Chocolate cup

Today, actually 2 days ago but I think it's less confusing if I put it as "today..

Was one of those boring, correction, lazy days at home and I am not sure how or why (I don't have good memory and as stated above, it happened two days ago not today.) but I somehow started watching some chocolate-y videos and got inspired to play with chocolate.

So the actual today's (We went to watch Puss in Booties yesterday and was only back at nightfall and I'm somehow not very-good-a-working at night, something that's got to do with the yellow lighting in my cake studio, cough. Studio.. Don't you think it somehow sounds posher than "room"?) afternoon (Spent the morning washing camping ground sheets, airing tents and muck out the royal icing, left over gingerbread cookies, parchment paper, flour from cake studio, kill ants and shoo away snail that's stuck to the wall of my cake room, god knows how it got in the room, only too bad because the rooms splattered with chocolate bits now and the ants are back, sob!) I went frantically looking for some balloons in my cake room (Long story short on why there SHOULD be balloons in my cake room, I mean studio- I had actually planned to do this balloon chocolate thing, only in royal icing for the cake competition but it failed, so I failed twice with this balloon thing, why don't I ever learn?! More on the fail soon..), finally found them when I remembered I hid them in my tool box NOT in my tool drawer or cupboards, yeesh.. Nearly wanted to do something else today, like maybe more laundry or OH! Completely forgot about that new black acrylic paint I bought after the movie! I'll play with that tomorrow... And hopefully I can find that brush I need for this particular project I mentally planned somewhere... 

Oh yes, the chocolate! No, it didn't magically appear, got them a while back at a bake sail sale when Mommy bought some Candy melt molds and decided to give them a try, since the molds were HUMONGOUS we soon got sick of THIS particular chocolate compound! 

Melted the chocolate the "Bain Marie" (Fancy word for a large bowl filled with hot water and a smaller bowl in a big bowl filled with whatever you want to melt, in my case, CHOCOLATE.) way since I live in a house that has everything except a microwave, sob.

Made a parchment paper cone but it was a bit of a mess because the melted chocolate seeped out from the top and the side, literally everywhere! Must be out of practice.. Haven't made a parchment cone since one of the Wilton courses, didn't need to till now! Well I actually don't HAVE to make one now but since the "pros" in the video were using a parchment paper "cornet" I think that's what it's called..

So after two failed cornets I ended up with my big fat plastic piping bag which I cut into well, cornet size!  

I just realized how much the bottom looks like "Bok choy", hahahaha! This is pretty darn hilarious! Well, at least to me..

So a mini tutorial for a failed chocolate cup-

First, you blow up the balloon, twist the end and hair clip it.

Then, get a bowl the the balloon fits snugly into and place the hair clippy part into the bowl, the balloon shouldn't be flying all over the place and if it does.. Have fun splattering your work space with chocolate, make sure you lick it all up or the chocolate monster will come after you!  

Next, pour your melted chocolate on the balloon, it should look like a splat or... A bok choy, I wonder if that helped anyone..

After having loads of fun pouring, grab your piping bag that's filled with melted chocolate and start piping circles, don't squash too hard or you will end up with a strange looking lump which is pretty hard to clean up after.

Remember, this is chocolate NOT royal icing.

Leave a space and do some weird random squiggle like thangs. (No, that wasn't a spelling mistake my dear blogger, please REMOVE that annoying red line! NOW! I command you! NOW!)

Connect the not so random circles with the VERY random circles with some string work, not as easy as it seems.. 

Now, let it harden in a fridge preferably.

Come back to fridge to see that the balloon has collapsed by itself and quickly tie a knot. 

Come back again in ten minutes, pokes to feel that it has harden and use a pin to prick the top.

Watch to see your world crumble into a million pieces. 

You know what?!

How on MARSSS could these people have done it without greasing the balloon?! (Serves me right for speed reading, aish.)

Everything stuck to in and the balloon well... Became one chocolate coated thaaaaaang.

I took the first photo when I came back to the fridge to see that it self deflated.

It would have been quite awesome to see that it maintained the self deflated shape when I pricked it... Oh well, I didn't succeed again so I have to try, try again!

Oh yes, today I just learnt what an "Epic fail" meant! *Mumbles* After ALL those years of hearing "teenagers" go "What an epic faaaaaaaiiiiill!" 

Apparently, according to Urban Dictionary it means- Complete and total failure when SUCCESS should have been reasonably easy to attain.

And that my lovely humans.. Was exactly what I did today was. *Audience applause*

-Karen Klumsy Kake

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?

Day off Cakin'

Whew! What an exhausting month April was! (And not to mention the end of March! Everything was basically lumped together!) I have never made that many cakes in a Month (And a half!) before!

It's a sign that says I should NOT be moving to Port Dickson yet!
Speaking of moving... My house is in a mess, boxes of things here and there and everywhere!
I got a chance to look at some of my caking books I haven't touched in a LONG time!
They were put away because I couldn't really understand the techniques and such THEN, everything makes more sense now! I can't wait to dig them out and read them properly once we move.

