and pile on top of your rice.) and my syrup, no Malay meal is complete without my rose syrup (It's basically sugar and lots of pink food coloring, I wonder if it was made with real squashed roses last time? As in a.. Few hundred years ago? Or maybe it didn't even come from Malaysia... Oh well if it were made out of squashed roses I wouldn't get my beautiful pink tongue after drinking a whole cup!)!

After brunch I kinda remembered how super freezing the library (Had a feeling that we were going to hang around there for awhile since I was dragging some very heavy library books around for some time..) was (For the past... 10 visits I became a human bag of frozen butter cream.) and decided to borrow my Mom's green sarong scarf thingy to wrap around my neck and that made me feel rather posh so I decided to do my fancy posh, flippy hair (I mean scarf.) walk (I always seem to do that when I feel "posh" and I can't exactly describe  what I have to do to feel posh... Oh well, at least you know wearing a scarf is one of them.) back to the building which made burst out laughing less than... 2 Minutes, it's funny how I can never succeed in doing that.

Above:
Decided to walk around the science center (Oh right! The first section was this dark place with lots of LED lights that reminded me of one of my favorite kapoop songs, Lucifer! I mean the Lucifer set for the music video so I kinda mind sang that song for the entire day...) for a while and explore the un-explored... Mysterious eyebrows face* Found a MIRROR maze! The temptation of posing throughout the whole maze was too hard to resist... 
Oh right and there were fake walk ways AKA glass panes, I think by the end of the maze I had a rather flat nose. Sniff*   

Below:
Heard a couple of bumping into the glass with noses and they weren't mine...
Turned around to find Fai (He looks more interested in looking at the mirror instead of the camera..)! Took another photo! Smiley face*

 Above:
My next favorite exhibit!
The run-into-a-red-wall-of-chopsticks thing!
I (Sob!*) NEVER enjoyed running into a wall quite this much before! 
(Pull the lever to run into the wall again*)


Below:
The other side! 

After a quick visit to the library we Never mind the rest was pretty much  not that fun, to me the person that enjoys mirror mazes and running into walls!

So anyways I just wanted you guys to have a peek at the first two (Uncompleted, see? No borders and the cake board is rather... White.) tiers of my entry for the cake competition.

Will post random sneak peeks till it's finished!

~K 

Avril

Oh! I mean April! Funny how I always get those two mixed up!

A very surprisingly busy month for me, never had this many cake/cupcake orders in a month before! (It must be something telling me to stay in KL and not move to PD I assume..)
Oh! And to make this month even MORE special... I am in the mids of working on my first EVER wedding cake order! I am SO happy! And was very excited before I started.

And... I got myself addicted to Junior MasterChef since one of my friends post this: Junior Masterchef : Pierre!! ♥ ♥ ♥  as her FaceBook status!

Then it hit me!
Pierre! (My all time favorite contestant, too bad he only reached the top 4 or was it 5.. Too bad almost everyone that watches it loves him too! Wasn't very happy with the winner since he did cheat in one of the episodes, ugh. I absolutely hate cheaters since I experienced the winner of the ICCA Teen cake competition cheating. Jeez, still can't get it out of my head!) Junior Masterchef! My all time favorite show when I went to Perth for a holiday sometime last year! Watched it everyday or was it every week? 


And the episode that I first watched was a pressure test (I personally am not very good at caking under pressure    
I am not sure how they can produce and plate up the dish so beautifully in that small amount of time! I would have fainted when the clock started ticking! Especially Pierre, he is like oh today's we are cooking ____? Okay then. Starts chopping, mixing and cooking* I feel very completely useless next to all of them!) or something like that with PIES as the "thing-every-contestant-has-to-cook" and one of my favorite foods in the world are pies. (I hate fruit pies though, meat pies are AWESOME!)


I was completely in awe on how much knowledge those kids from 8-12 yrs have!


So this was my MAJOR distracting to caking since the start of April until today... When I discovered that YouTube deleted (Due to some copyright reasons ans blahblahblah!) the uploader's (MasterChef, Junior MasterChef, Hells Kitchen etc. Loved that channel!) channel!
Oh well, I did choose to stop watching since Pierre got eliminated! It was no fun watching after that because it got rather boring, yawn.


I am pretty glad I got this addiction (Speaking of addictions I got re-addicted to Cake Boss again about the same time as MasterChef! So the last week has been basically spent on Youtube watching videos!) over and done with so I could finally get back to caking!


So besides caking, we (As in my 3 brothers and Mommy.) went to the National Science Center or Pusat Sains Negara (I prefer my English version!) for an onion DNA extraction experiment thingy and we got to build a DNA err.. strand? out of 2 strips of foam and straws. (They were colored to represent 4 funny names which I cannot remember..)
We have been going there SO often since we became members of the library over there, it is starting to get a wee bit boring...


Anyways I was running low on supplies since I wasn't expecting so much this month so I decided to stop by my 2nd home, it's ICCA if you remember/read my Miri blog post and have some yummy Spaghetti carbonara and a Chocolate milkshake (2 of my favorite foods in the world! One step above pies!) before that since I didn't have much before leaving for the Science Center.   


