Dillon's Cute Lion Cake

Little Dillon Loves Lions

One day, I received an email from Amelia. 

She wanted to order a cake for her son's 1st birthday. 

After discussing with her, I was really excited to get this order as it was a buttercream cake.

I love it when I can work wth buttercream, and I love to pipe icing.

Little Dillon is very adorable, according to his mommy, he loves pictures of cute lions. Amelia wanted me to put a picture of a cute lion on the cake. 

The best way would be to print the selected imagine on edible icing. I managed to incorporate the birthday message into the image, so the whole cake a a clean and neat look.

Amelia very kindly allowed me to share pictures from Dillon's first birthday party. She also told me that Dillon was very happy to see the cute lion on his birthday cake and he liked what he tasted too.

 I am glad to be able to out a smile on that little boy's face! ;) Thanks Amelia for trusting me.

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I love Rainbow Cake!

Rainbow Cake Number 2!

Within a week, I decided to make another rainbow cake. This time it was for my niece Joanne and again for Aloysius, as they are both born in April and we would have a family gathering to celebrate birthdays yearly.

I didn't want to decorate the rainbow cake that was exactly the same as the first one. That would be a tad boring for the birthday boy too.

I had to get creative. How so? I thought about it for a couple of days.

This is what I came up with! ^_^ Cute?

It's the same 6 coloured layers of cake with cream cheese frosting but this time, I used jelly beans to form the names of the 2 birthday kids and also to line the base with Disney gummies.

As the names had to be shortened to fit onto the cake, I opted to use their pet names instead.

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Aloysius' 9th Birthday - Ultimate Rainbow Cake (also known as the Happiest Cake on Earth) & Dinosaur Cookies

Aloysius is 9!

I have been pretty fascinated with the rainbow cake for a while. I didn't have any reason to try making it, until April 2013. 

I asked Aloysius what type of birthday cake he would like and he said rainbow cake! We were going to have a small party at home for him and the cake had to be something special.

The cake batter itself was not difficult to make; it's a simple white cake recipe. But the time-consuming part is having to divide the batter into 6 portions, colour and bake them individually. I roped in the kids to colour the portions and they had great fun.

I decided to use cream cheese frosting for this cake, since there was colouring used for the cake, I thought a non-coloured frosting would be good. The cake came out pretty tall, so I was glad that I bought the German Kit-Kats which were much longer than the standard ones from Malaysia or Thailand. They were pretty pricey and it looked really pretty on the cake. To top up the cake, I used pastel coloured M&Ms, courtesy of my friend Paik Sim (of Bake Tales by Wein & Paiks). She gave it to my boys for Easter, as it is the Easter limited edition M&Ms.

This cake makes me feel very happy while I was making it. 

Perhaps I love colours and my boys too, so I knew this cake would be well-received.

 Birthday boy was elated! That was more than enough for me! ^_^

Aloysius also asked if I could make iced cookies for his classmates and teachers. 

Of course, I said yes. I showed him my big bucket of cookie cutters and he chose 2 dinosaur cutters - the T-Rex and Stegosaurus.

He wanted the dinos to be green and we added a number 9 made from fondant. He said that his classmates from 3 Joseph said that there were really yummy! *yippee*

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Benjamin's Dinosaurs & Volcano

RAWR!

This must be most challenging cake in my baking career. 

But me being me, I like being thrown a challenge as it gets me 
really excited and jittery, all at the same time. 

Kind of wonderful, that feeling!

Benjamin loves dinosaurs. 

Actually so do I! I don't always share this info, as I do not want to be seen as a nerdy mom. 

I learnt all the dinosaurs names from my boys, and they are quite a mouthful! *laughs*

This cake, which is the 2nd that Elizabeth ordered, will be dinosaur themed. Placing dinosaur models on the cake would be a good way to decorate the cake, this was the request from the birthday boy. Here is the twist - throw in a VOLCANO!

 I have never made a 3D structure for my cakes. At least in the last one and a half years since Dec 2011, that I have been baking and decorated cakes and cupcakes. I have seen how the Cake Boss would mould shapes out of rice crispies. The process looked fun and interesting, so I decided that I should give it a go. I was very frank with Elizabeth, that this would be my first time working with rice crispies and I wasn't totally sure that I would succeed. 

Being very understanding, she said it was no problem if I failed.

The first volcano I moulded was a success! *YAY* I sent a picture of it to my sister. She said it was too small, will need to double up. Oops! I worked on preparing more rice crispies to increase the size of the volcano. I heard that Benjamin was really looking forward to seeing the volcano, so I couldn't fail or make one that wasn't convincing.





The volcano did take a hours to mould and I had to let it harden. Did I mention that I love volcanoes too? Yes, deep down I am the true blue Geographer, volcanoes & lava make me very excited. LOL! 

