Oh... Tidak...!

....Kat Abu Dhabi tak boleh nak access FB.... !

Argggghhhhhhh...!

Away on Business Trip...

...Will be back...

I could make cuppies in 6 hours... right?

I received this frantic call from my sis-in-law in wee hours yesterday morning (...there goes my beauty sleep...!).

She suddenly realised that of all things, she had forgotten to order cupcakes for her younger sister's graduation celebration which takes place in the afternoon. And, yes.... she rang and hoping that I can fulfill this 'Bidan Terjun' thingy for her (*LoL*). She said she will swing by my house at 3:00pm, to pick up the cuppies, on her way to UiTM.

I could make cuppies in 6 hours, right? What was I thinking?

Luckily, my kitchen has the makings for cupcakes at all times. I decided on a simple vanilla cuppies with 'a frosting'... at that time of baking-yet to be determined.

Cupcakes in the oven... now what type of frosting should I make to go with that vanilla cuppies? A simple Vanila Buttercream? Vanila Bean? Salted Caramel? Oh the possibilities! I have been known to stay up all hours of the night to perfect my buttercream recipe... and I have a lot of wonderful frostings in my repertoire, many of which include whipped egg whites, caramelised sugar, etc... (these take a lot of time to prepare... *sigh*)

But no, not today. Since all those frosting takes time to prepare...so, I opted for the easiest frosting ever - simple buttercream.

...simple buttercream toppings - no time to do that fondant 'mortar board and scroll' thingy...

Cream 1 stick of butter. Add powdered sugar until it reaches the desired consistency (about 2-3 cups). Add a spash of milk and 1 teaspoon of vanilla. TA-DA... you have buttercream frosting. I had some heavy cream, left over from making white pasta sauce, so I whipped that and folded it into the butercream (why not at this point?). . Somehow, against all odds, the frostings turned out to be delicious.

My sis-in-law came, she was excited, she loved them. I also knew that my sis-in-law will be coming with her three wonderfuld kids, so I made few extras for them. Those little darlings.... :)

He Sis, next time no last minute request OK - baking is not meant to be done on a whim..! ...yes....muuaah.... I Love You Too Sis...!

Red & White Wedding Hantaran Cupcakes...

Tired of the conventional and boring looking cakes for your wedding?

Why not have wedding cupcakes for 'Hantaran' instead...!

They're small, cute, adorable, gorgeous, beautiful, bite-size and available in an array of delicious flavours and they are versatile and mess-free, no need to slice each cake for your guests, all you have to do is hand them out and voila, your guests can have their cake and eat it too!
Here is a wedding 'Hantaran' cupcakes I made recently, ordered by my customer, for her friend's wedding

I iced the cupcakes with buttercream and then cover it with fondant for that smoother finished. Then I decorated each cupcake with Red and White gumpaste rose - as the wedding theme is "Red & White".

...chocolate moist cupcakes decorated with intricately designed handmade sugar flowers and butterflies...

Thanks Khainani for the order...

and

... to the newlywed couple (sori tak sempat tanya nama..!)

SELAMAT PENGANTIN BARU

Kenny Rogers Cornmeal Muffins

...he knows when to hold them ...

(I mean the Ladies...! *LoL*)...

...and he knows when to fold them...

He also knows how to make awesome cornmeal muffins that come with the meals served at his chain of fire-roasted chicken restaurants.

When Kenny Rogers isn't singing 'Lady', I am sure he is out promoting his fast-growing chicken chain - and its working out pretty good.

Now, with the help of his recipe, I made some sweet cornmeal muffins for my household for snack after dinner last night..., that taste just like Kenny's... (yeah....! tumbs-up from the Man...! )

....some call it Cornmeal..... some call it Maize Meal...

whatever it is....they are both the same..."JAGUNG"..

... close-up..

... for my household, they requested 'organic'..

...too much work...??

...not really....

...15 minutes to prepare and 25 minutes to bake can't be that bad....

...and you don't really have to watch it after it goes into the oven.......just set the time and take them out after 25 minutes....

...straight out of the oven, they're just gorgeous - crusty outside, soft inside.

The following recipe makes 12 large Cornmeal Muffins.

