Special Agent OSO

How do one say no to baking for a child who has just started his battle with leukemia? You don't. It was a very last minute order but I was taking the week off before the onslaught of Christmas orders to bake for. So, I was more than happy to do it especially when it wasn't known earlier if he would have survived his first course of chemotherapy. Mum just needed a small 6' cake with Special Agent OSO. Yes, I had to Google this guy and loved what I learnt about this Oso (means bear in Spanish). He's an agent who helps children perform tasks and is superbly-assisted by S.A.Wolfie (in blue cut-out) and S.A.Dotty (cut-out cat in yellow-orange). I handed the cake over to mum with a hope that Heston will draw positivity and strength from his favourite Special Agent to recover completely. Let's aim for a Digi-Medal, Heston! The Chocolate Cake weighed 1.2kg.

Ariel, Little Mermaid

Ahh.....3-year old girls and their princesses. Don't they all go through that phase...yes, even my I-prefer-to-be-a-boy daughter went through it. But not at all hardcore like the girls you'd see walking in malls in their princess costumes, clip-clopping in ill-fitting pink, furry, diamante kitten-heels or sleeping in nighties featuring their favourite Disney princess. Not to mention the school bags, handbags, pencil cases, water bottles...that's a huge money-making industry there! Our Little Miss never wanted anything remotely close to being princessy. Those few pieces of pink tiara, pencil sets and what-nots were presents from well-meaning friends who thought we were depriving her of being a princess *sigh*  Her brushes with Disney princesses were in forms of movies and magazines. She enjoyed the stories but after awhile, she found them repetitive...the whole happily ever after ending after meeting a prince? Yeah, that part will have her rolling her eyes...even at 4. So, here we have Ariel depicted under the sea next to her underwater musical instruments. The bottom tier was covered in pink fondant because Aryssa loves the colour pink.This was a 2.2kg Chocolate Cake for a small party of 15.

21st Birthday Masquerade Party

Yeah, the fancy feathered mask is missing in this picture. I was to assemble a 2-tier Dark Chocolate Orange Cake with a simple design provided by the client and she will get the striking masqurade-type mask to top the cake. I was not too happy with the gold on this cake, it wasn't as glittery nor "goldie" as I hoped for. I think my American gold colour and edible dusting powder just doesn't have their China-made counterparts' umpph, eh? Personally, I'd rather a pale gold than gold that'll leave my skin shiny...just saying ;-p Cake finished weighing 4kg.

Plants vs Zombies

This order has been overdue like for 2 years! Ethan's aunt made the first inquiry 2 years ago for a cake but I was competely booked out, I think. And last year, we were away for vacation. This year, it coincided with our vacation again! I know, this happens a lot whenever it's school term break. We, too go away for holidays like all of you. And with school-going children, term breaks are the only time we get to travel a wee bit and for me to actually get some rest even if we're not on vacay. 

Nonetheless, we finally got to settle on the cake and the young man wanted one of Plants vs Zombies. I had to do all the tiny figures a week ahead and they're quite fiddly to do. Ethan's aunt was a great help though, providing me exactly what her nephew wanted on his cake with pictures. Least I didn't have to spend any time sitting in front of Google Search. I also made the house out of cake. Apparently, that is necessary to set the layout right for the actual game. Don't ask me what or how this game works because you'll get me started on questioning the relevance of zombies and plants??? Then again, games...sighhh. Anyway, I had my children tell me exactly where to put each character correctly (apparently they've only played it once or twice.....yeah, right). The cake looked pretty cool actually, very much like the actual game scene no? This Chocolate Cake was heavy though, with the house and load of figurines on it - 4.5kg. Well, cause and effect.

