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?

Traditional Chinese Birthday

This cake was supposed to be done last year when the client's grandmother was 85 years old. Couldn't do it then because it was the term break and we were away. Another simple cake just for symbolism, we had a 1.2kg Marble Cake adorned with the Chinese character for Longevity (Shou) and 9 longevity peaches to represent long life.

Superheros

Made a batch of these Superhero-themed cupcakes for a 3-year old's birthday recently. Like Mickey Mouse and Barney, I can't replicate any of these guys well enough to have someone pay me for! I know...it's my pair of eyes...they're flaw-finders. The first time I did some kind of "hero" was Buzz Lightyear and he was awful! He really looked like Sylvester Stallone- disfigurement + botched plastic job. Kid didn't see it that way but I did and I'm sure you do. I kinda vowed I wouldn't even try anymore because it was so frustrating until last year....my nephew's 4th birthday. He wanted Spiderman and he got it. Spidey turned out ok because his face is plain oval with a web design. So, that's pretty do-able but my kids still thought he looked off. Samer's mum called for cupcakes with a superhero theme and of course, we both knew we were going to stick to logos. These Apple and Walnut Cupcakes were supposed to sit on a cupcake rack anyway, so we can't have any 3-D figurines sitting heavily on the cupcakes. The cupcakes were nice and fluffy despite the chunks of apples and walnuts in them. Apparently, the young ones went straight for Spiderman, Batman, Superman and Ironman. Don't think they recognised Captain America's shield, Green Lantern, Flash or the Fantastic Four...

Mickey Mouse

Here's a cake theme I don't fancy doing. Mickey Mouse. Like Barney, this mouse rubs me the wrong way. Maybe it's the voice or I don't know, his outfit?? But again, the main reason I don't do cakes like these is that these characters have very distinctive hard-to-replicate features. If you Google for Mickey Mouse cakes, you'll see what I mean. Lots of sugar figurines of this very famous mouse are disfigured. I am sure there are very talented sculptors out there who can do a brilliant job on this guy but that's not me. I've rejected a fair share of cakes for this theme but I do have very kind clients who compromise because they love the cake itself. How it looks is secondary. So, I decorate such cakes this way (1.7kg Chocolate Cake) or in its clubhouse format where I add Mickey cut-outs or the client buys a toy Mickey and plonk it on the cake. That would be ideal. By trademark laws, we're not even allowed to reproduce syndicated characters. We can be sued!

Zonked-Out Teen

Another young teenager celebrating a birthday! This young lady's the same age as my Young Master. She accepted a scholarship to do her high school education in a boarding school and according to her mum, she's been hard at work. So much to do and so little time. I stalked mum's Facebook account for photos of her checking-in to boarding school early this year and found a few useful pictures. I baked Dark Chocolate Brownies in a loaf pan and modelled it to look exactly like her dorm bed. Matched her plain white sheets, blue blanket, orange pail of dirty laundry and her purple backpack. It was a typical scene of  in her dorm (well, I assumed that but I'm sure it isn't as messy. But what's the fun if we mums aren't a bit dramatic??!) So, I visualised piled-up laundry to be done, lots of homework to finish, books to study from, skipping meals and snacking on junk, music blaring through earphones. I really enjoyed working on this cake.

The Dark Chocolate Brownies all dressed up, weighed 1.7kg.

Totoro

Seriously.....don't ask me what this is. I have no idea at all. I don't know what this Totoro character is except that it's a Japanese anime creature. I didn't even Google for more information because the birthday girl was super efficient. She wanted this design for her 30th birthday because it was her favourite character (she has it in various forms as her bedmates). She wanted Totoro in its 3 age phases to stand on a bed of leaves next to a bus stop sign. As simple as that. I was really worried about getting Totoro's look right because she absolutely loves it for its cute factor. So, imagine if I botched its face and cuteness turns into plain ugly! And yes, while it may not look much to do but the face can go wrong in so many ways. She sent me pictures after pictures of Totoro and highlighted that each age phase has to be proportionate...yeah, more pressure. Thankfully, the whole cake was decorated without a hitch and it turned out pretty cute! This Chocolate Cake finished weighing 1.8kg.

Girly 12th Birthday

This young lady grew up before my eyes. Unbelievable that she was just this 8 month old who used to toddle with my son not long ago...least it didn't feel that long ago. She is now a beautiful 12-year old and from what her mum has requested to be highlighted on these cupcakes, I'd say she's like every teenage girl who loves her make-up, boy band and all things girly! These chocolate cupcakes came in two sizes to make up this presentation. I made girly hair combs, sunnies, teenage magazines, jewelery, make-up, nail polishes etc. Point was to make it colourful and not too serious....like teenagers.