Three Weddings and a Birthday

I can't believe it's the end of Nov/beginning of Dec already. Where has 2012 gone? Maybe it is true what they say after you turn 25, time just flies! lol!

To give you an update about whats been happening at The Dainty Baker is just one word - "Weddings". It's definitely that time of year! .. and upon lengthy conversations with my cousin, who is in the process of becoming a bride, I was educated as to why this is the popular season for them. I'm going to share this newly found knowledge with you guys incase you're like me and clueless about weddings - I just do the cake part!

It is currently Spring (although only for a few more days), so the weather is warm enough yet not too hot yet. Summer is too hot (Dec-Feb), Winter is too cold and Autumn tends to rain too much... so there you have it! Sept -Dec seems the best time to get married in Australia :)

Here's the first one:

Croquembouche - This is probably the biggest croquembouche I've made to date. It was especially ordered by a bride from Hong Kong who was coming over to Sydney for her reception. It had a whopping 180 puffs. Each filled with pastry cream then constructed together with golden toffee.

Spring Delight - The top tier was a vanilla bean custard flavour, second tier - lemon curd and vanilla and the 3rd tier was a Mango, Lychee and coconut combo. The bride had peonies for her flowers, so I used this to incorporate into the design of the cake.

Isabella - The cute stripe top tier works well with the elegance of the second tier. The second tier was based off the lace of the brides wedding dress. The 3rd tier adds a bit of edge - covered in edible silver leaf. Gumpaste peonies were also used to top off the cake. Flavours of this cake include - "Little Red Riding Hood"- Red Velvet, "Americ-Amel" - Caramel & "Gianduja" - Hazelnut. 

Also, a few weeks ago... if you didn't see on my Facebook Page... my Croquembouche wedding cake got featured in Colin Cowie Weddings! I was sooo excited!! :) :) :)

In addition to these wedding cakes I also had the honor of making this veryyy cute and adorable birthday cake. It was a combination of Minions from 'Despicable Me' facing off with Pikachu from Pokemon. Each little figurine had a different expression and it was so awesome to see it come together so nicely!



Another announcement is, with the Festive season coming on we are starting to take orders for Gingerbread Houses!!

Place your order at The Dainty Baker Shop or alternatively drop me an email. But remember to hurry as there is only a select number available and you don't want to miss out!

Happy Caking!!

♥

Rainbows & Elmo

It was my cousin's baby's 1st birthday this weekend!!

She loves Elmo so her mum asked me to make some lovely Elmo cookies as a gift to give away to the little kiddies who came to her party. She's so adorable and has such a "big" attitude lol!!

I also made her a double choc sprinkles cake with an assortment of macarons to top it off too. Love the colours it was so bright and pretty which matched the birthday girls personality to the tee.

Although the sprinkles look really fun and pretty... I had such trouble making them stick to my already semi dried ganache. As a result I literally had hundreds and thousands sprinkles all over my kitchen floor lol clean up was such a painn!!!

I love Elmo!! I've also got Cookie Monster too ... will save him for another occasion me thinks! :)

Also if you haven't already heard, I finally put together my official website to go and visit it click - here. Don't worry though I will still have this blog as well for my random ramblings! :) And just a quick announcement that my last market for the year will be on the 10th November, so make sure you pencil it into your diaries!

Happy Baking!!

♥

Peaches

It was my Gran's 84th birthday this weekend. Naturally, I was going to make her cake :) Coming from an Asian background, where so much of our culture is based around symbols and meanings for everything (especially what is auspicious or could ward off bad spirits) I wanted to incorporate much of these traditions into the cake whilst making it modern and beautiful.

One main criteria of this cake was that somehow or some part of the cake would have to have a peach. For those of you who don't know, peaches are a symbol of longevity in our culture. The God of Longevity called "Sau" would often carry a peach in his hand. Traditionally, Chinese cakes called 'Longevity buns' or 寿桃, which is basically a sweet bun filled with lotus paste or red bean in the shape of a peach are made for the birthday boy/girl. I wanted to follow this tradition but not have the old fashioned look. As I had already made a giant golden peach before I wanted to do something a bit different.

Initially, I wanted to incorporate lots of red and gold because these are the colours for prosperity and happiness etc etc I wanted a dragon wrapped around the cake with a golden peach on the top. I thought this might be a bit cliche so instead I opted for a more girly, pretty design. I love the colour combo of mint green with gold, so I used this as a basis and came up with this.

It was modern and pretty yet didn't steer away from the traditional meaning and wishes we wanted to give to our Gran. All the decorations including the flowers were hand made and hand painted. The flavour of the cake was Chocolate with fresh strawberries and a lovely chocolate ganache.

 Happy Birthday Wor Ma!! Wishing you a happy, healthy and long life. 