Adventure Time with Zayn

Zayn's mum:     Adventure Time with Finn & Jake, can?.
Me:                 What's that, ah?
Yes, another one of those Cartoon Network series which I have no idea of,  nor do I fancy even if I've seen it. For one, they're ugly. For some reason, Cartoon Network always show ugly (and irritating-sounding) cartoons. Seriously! Everytime I hear some high-pitched wail or annoying nasal drawl going on and on from the telly out in the hall, I discover that it's some ugly, mindless program from Cartoon Network like Phineas & Ferb, Oggy & the Cockroaches or something. Sponge Bob...Wallace & Gromit....uggghhh. They're all ugly! No one has so far managed to convince me anything good about these shows...bad grammar, unnecessary whining, speaking loudly or frantically all the time are just a few to name. The only shows I approve of from Cartoon Network for my kids to watch is Tom & Jerry. Period. Any maybe a couple of those Marvel cartoons. Otherwise, they get a wring on their ear from me.
So, back to the cake. It's pretty much a no brainer actually (duhh...) after looking it up online. There wasn't really a scene to work on except the feature has to be the yellow creature (dog/cat/mutant?) and the boy (what's with the bonnet??). I'm assuming Finn is the yellow blob with flaying legs and Jake's the boy with equally long, flaying arms and legs. I think the cake design did its job well because the young man loved it. Glad to be of service *snigger*  This Vanilla Chocolate Chip Cake finished weighing 2.6kg.

Dibo the Gift Dragon

We entered the month of November with this cake...and with Trisztan, too, I've had the privilege of baking his birthday cake since he was 1 (Pocoyo Zoo). This year, his mum said his "thing" was Dibo the Gift Dragon. Took me awhile to figure what it was when I was on the phone with his mum! I've only done this dragon once and it was awhile back...plus, my children never saw it, so zero awareness in my memory bank. It was a very small cake and kind of overwhelming having all the characters on it. But it worked out. The Lemon Poppyseed Cake finished weighing a mere 1.6kg (7' or was it 6' ??? Can't remember).

Drunk Couple

This is an absolutely funny, yet sad cake! The brief was - cake for a couple who loves to drink. Put them in bed with beer cans strewn all over. They have a toddler. Simple and straightforward...as the cake was. The 9' Butter Cake bed (2.8kg) had the drunk couple, pretty much knocked out. While the birthday couple and beer cans strewn all over the bed was meant to be the highlight, I think my impression of their toddler was the one that stole the show. It would have been easy to just have the toddler join in to drunkenness and the whole cake would have been funny. But, I made the little fella pouting and in tears. I think THIS toddler made a better impact and basically stole the cake show!

Magic Faraway Tree

This 3-tier whopper finished weighing 4.5kg! As you can see, it was a pretty elaborate cake...I was just impressed that the soft and moist Lemon Poppyseed Cake held up with all the fondant weight. It was a grand 1st birthday party for a pair of twins and their mum thought it will be fitting to go revisit her childhood author- Enid Blyton, for the party theme. Magic Faraway Tree cum Woodland Fairies (for guests not in the know, I presume). I had meant to simply cover the cake in pastel-coloured fondant, do a cut-out of a tree and have a couple of dainty, pastel coloured characters sitting on it...as one of the examples provided by the twins' mum. But as I was working on the key characters in this book, I realised that not only the pastel colours didn't make much sense with Moonface nor the Saucepan Man, the whole 3-tier cake in pastel green with a white cut-out tree would have Enid Blyton roll in her grave! Her writing had us making up vivid imaginations of how each character would look like and the book illustrations also gave us an insight to each character. I just couldn't do it the "modern" way!
So, I went back to the drawing book and redesigned the cake. This was the finished product. I basically replicated the giant treehouse complete with a door and the windows. The 3 main characters were Moonface on top of the cake, the Green Fairy (accompanied by another smallish one and an elf) and the Saucepan Man on the ground. I was happy with the design and I think it did justice to the grand Dame of children literature's creativity.