Kenny Roger's "LADY' Cornmeal Muffins

Ingredients:

1/2 cup Butter

2/3 cup Sugar

1/4 cup Honey

1 1/2 cups All Purpose Flour

3/4 cup Yellow Cornmeal (I used organic Corn meal)

1/2 cup Fresh Milk (room temperature)

Shredded Corn from 2 cobs

2 Eggs

1/2 teaspon Salt

1/2 teaspoon Baking Powder

Note: I did not use frozen corn. Instead, I used shredded sweet yellow corn

(easy to find in supermarket).

Preparation:

Pre-heat oven to 350 deg.

Lined muffin trays with muffin cups. Set aside.

Cream together butter, sugar, honey, eggs and salt in a large bowl.

Add flour, cornmeal and baking powder and mix thoroughly.

Add milk while mixing.

Add corn to mixture and fold with spatula until corn is worked in.

Fill each muffins cups with batter 1/2 full.

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until muffins begin to turn brown on top.

Done...!
Enjoy...!

Chanel Make-up Bag

Every year for friends birthday, I made them a cake. I have this girlfriend of mine who really love designer purses, so I thought this would be perfect for her!

This Chanel purse birthday cake is made out of one 9 inch round cake, cut in half and iced together. I got the idea from by looking at other pictures of Chanel purse cakes and just modified it to make it my own.

The iced cake halves were stacked with the cut side down to make a half circle shape for the purse. Then I did a crumb layer of frosting so that I could adhere the fondant on top of it. I coloured the plain white fondant, pink, and rolled it out and cut to fit the shape of the cake.

For the "quilted" effect I have a fondant roller with different wheel attachments and just made it look like it had stitching. For Chanel logo, I dyed the white fondant black and assembled them onto the cake.

I also made the zipper with the fondant roller.

It was so cute, it looked like a real purse.

I'm pretty sure she never ate this one either.

I had heaps of fun making the makeup and they were all made from fondant., but now I look at it I think my board is horrendously big... oh well..

The make-up kit... Most girls dream...

...a pink quilted designer Chanel Make-up bag...

...but a lot cheaper...

... and you can eat it...

...All edible...!

This was a really fun cake to make !

Happy Birthday Lyn...!

Bed of roses

Big bed of roses for a lovely lady who turned '40' recently (*LoL*) .

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AZLEEN...!

It was good fun putting this behemoth of cupcakes together, intended to serve 50, and I realized in retrospect how very fortunate I was - it was only when manoeuvring the cuppies into the small and tight little boxes corners that it occurred to me had the cupcakes been any wider and the petals slighty taller, I would be having a bit of a storage issue on my hands... Phew!

Note to future self: Must measure, must measure... widest, longest, tallest, etc.....!

There were dark moist chocolate and vanila cupcakes frosted with chocolate and vanila buttercream.

The roses are fashioned from very stiff buttercream - tinted a subtly variegated palette of peach, lemon yellow, pink, lilac, etc- piped using a petal tip on a flower nail.

Formed petal by petal, flower by flower, the roses are made ahead of time and allowed to 'dry' thoroughly before being adhered to the surface of the iced cupcakes.

The interstices are filled with clusters of leaves, piped using the white chocolate buttercream tinted with pale kelly green...

Piping the buttercream roses wasn’t too hard but transferring them onto the cuppies was a totally different matter altogether...these were the ones that survived the 'journey' ...

I must have aged ten years just transferring each of the 50 roses.
All in all, it was a really good, fun and very messy experience.

I really look forward to trying my hand at more buttercream roses and playing around with the different types of buttercreams.

Festive Seasons - Part IV: Christmas Cupcakes.... Ho! Ho! Ho!

Ho! Ho! Ho!

It's Christmas time again and time for christmas cupcakes!

I've made some X'mas cupcakes using fondant and buttercream.

Little decoration was needed because X'mas colours were already colorful.

... now let's decorate...

...holly berries cupcakes.

Holly Berries - a symbol of prosperity and good fortune.

Holly is a shrub with spiny leaves and red berries. The leaves remain green throughout the year. Pagans thought its greenness was a promise that the sun would return & English families hung holly over their doors to symbolize a home in which Christ's birth is celebrated.

... holly berries made with buttercream, and here's how I decorate the cupcakes.