Ahh... I always loved that feeling that I am going up the lift and then greeted by a very happy Nina (That's the shopkeeper/cashier/my friend that I talk to when ever I arrive too early for my Wilton courses because my Dad had an early appointment and help with her personal baking projects. Man, I miss those Wilton course days... i just wish I could re-experience everything over and over again! And going out with my "Auntie" course mates for lunch after the course finishes, I felt so grown up and of course VERY happy! Now all I want is to go to Never Never land so I would never grow up so that I could master EVERYTHING before I reach a certain age.) and seeing all the baking and cake decorating tools and supplies in front of me. 
Heaven. Bliss.


But today was something a bit unexpected happened.
When I rung the door bell and as usual Nina opened the door with that mega watt smile on her face and screamed "KAREN! I missed you SO much! You grew taller!" (Typical, she always says that sentence.).


I did my shopping in a jiffy, I would know where everything is with my eyes closed!
  
Then there was a group of students (From I am not very sure what caking class.) that just exited the "class room" and Nina said these words: This is KAREN Evereee boddeeeee! (No she did not say the "Evereeee boddeeeeee" part, I just love the way Grover says it!) The 13 year old girl who _________________ (I don't feel like bragging much today!) and then everyone turns to me and...
Shakes my hand?! (And goes "It's GREAT to meet you!")
I was like " Err... Waahht is going on?! 


What an awesome shopping experience!


~K 

Quilled Mini Cake

I saw a quilled gold fish cake on CakeCentral a couple of days ago and it looked SO pretty I HAD to try it and it so happened that we were going to Penang this weekend (And I have a mad hatter tea party appointment with Basil Beauregard! So I already thought of making a tiny cake a while back and I just came across this quilling technique, Perfect!) , so I had the perfect opportunity to try out this quilling technique with gum paste.  

Oh and to make the cake even more fun I colored the yellow cake batter BLUE and once it was baked it came out turquoise! Yippee! (That was supposed to be a surprise but never mind..!)

Once I had the cake covered with fondant I decided the white background was a little too plain and I had TONS of Squire's Kitchen food paint.

I had a rather hard time choosing the colors since they didn't really label the colors as I expected.

For instance, white is edelweiss and there is wisteria, nasturtium (I can't even pronounce this thing!), gentian, cyclamen etc! Scary!

I went with some daffodil, sunflower, rose, pink and lilac.

Then painted the white fondant a bit.

After a while the cake got a bit bumpy (I think you can see that in the photo!), I wonder what happened... 

I did everything free-hand (Without poking holes/ sketching on the cake first.) but I did copy some parts from a very pretty (But I made it prettier with a few personal fantasy bird touches!) quilled dove I found on the net.  

   

Since I have NEVER done quilling with paper before but I did read a book on quilling once so I guess I knew quite a bit of basics.

Everything was different if you used fondant instead of paper so the things I knew was no help!

Oh and at the starting I found rolling it up with out squishing it and sticking it on was tougher than ANY string work I have EVER done, my hands were rather shaky!   

So the first hour or so was full of errors then everything went smoothly for the next 4! (It was a on a 6" cake so I had to make everything extra tiny! Ugh. I can't imagine doing more gum paste quilling!)

Okay that should be about it for the quilled cake, I also completed another cake today:

What a tiring caking day!

~K

Shipped in from UK

Owh Mai Gawd! This is going to be the best birthday EVER (Well so far in my life.. The last few weren't very great. They were just ordinary and I hate ordinary, you know that right?)!
I am feeling so hyperjumpingofthewallscan'twipethatgrinoffmyface right now!!

Anyway... It started out like this.
A pretty packed and planned day from 11-4 PM..
But I had that it-was-going-to-be-a-good-day feeling from the start since the things planned were food, library, more food and COLLECTING SOME MYSTERIOUS PRESENT FROM ICCA!

Did I mention I LOVE libraries? Well the one we go to at least.
Since I have something to look for in every floor makes it even funner!
I would take the lift up to the top floor and walk down floor by floor until I reach ground level.

Goes like this: DVDs-Red spotted books (I hate them since you can't borrow em'! They have the 'advance' cakey books up there. Like Margaret Braun's Cake Walk and Colette Peter's Wedding Cakes to dream on etc.)-Other cakey books and cook books-Polymer clay books-Paint books (Acrylic, Oil, Water color. I got Van Gogh's biography and art works today, it was brand new!)-Craft project books-Fiction (Got the whole Percy Jackson series today just to try it out.).  
Okay! That's about it! By the time I meet up with the 'rest' (You know the usual people... Mommy and the boys) I would be carrying a VERY tall/high (Same thing right?) stack of books that are about to topple.

Then... I would go home (To ICCA today.) with my mind filled with ideas for my next project!
And that's why I love libraries!

For some reason we parked at Sunway Giza (Remember THAT place?! I went there 3 days in a row from dawn to dusk for the ICCA cake competition!) and walked over to the ICCA building...