Hotwheels

Finally, I'm getting to sit down for a bit and update this blog! I know, I know...the earlier excuse was me having to lay low in accepting business so I can help Young Master prepare for his Primary 6 exams in September. Well, it's been 2.5 months and what have I been doing? Catching up with home chores, finish up sewing projects, cooking and baking up storms (you can the updates via Doing a Julie/Julia ...err, eventually ;-p). But most of all, spending time with my children. All these exam preps have turned me into a Cruella. In between it all, I did take a couple of orders..mostly regulars. Like this cake for example.
I've been fortunate enough to bake for Noah since his 1st birthday (Pocoyo ) through his 2nd (Toy Story) and now his 3rd. This very small 2-tier Chocolate Cake was a tricky one. Hotwheels' trademarks are the orange loops and the fire ring. I had to make them way in advance and thankfully, the weather was kind and the loops held up on their own. The plan was to use only one and have another loop in case one broke/collapsed. But since the whole cake construction went exceptionally well, I thought, "Why not? Let's use both!". Turned out to be a REAL Hotwheels cake (finished weighing 2kg). Mum also ordered 60 pieces of mini cupcakes to feed the small mouths in the party.

Balls??

Just a quick and simple cake design for my 2-year old nephew who simply loves balls. Since majority of the guests were adults, we had a large Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese and this little ensemble of sport balls in Chocolate Cake (1kg), just for birthday formality....and pictures.

Lightning McQueen & Mater

Done quite a few McQueens but this is my first Tow Mater- Lightning McQueen's sidekick and best buddy. I loved that the rusty, burnt orange came out as I planned and the towing mechanism behind was spot on. Fun to finally be doing a different vehicle from that movie...the protagonist McQueen was getting on my nerves a bit. Both vehicles are completely cakes and the birthday boy's mum chose a simple Vanilla Butter Cake for him. Finished weighing a little over 3.2kg. 

From the top

These are few of my favourite things...

This little girl is such an earth angel...she loves rainbows (last year's cake) and, flowers and, butterflies and all things that make you smile and hum. Yes, I was humming The Sound of Music's My Favourite Things while making those daisies with multi-coloured Hundreds & Thousands centres with Little Miss. And the butterflies, that is a must - she LOVES butterflies. I had initially wanted to have one large flower with butterflies fluttering over it. Changed my mind though, after thinking it would look a little weird to have many butterflies going for just one flower. So, I decided to make a bouquet of daisies using the 5-petal cake pan. Lined the sides with probably over a hundred green stems made out of sugar paste and some 35 white daisies on it. This Butter Cake finished weighing just 1.8kg.

Turning 4

JY turns 4 today and has been celebrating this milestone since Thursday! Lucky boy! His mama and papa had a little party at school with his little mates on Thursday with the little bus Tayo-design cake. I had no idea  who or what Tayo was early in the week when his mama texted me with the request. Coincidently, I was having my nails done then and my manicurist's 2 year old was in the shop. Who best to ask than him right? Well, in his minimum vocabulary, he said bus. I Googled on the spot and out came this repetitive song of Tayo the Little Bus. Gosh....another Thomas the Train kind of show for toddlers. Obviously, Tayo itself had to be the highlight and I quickly churned out this single dimension design in a day. The Devil's Food Chocolate cake finished weighing 2.5kg and fed 30 children and adults comfortably.

A day on Friday for the laddie to recover and Saturday was his pool party at the club! He had an early morning start in the pool with his cousins and mates, ending the morning with this 2.8kg (chocolate, again) Spiderman -themed cake. I had initially planned to model Spidey in his signature pose- the semi crawl but his arms and legs didn't cooperate without wires. I'm never keen on using wires for moulding or support, preferring to use dried pasta or the occasional skewer. Just too dangerous for children who loves to eat the sugar models. So, I had to make him sit....not a very heroic position. Little Miss, holding her bowl of Goldfish dropped in, sized up Spidey and suggested I have a villian bound by web. Brilliant! Why didn't I think of that??? This way, Spiderman can sit and "look" smug with his catch! Next was which supervillian to have. I like Sandman but you can't tie Sandman down. Then, I recalled the Green Goblin, Spiderman's most persistent foe. So there we have it, our web-spinning Spidey and his formerly-best mate, the Green Goblin.