So anyways, I completed my very last order this month and it was a WEDDING CAKE, my very first! I was super dee duper excited!
Things didn't go very smoothly for me in the process of it because the bride and groom figurines were too heavy and I put them sitting on the edge of a tiny 6" cake!
Yep! You guessed it!
Half of the cakes ripped of overnight in the humid weather! I cried bitterly (I usually do that when my cakes don't turn out the way I want it to be so I shed tons of tears when I first started! I am glad it is starting to subside now!) then started to patch everything back together.
After 2 whole years I finally got a fondant covered cake with perfectly straight sides with butter cream (I heard it was much easier with ganache, will try that one day when I don't feel quite that nervous to melt chocolate!) and after the disaster my mini 2 tiered wedding cake was patched up but it looked like it was covered by a beginner!
Oh well, lesson learnt the very VERY hard way.

I am asking you to NOT laugh at my cake! Here it is... But first I shall take you on a tour to show you the pretty deco before you see the actual cake!

Above:

So there was the bride (She is a vet that's why she has the coat and "heart beat checker" on!)  and groom and their pets all dressed in pretty clothes on my messy table, I didn't have a chance to take a proper photograph of them since I was too busy patching things up on the day of the delivery!

Below:

Love the doggy! Arf arf*

I took about 5 hours (Or 6) to complete her since I had to roll every strand of fur!

Above: 

My signature rainbow roses and whimsical leaves. (I got to edit them! The photo I mean..)

Below:

I am super addicted to free hand food coloring painting!

So these are their names on gum paste doggy bones!

Above:

The night before the disaster!

See? I told you I had perfectly straight sides!

Loved the monochrome board! (I learnt it from one of the Junior Master Chef contestant's plating but with royal icing instead of sauce!)

Below:

PLEASE.DON'T.LAUGH

The finished cake...

(I put the figurines on top when we reached the venue! It would be crazy if they fell during delivery!)

(The brown stuff on the top tier are paw prints, my Dad couldn't figure out what they were so I am telling you now if you are figuring out what they are as well!)  

So once we reached The Amoda building (That's where my Dad goes for his Rotary meetings so that place was pretty familiar!) and loaded everything upstairs in the ballroom.. (Oh and we met the Groom's family in the elevator! They pointed at my groom figurine and asked if it was her son, I nodded and they said some pretty lovely comments. I was quite relieved that at least SOME people liked it!)

Fixing the cake together in front of that huge crowd of people in the ballroom made me pretty nervous, my hands shook like crazy!
That ALWAYS happens when all the eyes are on ME! (That exact same feeling I always have during public speaking, ughness.)
But carrying the cake up to the stage and watching the wedding paparazzi snap photos of my cake felt good!
Had the usual "You are how old again?!" comments!
Someone also asked me why I am so skinny if I bake and asked me to eat more of my own cake and another person asked me if I was from Junior Master chef! I said "Oh I WISH" in my head!

While I was collecting my (Ehem*) payment (I ALWAYS feel guilty when I collect it! Weird.), I leaned on the side table that was next to me and knocked down a glass of whiskey? or something like that on my brand new skinny khakis which then socked my purple pumps as well. hooooraaaaayyy. But I somehow managed to catch the glass with my super ninja skills!

UGHHHHH!  
I felt myself go red, bright red.
Omigawdness, kill me now.

I hope my second wedding cake turns out better!

What was this post about again?
Oh right, "Day off Cakin'"!

So today started of quite normally with my usual FaceBook, Email (Oh speaking about emails... I received a REALLY awesome email yesterday! At first I thought it was spam but it didn't really look like it so I opened it, it said:
I know ur cupcakes through blog.Would you mind to meet me for interview?hope to hear from you soon. If you be able to share ur baking story. Sin Chew Daily. 
That knocked me right of my chair!! I felt SUPER! Huge grin*), Cake Central...

Then my Mom reminded me that there was a baking/cake decorating sale @ City Bakers today, so off we went!

Her landlubber's loot:

 Above:

I FINALLY own a clay gun!

Hip hip hooray!

I don't have to roll hair for my figurines strand by strand anymore!

Below:

The rest of my super duper crazily priced loot!

Went crazy over the jewel molds! have been looking ages for it! (And the FMM bead mold too!)

Since I started with tiered cakes I always had a bit of trouble stacking them but now I have a huge spatula to the the job! See left corner*

And gold luster dust to last me a life time!

Stocked up my "Super ice" (Instant royal icing! Just add water! Love the fact that I DON'T have to sieve and i can pipe it through a 00 tip without stuckages!) and gum paste but that's not exactly loot, right? 

We were pretty hungry after all that shopping so we went for pie and frozen yogurt after that!

I was pretty reluctant to go maybe because I am so sick of yogurt! (I used to be a yogurto addict! I could have 4-5 cups a day!)
But that all changed when I saw the CHOCOLATE yogurt and the toppings! YUMMM!

Chocolate yogurt + gummy bears + canned longan + nata de coco = The BEST yogurt ever!
Until... My gummy bears froze! It was pretty hard to chew after that...

Mommy whisked us off to Museum Negara after that!
It turned out more fun then I expected!

There was:

Above:

Wood carving.

Below:

A leaf bird which turned out to be a whole lot more complicated than I though it would be!

The demo lady did 98% of it for me! 

Above:

Funeral music!

Below:

Poison dart target practice!   

~K