Olivia's 4th Birthday

Olivia has always wanted a "princess cake".  She was very vague about what a princess cake actually represents but one thing is clear - it must have some Disney princesses.

So we went a-hunting for Disney princess tiny figurines and found the ridiculously expensive things at Toys R Us.

I debated for some time whether to have a daisies cake or a princess cake, so decided to combine both.

The cake is a simple marble cake, but instead of marbled chocolate, I used pink food colouring and strawberry flavouring (gasp) to make a pink marble cake.  Icing was chocolate ganache in the middle and blueberry jam spread thinly all over the cake to help the fondant stick.

Happy 4th Birthday my Darling Olivia!! 

Chinese New Year 2012

The year of the Water Dragon (Chinese New Year 2012) is upon us.  How time flies.

Through years of tradition which my extended family meticulously follows, we start off early in the morning from the parents' home (after the tea and well wishes) then make our rounds to relatives' houses in a pre-determined and agreed order.  One "critical" part of these CNY visits for my family are the house gifts. One can't pay the visits empty handed so people bring small gifts such as an assortment of mandarin oranges, peanuts, some snacks. Its a pretty meaningful gesture that also sorta develops into a tradition. For example, my brother in law always brings the Chinese BBQ meat and meat floss, or my good friend and god sis always brings some fancy imported snacks and inevitably a health product for my parents.

For the last 2- 3 years, I wanted to do something different for the gifts and have been gifting cupcakes with lovely CNY toppers, ordered from different persons each year.  Unfortunately, it always looks very nice on the outside but the cake itself leaves much to be desired unfortunately.

This year, I decided to make my own cupcakes.  3 different types of cakes (banana, red velvet and carrot) with 4 varying designs.

Tried it out 2 weeks before CNY by making the said cupcakes for the teachers in Sri Nobel.  Turned out ok - see pic below.  The frosting is simply butter, icing sugar and lemon for the red velvet and carrot, and chocolate icing for the banana cupcakes.

Ran out of red writing icing so used gold instead..... big mistake

For CNY, I started making the cupcakes 1 day before CNY, but the toppers were made approx 1 week prior.  I really like the daisy toppers as they looked really sweet.

Had some pretty good feedback and think my relatives enjoyed the cakes so I'm pleased.  I'll most certainly do it again.

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR 2012