RIO

Lovable Ayden-Jon turns 1. It seemed like only yesterday when he was just this tiny, red blob of a baby in the hospital and now he's this ankle-biter who's learnt to wave like the Queen! Children seem to grow up faster when they aren't yours don't they? Nonetheless, mum and dad threw him a big bash yesterday and requested for a RIO-themed cake. I went like "...must be your idea. Can't be your son's. He's only 1". Well, apparently, the boy will only sit still and play while RIO's on the telly! He's in awe of the whole song-and-dance in the movie and I can't be happier. Think this is much better entertainment than B....... ok, I shall stop now before I offend too many parents.
Anyway, I thought I'd bake 2 cakes since it was going to feed 50 people and tiered. We had Devil's Food Chocolate for the 9" bottom tier and Lemon Poppyseed Cake for the 7" top tier (cake finished weighing 3.8kg). The idea was for the "older" folks to have the Lemon Poppyseed Cake since it is THE cake for elders while the chocolate feeds the masses. Turned out most had both flavours and there weren't enough cake to go around in the end! Smart folks we have on this guest list.... ;-p

Twilight Saga

Let me admit this, till this day, I have not read or watch this cult vampire drama. I've heard all about it and why I say cult, is pretty obvious. The Twilight Saga has such a huge legion of fans around the world from 10-year old girls to 50-year old housewives! Fine. Edward and Jacob? Nice-looking. Great abs. Evil vs evil...I think? Romance of the century. Dramatic ending....I think? But one thing I appreciate was Stephanie Meyers' titles and the book cover-relevance. Love the simple yet strong titles, colour scheme and motifs used for each title. And with that, the cake and cupcakes turned out strikingly beautiful.

I baked a two-tier Devil's Food Chocolate to feed about 20 people and kept the design simple. The worry-factor for me was making the tulip. I'm horrid at making gum paste flowers but I think it turned out pretty close to the actual. I was just glad that the petals stayed up and didn't chip off. That cake finished weighing 2.6kg. The 40 cupcakes in Butter, Vanilla Chocolate Chip and Confetti were also kept simple. By keeping both that way, they worked together great side-by-side.

So...anyone has these books or movies to lend?

Pocoyo...again

There really isn't much to say for this 5th or 6th Pocoyo cake I've done, isn't there? Well, except that this little 2-tier Devil's Food Chocolate Cake finished weighing 1.7kg. Pocoyo Rules!!!

Euro 2012

Was on the roll for putting together cake layers that weekend...did a Vanilla Layer earlier and now a Chocolate Layer. This 12-year old boy was literary having football fever on the day of his birthday! Probably watched too many 2.45am matches. I don't know if the party went on as planned but mum sounded pretty under-the-weather as well. Nonetheless, this cake was topped with a semi-football and the Euro 2012 mascots. I made a couple of flags as the cake's side design with Spain taking the front spot. A straight-to-the-point design for a footy fan. Cake finished pretty heavy- 3.1kg...it's the fudge layer.

What A Mess!!!

This 1.9kg Vanilla Layer Cake was just perfect for the 20-year old birthday girl. Her sister and brothers can attest to the mess in her room and it's a wonder how she finds her stuffs and makes space to sleep! But all's good and this cake was for the love of their beloved sister. Birthday girl's sis had to snoop around her bedroom to dig out a few of her favourite things, photograph them and send them across to me for a close depiction of her room. She must have been on her toes and listening for the car to drive up throughout that ordeal! Every little thing you see here are hers except for the bed (and sheets)...I have no idea how that looks like. And...I love her taste in clothes, purses and shoes!

