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....