Typically volcanoes should be grey or dark in colour, which wouldn't look very nice on a cake. I also like to mix colours in my fondant and create a marbling effect, so I opted to cover the volcano in brown fondant with streaks of black and grey. Next was the lava on the top. I mixed 2 balls of orange and bright yellow fondant, twisted and kneaded them to look like lava. I was pleased with the results! 

The cake is a single tier vanilla with reduced sugar strawberry jam, covered with green fondant. The base is lined with icing grass and the sides were decorated with fondant leaves. 

Elizabeth brought the Dinosaur & Volcano cake 

to Benjamin's 4th birthday party at school. 

I heard that he was totally thrilled with the volcano, 

and his friends were in awe. Lovely! 

Sincere thanks for Elizabeth for trusting me, for being a totally cool customer, and also for mentioning me in her blog ;)

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Starry 1st Birthday Cake for Nathanael

Nathanael is One!

When Elizabeth first contacted me, I was surprised. She heard about me and my cakes, through her friends who ordered from me before. Not having tasted my bakes, she went ahead and ordered not 1, but 2 big birthday cakes for her 2 boys.


Truth be told, I was apprehensive. Elizabeth wanted hummingbird cake but I didn't know how to make it. I felt bad. At the end, she said chocolate and vanilla in separate tiers were just fine. I am so fortunate to always meet lovely customers.

We discussed in detail and finally nailed down the design for the 1st birthday cake.

The first cake was for Nathanael. He likes bright colours and stars, hence the use of all the colours of the rainbow (with the exception of indigo!) and generous use of fondant stars for his cake. 

Elizabeth wanted a 2-tier cake as there would be lots of guests as it was a big 1st birthday bash at an indoor playground.

To add the wow factor, I used spaghetti sticks to hold up the big stars. 

I avoid using florist wires as it is not food-safe. This is the back view of the cake.

I was really very happy to hear from Elizabeth, post-party, 
that little Nathanael liked the cake 

and the many stars on it too! The guests liked the cake too! 

That's the best compliments ever! ^_^

Heartfelt thanks from the Queen Bee for Mother Kao 
for writing about Baking Bees 

in her blog post on Nathanael's 1st Birthday. 

Baking Bees Contact Information:

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http://queenbeebakes.blogspot.com/2011/12/baking-bees-contact-information.html

Baby is 5!

Baby, Baby!

My friends and family would know that we called Ascensius "Baby" since birth and it wasn't going to be easy to change it, even though there was another baby in the house.

At a blink of an eye, Baby has turned 5! He started closing the door, when he went to the bathroom and one day, he told us,"Don't call me Baby anymore! I am a big boy now!" 

We decided that we would try our best to stop calling him Baby.

Baby was full of ideas for his birthday party and birthday cake design. Unfortunately, he was born during Chinese New Year, so it was often difficult to organize a birthday party at home for him. Similarly, this year we decided to just have a party at school. At first, he wanted a Power Rangers picture on edible icing. That would have been a breeze to make :P

1 week before his birthday party, he changed his mind and wanted fondant cake instead! 








I asked them to select 2 of his favourite Power Ranger toys, which I could use as cake toppers. I started designing the cake, incorporating the 2 toys. Since there were 30 kids and 3 teachers, I decided to make a 10" square cake.

 

Ascensius' favourite colour is green, so his name is in green letters. 

Ascenius waiting patiently for his teacher to light the candles. The real baby looks on.

When we first took the cake out, his classmates said,"WOW!" The best thing is that the kids managed to eat more than 3/4 of the cake! We also cut a few slices for the school principal, administrator, and other teachers who taught the elder boys previously.

Happy 5th Birthday, Baby! 
We wish you will always be happy and cheerful, seeing everything and 
loving everything in technicolour.

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Chinese New Year Cookies Galore!

Cookies, Cookies Everywhere!

Every Chinese New Year I have grand plans :) Hey, no harm in trying to be ambitious right? I would think that I could bake 3-4 types of cookies, all to be completed before Chinese  New Year.

This year, I only managed to make 2 types - Cornflake Cookies and Cornflake Clusters. Personally, I like cornflakes and so do my kids. This year I roped in the hubby and kids to help out, indeed many hands make work light. We had fun working together!

 Ascensius decided to be my model for my Cornflake Cookies, isn't he cute?

I let some friends try my Cornflake Cookies after I baked the first batch. Very thrilled to receive good reviews and friends asked if they could order. I was happy to oblige! I sold 12 tubs of Cornflake Cookies.

The Cornflake Clusters are quite addictive. My kids love them, so did my nieces and nephew. Even my Godma loves it! :)

After seeing my Facebook posts of my Cornflake Cookies, my Japanese friend Kohei told me that his mom used to bake Cornflake Cookies when he was young. I was curious if it was be a similiar type of cookie and I decided to bake some for him to try. In total, I sent 2 tubs.

I was overjoyed to hear that the cookies were very well-received by my Japanese friends too! *thumbs up* ^_^

Baking Bees Contact Information:

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http://queenbeebakes.blogspot.com/2011/12/baking-bees-contact-information.html