Frou Frou Ariel

That's right, frou frou....Ariel in frou frou. Mum wanted her daughter's favourite Disney "princess" Ariel in a dress not tails. Then, my daughter showed me a few Ariel-in-a-pink-ball-gown pictures from her old Princess magazines. Well, I would have done the usual cake bottom using the Dolly Varden pan but mum wanted it to be like the Princess Ballerina cake I did last year with the buttercream tutu ruffles. Riiiggghhhhhhtttt....okay! So, I piped. Started with a white petticoat, then a light pink and the actual terracota pink for the top ruffles. She looks like a Princess Ariel here but not THE Ariel. Didn't help that my face sculpting stinks. Anyway, Little Miss gave me a thumbs up so I suppose if it's pretty enough for a fussy 9-year old, it'll be pretty enough for a 2-year old! Choice of cake was Red Velvet and the 8" finished weighing 2.3kg. I also did a simply fudgy Brownie for Iman's 4-year old brother with cut-outs of his favourite Samurai Power Rangers (mask only) and their weapons. I'm not putting up the picture because all 3 shots of it were blurry. Must be my vision and hands failing me at that late hour of that long day.

Misska Mousska Mickey Mouse!

Don't even dare ask me how I know that tune on the title of this post. It's been at least 6 years since Mickey Mouse Clubhouse was last heard in this house 3 times a day...believe me, I'm glad my children are no longer that age. The tune still haunts me! Along with Little Einstein, Dora the Explorer, Jojo Circus and that little French girl...what's her name? So, here I am again scratching my head with a train-theme to work on. Mum initially mentioned Barney and I'm like..."eerrr, I don't do Barney." Then she quickly said, "How about a train?". Now, that I can do. I could have easily repeated the Thomas train cake I did previously but as usual, as the MOTH mumbles, I complicate things. Since Shane's turning 2, I wanted a train he could relate to at his age. Thomas and Friends would be more age-appropriate for 4 year olds. I Googled (where else) for trains and saw this! I never knew Mickey had a train. Duhhh...why shouldn't he? And so I built the Mickey Mouse train and a carriage behind it for this 2.6kg Devil's Food Chocolate Cake. Yes, only the train and the "ears" and no, I don't do Mickey himself, either. ;-)

Double Celebration

These mini cupcakes were baked and decorated pre-Father's Day weekend. Mum just had her second baby and like everyone of us (old and new mums), have post-pregnancy amnesia. Less intense would be to say we're a lot more forgetful and we blame it all to being pregnant...something about the baby sapping everything we have while swimming in our belly for that 9 months? Please let us continue using that excuse, we earned it. Anyway, the baby girl turned one month old two days prior and mum decides to send a box of mini cupcakes (Lemon Poppyseed) to her colleagues and have another set  for family (Lemon Poppyseed and Mocha). I assumed having to mention daddy in these cupcakes was an early Father's Day surprise? I hope so because daddy came to pick up the cakes and he was gushing with pride talking about his girls (mum included). He so deserves a special mention! 

Pocoyo & Friends

This must be at least the 5th Pocoyo-themed birthday cake I've done! Nonetheless, Pocoyo and his friends are always a colourful bunch and they never fail to light up a simple cake. This Moist Lemon Cake finished weighing a mere 1.4kg, enough to feed 8 guests.

Girl's Best Friends

What a joy this cake was to bake and design! It was for a 20-year old birthday and while all that was required on that cake was conveyed via email, I pretty much had an idea what I wanted to do for her. Instead of making  each of the favourite things and plonking them on a pink-covered cake, I decided to have a shoe box. And it wasn't any shoe box, a pink Christian Louboutin shoe box (her favourite colour's pink). My hand was shaking as I drew the logo freehand onto the cake! But it all went really well and I'm very pleased with the results. Had birthday girl dressed in a Carrie-like dress with a large flower over her right shoulder with her beloved marmalade-shade cat. The birthday girl was also well-heeled in my favourite Carnaval Louboutins. For her handbag, I chose a Chanel satchel from its 2012 collection. And finally, a string of pearls to finish this Lemon Poppyseed Cake (1.5kg).