Celebrate Christmas In Blue, With Blue Christmas Cupcakes...

You know it's snowing when you see Snowflakes...

Icicles a.k.a Snowflakes..

For those who've chosen a winter theme for their Chrismas these Snowflake Fondant Cupcakes will add an elegant touch to your dessert display...

As per an old story, the Christ child took shelter for a night under a pine tree. When the tree realized that it was caring for Jesus, tears of happiness fell from its branches. The tears froze into icicles.

Instead of the usual red and green... here's what I did.

I made these blue christmas cupcakes that anyone can do!

A simple blue buttercream topped cupcakes and royal icing snowflakes and some white dragees. Give it a try!

Hello There, Mr.Snowman!

...this Snowman is so cute and surprisingly easy to make.

Its made from Fondant, so the whole thing is edible.

If you want an idea for your christmas party, this is one idea you can try at home.

Mr Santa Claus in action..!
...this is my favourite..

The Christmas Wreath..

This is an idea to make X'mas wreath cupcakes using buttercream icing. There are a lot of ways to make the wreath, however, making small rosettes to make the wreath is one way.


...abundance of crazy cute Christmas cupcake...festivities are even sweeter when a tray of cupcakes is on the party table!

Christmas cupcakes are fun to make, easy to serve and loved by just about everyone!

Festive Cuppies- Part III: Selamat Hari Raya

Another set of cuppies, the Hari Raya theme.

Eid ul-Fitr or Hari Raya is a joyous occasion with important religious significance, celebrating the achievement of enhanced piety. It is a day of forgiveness, moral victory, peace, fellowship, brotherhood and unity.

the Mosque...house of prayer in Islam..

A mosque is symbolically very important to Muslims, and is a humble way for man to recreate pure divine presence on earth.

the 'Pelita' ...

In many parts of Malaysia, especially in rural areas, pelita or panjut (oil lamps) are lit up in house compounds.

the 'Ketupat'...
Some say ketupat is symbol of any kind of people mistake.
We hope ketupat tradition can make us admit our mistakes so we can apologize each other.
We can find it in the complexity of making ketupat pack. Ketupat also shows the purity of heart after mistake apologize. We can find it from the color of ketupat after we cut it into two parts.

... and this one.... its just 'Yeop & Tipah', happy dapat duit Raya.. :)

... here we go, a set of Hari Raya cuppies...


Again, thanks Zack & Neeza

Festive Cuppies Part II : Deepavali

Deepavali ....

Deepawali or Diwali is certainly the biggest and the brightest of all Hindu festivals - popularly know as the 'Festival of Lights".

Deep = light

and avali = a row

DEEPAVALI = a row of lights ...

Clay lamps - to signify the triumph of good over evil.

Kolam - is usually drawn two to three weeks beforehand as part of the Deepavali preparations' that include festive food, new clothes, and sometimes the renovating of homes. It is generally designed at every entrance of any house or building, not only as an aesthetic decorative form but also for the belief that the Goddess of abundance and manifest beauty;

... 'Henna' -symbol of prosperity and good fortune...

1-Malaysia...!..again, packed in a box

Thanks Zack & Neeza for the order.

Festive Cuppies Part 1: Chinese New Year

No ramblings today.... just photos... enjoy!

I was asked by one of my repeat customers to do some festive cuppies...

Hari Raya...

Christmas...

Chinese New Year..

and,

Deepavali...

1-Malaysia...!

Plum Blossoms...

...this symbol stands for courage and hope. The blossoms burst forth at the end of winter on a seemingly lifeless branch. In Chinese art, plum blossoms are associated with the entire season of winter and not just the New Year.

Chinese New Year is not complete without Oranges and firecrackers...!

Tangerine and Oranges are frequently displayed in homes and stores. Tangerines are symbolic of good luck and Oranges are symbolic of wealth. These Chinese New Year symbols have developed through a language pun, the word for Tangerine having the same sound as "luck" in Chinese, and the word for orange having the same sound as "wealth".

Need that 'fung sui' element.. Carp fish symbolizes abundance.

...aahhhh... this smiling little boy.... must have got plenty of 'Ang Pau'...!

Here you go, a complete set...

Thanks Zack & Neeza for the order...