Easter Birthday

Birthday girl was celebrating her 10th birthday on Sunday at church and she requested to have a cake shaped in a cross. I don't have a pan shaped that way but it wouldn't be difficult to cut the cake to shape. However, I did highlight to her mum that if she planned to feed 30-40 people with that cake, it needs to be quite big and waste a LOT of cake. I think, like me, you will agree that food wastage is simply not tolerated. With that in mind, we agreed to having a cross on the cake instead. Because they were working towards Easter activities, I thought we should have a Spring theme surrounding the cross...flowers, particularly. So, that was the plan. I did a rough sketch in my head and as I did that, the cross with spring flowers on and around it, suddenly looked very morbid. Morbidly grave... The whole cake would look like a Christian grave with spring flowers growing on it. Now, if it was an Easter cake or for any religious celebration, it would have been fine but for a 10 year old's birthday- the celebration of life, I think not. I went through some youth church group representations and found this beautiful design. Easter is a celebration of life and I could have done the easiest thing like move the flowers around, add some rabbits and eggs (totally irrelevant in the church's point of view) and what not, but I wanted the cake to represent her youth. How the young represented the church. I chose colours that represented Good Friday then Easter. A cross with designs on it  that were symbolic to the belief. I believe the young lady was disappointed with the flowers missing but they had a tight schedule for the day and couldn't spare me half an hour to add some yellow flowers for her. I hope it worked out for her anyway. But I really like this design. Do you?

Christmas 2012

Christmas 2012- a simple design that doesn't steal the thunder from the full-bodied flavour of Great Bakes' Traditional Rich Fruit Cakes. Remember to book your 2013 cakes by the first week of November! Last minute orders simply can't be met because the dried fruits are plumped up a month ahead in freshly squeezed fruit juices and brandy. If you have a favourite rum or whisky and want to personalise your fruit cake flavour, send them over. For our own Christmas cake, I baked a Chocolate Fruit Cake with Tia Maria instead of brandy. It was really good and a pleasant change from the traditional cake. 

A Clinelle Christmas

Found this photo lurking in a folder of this year's Christmas cakes. Been baking so much that I've forgotten about this cake. An ex-colleague called up a couple of days before his office function checking if I was baking for Christmas. Well, yes and despite not fitting in any more cakes for the season, I had to do this for him. He's dear to me because he pretty much was the only one who supported and appreciated the fact that I was quitting my much-loved job to stay at home. The one thing I appreciated most from him was his gift of a huge and heavy organic cookbook. Organic produce wasn't something you can find as easily now as 11 years ago. That book was most informative and it was something I held on to, something I could look forward to doing while embarking on the unknown territories of a stay-home mum. I had something to work on- learn about organic produce, cooking and baking organic food for my little family. After all these years, our home diet is nearly 70% organic (it's still hard to get genuine organic products to replace everything here!) and I only bake organic breads, cakes and pies for our personal consumption. Much thanks to you, Ben for helping me set my path to wellness so early in the days when it wasn't even popular!

2011 Christmas

What a month this has been! The year-end term holidays began almost 6 weeks ago. I said to myself that  I'll slow down, give myself a real rested holiday this time round and dedicate most of those days to entertaining the children. There were enough advance party cake orders for the month and Christmas orders were expected, so I pulled the reins on further orders. 3 weeks down and I still hadn't felt the respite! My regular Christmas clients started placing their orders and by the end of the first week of December, I decided that I can't even send out my annual Christmas orders 'spam' this year! This kind of business pattern has been going on for the past year and I'm very grateful to all Great Bakes' fans for your continuous support. I thank you for being with me this year and hope to see you again next year! January 2012 is a week to go, and I'm already receiving Chinese New Year (year of the dragon starts January 23, 2012) orders! But do let me  catch my breath and catch up with my MOTH, Young Master and Little Miss this week, then bring it on!! 

Chinese New Year

Kong Hei Fatt Choy, folks!! Here's wishing you the best in health, wealth and happiness for the coming year of the Rabbit. Your support in the past year is much appreciated and thank you. Yum Seng to another great year ahead. See you in a bit!

Christmas 2010 Gingerbread Men

Forgot to include these guys into the earlier Christmas 2010 album and am still searching for photos of the other gingerbread cookies made - lost in transfer...

Christmas 2010

2010's Christmas theme for the Traditional Rich Fruit Cake was Gift-Wrapped. It was simple yet festive-looking for this little cake (6", 800gms). The moist brandied fruit cake was covered in marzipan (almond paste) before being iced with fondant and "gift-wrapped".

The Traditional Rich Fruit Cake - as it is...

I also introduced the sinful Mint-Filled Brownie Cupcakes in boxes of 6 for the festivities. They were great as table-fillers and needless to say, were yummilicious...

Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri

Pots of Blossoms

These mini cakes were made for Mother's Day this year (2010). Had to make smaller pots of cake to fit each into a standard solo window box for presentation although the original pot cake is much taller than this. The pots are filled with royal icing flowers and fondant leaves. Ratio of sugar creations to cake in this creation is 8:2!!! These mini cakes will not only be great for an occassion like this but also great for private garden weddings as favours.

Yellow Daffodils

Lavender Petunias

Chinese New Year 2010

Christmas 2009