Fruity Lollies

Why fruit lolly-theme for this 40th? Birthday girl creates whole fruit lollies for a living. Isn't that just the coolest business? She owns a little place in Hartamas where she makes real fruit (and juice) lollies. I'm promised a date there one of these days and I'm told that we can have children parties at the premises where kids create their own lollies. I think this concept is brilliant. Can't wait to visit. Back to the cake, her friends wanted a fudgy chocolate cake, so I suggested Brownies since this is a rather flat design. The design on the left is an abstract of fruits (seen here is the orange, purple and white dragon fruit, and watermelon) depicting what the whole business is about. The design on the left is how an actually fruit lolly would look like. Cut fruits in fruit juices then freezing them. This pair of Brownie-Lollies finished weighing 2.8kg.

Terrific Three

Hamzah is 3! I've had the privilege and honour of baking this little man's birthday cakes since his first (see 1st Birthday, then 2nd birthday). I'm very happy he's growing up well- happy and healthy (and cheeky-looking ;-) For the family celebration at home, I suggested the Honey Lavender Cake (2.6kg). His family's been having my cakes for years and I'd try to come up with something new every time. Glad they enjoyed the cake. Hamzah's still very fond of dinosaurs and since I've done a big green one last year, thought I'll do a mini scene this time. We've got an inactive volcano and a little lake for the backdrop. A Pterodactyl landed on the volcano, the Triceratop's awfully tired from the heat, the T-Rex is having a chat with the...wait for this....Loch Ness. I know, I know....the Loch Ness has nothing to do with the dinosaurs (my two in-house paleontologists were smacking their foreheads when they saw this) but I felt like having it there!!! I thought it'll look better than that large lizardly Plesiosaurs that are supposed to be the water dinosaurs. Plus, since Hamzah's just 3, I had all the dinos in candylicious colours. Yumm..

For the school party, Hamzah's request was for a white Ultraman cake. Ermmm...Aunty Deenie don't do Ultraman. So, the painful process of cut-outs began. A figurine would have taken me probably 30minutes. This cut-out - 90 minutes. Baked a 10" square Vanilla Butter sheet cake (2.2kg). Easy for the school teacher to cut and distribute.

Hopping into 1

Little Cavan was born a year ago under the Chinese zodiac sigh of a rabbit and his mum wanted his no.1 cake to include a couple of bunnies.I had initially wanted to do a garden scene with rabbits all around but decide otherwise because the figure 1 had to be the hero. If the cake was covered with a busy scene, guests would have completely missed the number shape. Plus, I think the garden scene would have suited a little girl instead. This Devil's Food Chocolate cake weighed 2kg.

Tribute to Coach

This cake for a swim coach was done weeks ago. I've been pretty slack with updating lately, with most of my time taken up coaching the kids on school work.Typical scene at home with mid-term exams in the horizon. Anyway, this Devil's Food Chocolate cake was shaped after the coach's training pool and I modelled 3 swimmers doing their drill. "Tiled" all around, the cake finished weighing 3.8kg That's quite a whopper!

Sleeping Beauty

First it was Cinderella, now it's Sleeping Beauty (or Sitting Beauty here, as the MOTH has christened her upon seeing the finished cake) aka Aurora (never knew she had a name). The fairytale (the one I grew up with) starts with the birth of this princess and while all the fairy godmothers in the kingdom were invited to celebrated her birth by giving blessings, one was left out. This particular fairy (ironically the one that happened to be scrawny, dark-caped-and-evil-looking) was upset and came anyway. Instead of a blessing, she cursed the princess. If I recall correctly, the princess was supposed to die at 16 when she pricks her finger while spindling. Conveniently, there was one fairy godmother who had yet to give her blessing decides to tweak the curse - the princess (and the rest of the kingdom) was to enter a 100-year sleep instead of dying at 16 when she messes around with the spindle. A good 15 years passed and while the king and queen went at great lengths to burn and destroy every spindle in the kingdom through the years, one was left in the castle....(seriously???). So, curious princess decides to check out this contraption and guess what? She pricks her finger. So, one by one, people of the kingdom dropped like flies, into a deep sleep. Fast forward 100 years, a prince "waded" through overgrown bushes of thorny roses and discovers the castle. Finds the princess, kisses her and the whole kingdom is awake! Prince marries the 116-year old princess and they live happily ever after.

