Baking Bees: November 2012

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Avengers Cupcakes for My Dear Iggy Boy

My 2nd son Ignatius is a big Avengers fan. We watched the movie at the theatre in May and we thoroughly enjoyed it!

Iggy is right next to me.

Ignatius (Iggy for short) was celebrating his milestone birthday this year. To us, turning 7 is significant as it will be our son's first year in a formal school so we wish have let him have a nice memory of it. Iggy didn't want the same thing as Aloysius' 7th birthday party a year before - we booked a function room and hired an event company to entertain the children, including siblings, nieces, friends and classmates.

Iggy's party was at KidsAmaze @ Safra Jurong.

Iggy is an active boy who has many friends. He reminded me to make sure that his best friend Glendon from Marymount Kindergarten was invited. We invited his whole class (1 Gabriel) from St. Joseph's Institution Junior.

Iggy's favourite colour is green, just like mommy and younger brother Ascensius. I suggested having green letters to make up the birthday message on the cupcakes. His favourite hero from Avengers is Iron Man, hence the red icing. His second favourite is Hawkeye, so the second colour is blue.

I loved decorating cupcakes because I loved making my signature rose. It makes me really happy looking at the beautiful swirls.

For the cupcake toppers, I ordered Avengers mini pics on edible wafer. Each cupcake has a cupcake topper. In all, I made 45 cupcakes.

A bucketful of yummy butter cookies

Apart from cupcakes, I decided to make number 7 butter cookies with icing for Iggy to give away as party favours.

I felt like I was Christina and her bucketful of Number 7 Cookies (just like Harry and his bucketful of dinosaurs)!

4 butter cookies decorated with royal icing, packed in small ziplock bags to maintain freshness. I was very delighted to know that the kids loved the cookies ^_^

I also learnt that it wasn't easy to draw long straight lines with royal icing! Hahahaha

Birthday boy Iggy (in orange) enjoying the cupcakes, with my nieces Janice and Jessica and his elder brother Aloysius ^_^

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Izach's Lego Blocks

Izach is my second son Ignatius' classmate at St Joseph's Institution Junior. They are in Pri 1 this year. Izach's mom wanted to find a nice Lego Ninjago cake for Izach, so she was looking around for designs.

One evening Dolly asked if I would like to make Izach's birthday. I was delighted to be asked ^_^

But I had been really busy from baking almost non-stop as Ignatius' and Dimitrius' (Baby D) birthday parties were celebrated just 2 weeks apart (18th Aug and 1st Sep). Izach's cake was required on 9th Sep. All the baking projects were vastly different, and I was glad to be able to gain more experience.

But I wasn't confident of making Lego characters from fondant. After some discussion, I almost wanted to throw in the towel.The only design I was confident of doing as jumbo Lego blocks. Dolly said it would be fine and the birthday boy could place his Ninjago characters all over the cake as he desired! Hahaha

The 2 Lego blocks may look simple but it's quite time consuming - 2 x 10" square cakes made up the 2 blocks and the knobs were each made from 3 layers of cake circles.

At the end of the day, everyone enjoyed the cake and that's all that matters! ^_^

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Monday, November 5, 2012

Baby Dimitrius' First Birthday Party @ 1st Sep

Dimitrius Cathal

Months before Baby Dimitrius' first birthday party, I thought long and hard if I wanted to take the risk to make my 4th son's birthday cake myself. It would be much easier to just find a bakery and order a nice big cake. I intended to go along with the Sesame Street theme, just like the first birthdays of the other 3 brothers. Quite unimaginative huh? Baby D didn't like watching TV, so I really didn't know if he likes Elmo ^_^

Mommy & Baby D

Baby D's cake would be my first fondant covered cake, apart for the one I made for the test at the end of my course where I had to bake a cake, cover it with fondant and decorate all over.

I wanted very much to make Baby D's cake. I had grand plans - buy a number 1 cake pan and make all the decorations from scratch! Frankly, I didn't know how to make gumpaste figurines.

2 kind friends helped in my quest - one helped to bring back my number one cake pan and another helped to bring back the Sesame Street candles and cupcake rings. Thanks Andrew and Kenny.

I searched for my old Sesame Street character figurines, which I had bought some years ago as cake toppers for Ascensius' first birthday cake. Decided to use them to decorate Baby D's cake, instead of trying to make my own figurines.

About 2 weeks before the party, I had an idea. I should try to make a marble number 1 cake, just to make it special, instead of just plain vanilla or chocolate. The test cake tasted nice but it didn't look very pretty, in fact it looked kind of unattractive and I was afraid that the dark swirls would show up clearly under the white fondant! Idea was aborted in a jiffy!

The number one base cake is quite long and the shape is irregular. It would be my biggest challenge ever but I was up for it. All in all, it took me 4 nights to bake all the cakes and cupcakes and to complete the cake decorations. It was pretty hard work and I was glad to have the support of my hubby, whom even sat with me to roll out fondant and help me to cut the little stars! I think he has the potential to be a cake decorator! Hahahaha

At 12am the night before, I felt like I was racing against time. Progress was slow and I felt really tired! By 3am, I had to hit the sack and my back was breaking after sitting down for the last 5 hours. I was sure I would not be able to complete the cake and cupcakes, plus I would look like a big panda at the party! I felt sad.....

I prayed hard, I asked for help as I felt really stressed out. "Lord, please do not let my efforts go to waste, I have come so far! Please give me strength and peace to complete what I set out to do. In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen!"

I went to bed, had a good rest and started working again at 9am. By the grace of God, I was truly amazed. The huge white fondant piece covered the number one base cake totally! ^_^
The rest of the cake and cupcakes decorations were completed before 1pm! As the party was at 6pm, I even had a chance for a nap!