To me S. Giza is a place filled with memories from the cake competition rather than just a shopping mall...
The cake competition was one of the GREATEST highlights of my life in that 12 years living quite well boring-ly? It was probably the BEST 3 days in my life, I had never been THAT happy before, ever.
It pretty much turned my world upside down after that!
The memories of the competition came flowing back flowing back... It made me... SMILE LIKE THE SUN FALL OUT OF BED SING LIKE A BIRD DIZZY IN MY HEAD SPIN LIKE A RECORD CRAZY ON A SUNDAY NIGHT....!

When we entered ICCA we were greeted and taken upstairs to collect my 'present'.
They thought my mom was Karen, yeesh. Never seen a 13 year old cake decorator before?! Owh... Maybe not...?

We were greeted by another staff that made the same mistake again...

AND THEN..!!

I SAW THIS HUGE PRETTY BOX BEING PRESENTED TO ME! Faints*
I screamed my heart out.. Inside. It was pretty had to control that scream. (I had a feeling that if I did that staff would look at me funny so.. Yeah?)

And man... That was one HEAVY box!
For a split second I thought I was going to own a brand new Kitchen aid mixer and I was praying that they would give me a purple colored one... (If you didn't know... I am PURPLE crazy! Which is a bit on the sad side because purple fondant fades into a really UGLY blue if it is exposed to light.. Sob!)
Then I remembered being told that it was a Squire's Kitchenish gift.. Poof went that thought/dream*

I sneaked a peak before we left the building...
It was filled with EVERYTHING!
It was CRAZY!

We had pies and pastries in S. Giza and I got the chance to have a look at every single item that was inside that hat box...
Christmas came WAY early this year! It felt so amazing...

 Above: Can't believe I actually got a hand written note! Sob..! Tissue please?

 Above: See that 7KG thing up there? 

Below: My mountain of SK's paste! I just ran out of gum paste yesterday, they must have read my mind on what I needed most! 

 Above: My eyes nearly popped out when I saw the price tag! That's one expensive bottle/container thingy of edible glue! I wonder when I will ever use it...!

Below: PME Tips! Which includes a #000 tip!! I guess they expect me to do some SERIOUS royal icing string work for the next cake competition or something!   

 Above: I was expecting 7 bottles of paint and paint brushes like the SK's diploma.. I opened it last since I pretty much 'knew' what was inside. My jaw dropped (Again!)*
Below: I have been eying this book for quite some time ever since I first saw it in Kinokuniya KLCC!
To me she seems to explain the technique better than Alan Dunn but her flowers aren't as advance...
Oh well! Glad I finally got it!   

Can't wait to use my new toys!!!

THANK YOU Squire's Kitchen and ICCA!!!!

~K

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
 

How to: (Rather) Fancy Gum Paste Bow In 10 Easy Peasy Nice And Cheesy Steps.

I am back! I am back! 

And this time making my very FIRST gum paste bow and my very first caking tutorial! 

It is pretty much just for fun, I snapped a couple of photos while I was making the the bow for my 13th birthday cake. 

Okay! Lets start!

First you will need...

A non-stick rolling pin

A pizza cutter

Some gum paste 

A cake icer

A orchid leaf veiner (Grease it with some vegetable shortening. Not too much!) 

1 kitchen towels (Cut into 6 strips, rolled up and sticky taped.)

Some icing sugar in a shaker

A non-stick mat

And...

You will need 4 templates!

Cut these out myself.

YOU Do the same, the length and width is written on the template, you could use the store bought ones if you feel rather lazy today, eh? 

Step 1: 

Roll out your gum paste.

The thinner the more realistic it is going to look.

Dust some icing sugar on the mat before you roll to prevent sticking. 

Step 2:

Cut out 4 strips of gum paste with your pizza cutter using template 'A' and 2 strips with template 'B'.

Step 3:

Place the strip of gum paste on the vainer.

Use your rolling pin to lightly roll on the gum paste.

Remove and repeat with the 5 other strips (Mwa hahaha!).

Step 4:

Take one end (Actually both.) and fold into a sort of an 'M' shape.

Repeat with the other end and the rest (I feel evil..).

Step 5:

Join the 2 'M's' together with some water and place the roll of paper in the.. the.. middle?

Step 6:

Dry for 5 hours or so. 

It should be bone hard and ready to assemble by then.

Step 7:

Oh right! I forgot!

To make a nice 'stitch-y' effect, use your cake icer to 'poke' the sides of the ribbon after you finish veining in.

You are wondering why I didn't use my embosser, eh?

Well I lost it and I found that the cake icer was a good replacement!

Tolja I liked creating my own tools!

Step 8:

Cut out 1 strip of template 'C'.

Repeat step 4.

Step 9:

Wrap around the 2 smaller bows.

Step 10: 

Cut out 2 strips on template 'D'.

Vein and 'poke'. 

Yippee! You are done!

This was my finished bow! 

~K

P.S Hope you liked my first tutorial! Comment on how you found it, please?

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