I bet you, lots of little girls out there who are fans of the Disney Princesses didn't know that original fairytale. They only know of an Aurora in the the pink ball gown who was woken from her beauty sleep by a prince. Period. So, when I got this order, my immediate visual was a sleeping princess. Google Sleeping Beauty and you'll get Aurora romancing her prince, singing in the garden with birds, sitting on a chair in civilian clothes etc. Huh? Maybe there are different versions now, but I'm a purist so I stuck to the castle, the bed and the princess. Since it was for a birthday, I didn't do a "sleeping" version...we Chinese are a superstitious lot. I had the base cake castle-walled with overgrown thorny roses, a pretty royal bed and the princess sitting on her bed (just woke up with fresh-out-of-bed-Bardot-sexy hair, don't ask me how to do that in reality). Had some roses strewn around her and added a couple of birds supposedly singing birdsong of joy! Wanted to have her prince next to her and a few fairy godmothers but decided against it because 7-year old Abigail was a pure princess. No one should steal Aurora's thunder. The chocolate cake finished weighing 2.6kg.

Yabba Dabba Doo!!!

Never thought I'd hear of the Flintstones (and the Rubbles) again! Would have preferred to work this theme on a full cake compared to cupcakes though but did it anyway with these 12 Brownie Mint cupcakes. I really wanted to have the key characters in 3-D though it is much on cupcakes. Over-doing it maybe?? Anyway, we have here the usual suspects - Fred, Wilma and Pebbles Flinstone, Barney, Betty and Bam-Bam Rubble and Dino, Pebbles' pet dino. Carved on stone is the birthday wish with the two families gathered round a campfire for a little celebration.

Swim Champ Turns 13

7 Cakes with 13 Medals to commemorate young Nadia's 13th birthday yesterday (the MOTH missed photographing 1 cake....sigh). Each cake weighed between 800-900gms (6" rounds) and came in 4 flavours - Lemon Blueberry, Honey Lavender, Chocolate and Vanilla Confetti. Believe these cakes were devoured over 3 separate occasions! Just looking at those medals had me feeling tired instantly. And mind you, these are just a few of her swim medals...mum says there are boxes of them!! On my end, after spending 2 whole days on these cakes, I was dead tired. Didn't help that I had a frozen shoulder and had to push through an earlier pick-up date! Anyway, all went well (except for that 1 missing photo...grrrrr) and mum picked up the cakes on time for the birthday eve dinner.

1st Birthday

What do we do for 1-year old birthday cupcakes? All things a 1-year old would start to notice and play. These  Lemon Poppyseed, Devil's Food Chocolate and Butter Cupcakes were topped with the yellow rubber duckies, pink bunny rabbits, stacking blocks, Duplos, stacking rings, multi-coloured caterpillars ala Eric Carle, beautiful rainbows, ladybirds and colouring pages.

2012 for Perfect Score

Elira's the same age as my Young Master, 12 in 2012. This is also THE exam year for them (first of many more!). While we mums strive to not be that kiasu parent, we can't help but feel roped into this whole frenzy panic mode. I actually find myself feeding Young Master more fish (brain food) these days!! What next? Memory-boosting soups? Hmmm.....that's not a bad idea... Opps! Let's get back on track shall we? Birthday girl here celebrated her 12th with a couple of boys and girls at a bowling centre and obviously, the cake was to of that theme. I could only do that much with this theme because it's been raining and with the humidity, a busy design would have failed miserably. So, I stuck to making a figurine of Elira looking bashful or "uh oh, am I going to get a strike for perfect score?". The rest of the accessories were typical of a bowling theme. Hope the kids enjoyed the Vanilla Chocolate Fudge Cake (3kg). Here's wishing Elira all the best for the coming UPSR because 2012 is the year for that perfect score. No pressure....