 ♥

McChicken & Mini Me's

I made a burger cake this weekend just past and to my surprise loads of people on my Facebook page and whoever would physically listen, actually guessed right the type of burger it was! :D :D :D

It was a McChicken burger with 2 slices of cheese - the birthday girls favvvourriitee!! Let me tell you making this cake was such a mind f*ck. The whole time I was craving McChicken (the savoury one) and when I went to pipe on the "mayonnaise", I was so into it that when I tasted it, it even surprised me that it was sweet!! I can only imagine how odd this would've been for those who actually ate the cake! hahaha

The cake was my "Mango-nut" flavour. I was stoked with the rave reviews, suppose everyone loves MANGOES!!! and boy I cant wait for it to fully come into season... its still an exy $5 each at Woolworths and Coles :(

There are so many things I love about this cake, besides the fact that its a SWEETTTT BURGER!! It also has a lot of cute little figurines that reflected the birthday girl's likes and personality. Once I had finished the cake I realised.."omg, I made real life sized cakes of almost all the little figurines". Check it out .. my Mini Me's

These cute little figurines were no more than a few cms each. How cute is her little fluffy dog called Mimi! 

This is the back view of the burger... I wanted to show it because the scattered fries couldn't really be seen from the front.

I made the board look like a McChicken burger wrapper - totally edible of course! ... what do you think?

Sensible me

Real  Silly Me hehe

So tell me? Whats your favourite burger and what would you like to see turned into cake? Here are some other recent things I turned into cake :)

Glee Slushie

Dragon 

Dodge Charger

♥

Decorating Cakes

Harlo!!!

I am back from my European adventure!! (actually been back a few weeks but was so swamped with work I haven't had the chance to post!) It was great ... my goodness, 3 weeks of eating, eating more eating and of course roasting it out in France was intense, relaxing and awesome all at the same time! As per usual it went by much too quickly but before I jump into details of it all, I have to share with you all something very exciting! I received this beauuutttiful cookbook upon my return. It's a new cookbook out called "Decorating Cakes" by The Australian Women's Weekly.

Although I was totally jetlagged I had a quick flick through and was totally mesmerized by the gorgeous eye candy staring back at me. This book covers all bases from basic cake mixes recipes to cake decorations on all levels (easy, experienced, expert) and even tips and tricks/ conversion charts the lot! An added bonus is that its all just so PRETTYYYYY which makes it alot easier to digest!

It was quite difficult to choose between all the decorating options available but I decided to show 2 ends of the spectrum to demonstrate the versatility of this book. For my sisters birthday I made her a Hello Kitty Cake. I used the method for making Hydrangea's as shown on page 62-63 to add to the decorations around the cake.

This is quite an easy and simple technique to master. It makes a huge difference to your cakes by adding that extra 3d element. Simple and quick for a massive result!

Another great thing about this book is the step by step guide of how to do a certain technique. Personally, I dont like reading copious amounts of writing in order to get out what I can with a few pictures ... could be my laziness but hey "pictures speak a thousand words"!

The second technique that I learnt from this book was "raised embossing", not sure if thats what its called but that's the best way I could explain it lol. Basically its using embossed fondant on a cake then piping with royal icing over the top for that extra layer of lace look. I used it on a recent wedding cake that I made and was really happy with the results. It's more difficult than the Hydrangea flowers but its all about practice! 

Mine wasnt as fancy as the one in the book (see below) but I know with practice I'll get there! :)

     

Here are some snap shots of random pages in the book...

Its so prettily done isnt it? I love the styling in the book. I didn't get a chance to try out the recipes but there was one I had my eye on, it was the "Raspberry Hazelnut cake", sounds delish!! And... for all the recipes there's a chart for loads of different sized pans already calculated for you, so you don't even have to do any conversions or calcs! Genius!

I also forgot to mention its not just cakes. There's cupcakes, cookies, cake pops everything! A one stop decorating .. book :) Be great for a gift or even to surprise a baker.

The Australian Woman’s Weekly Decorating Cakes, ACP Books, RRP $49.95  Available from bookstores and online at www.acpboks.com.au

♥

Harry Potter!

Hello Peeps!!

Remember when I mentioned in a previous post that I had an upcoming cake that I was very very excited about?? Well I did it!! And for all those who's a bit of a Facebook junkie like me, you would have already seen all the pics plastered up.....

It was my Harry Potter cake!! Most certainly the biggest cake that I have made to date, it was such fun to make! Bradley and Hansen from Anime at Abbotsford contacted me way back at the beginning of the year about this mammoth cake. From the word go I was quite giddy at the thought of making a Harry Potter themed cake (because I am such a secret HP nerd fan). At first I thought that they meant they needed a 300-400 serve cake for a little boys' birthday who was having a Harry Potter themed party, I was thinking omg thats one popular kid...but then upon clarification I realised it was to celebrate Harry's birthday for a cosplay event.

The inital design was meant to be a Hogwarts Castle but we then decided to change it to something smaller. I was given free reign to do whatever I wanted, which was awesome because I really did go all out trying to incorporate as much HP stuff in the cake as possible.

I decided we needed a trunk, Hedwig, the sorting hat and some books. To add to the over look of the cake Harry's glasses and wand along with the Snitch and some potions were also a must. What is a kid that doesnt like sweets? So I incorporated all the funky gadgets and lollies from the movie for the final touch. I had Bertie Botts every flavoured beans, chocolate frogs and of course a Weasley & Weasley naughty gadget! - The Jinx Off.

Everything on this cake was edible. The hat was sculpted, even the box of Bertie Botts was made from edible gumpaste. I loved making this cake because of the amount of detail I could put into it.

The day went really well, Wobbles and I were dressed as Gryffindor students and ready to rock and roll!! It was such a great turn out and was such a joy to see little kids running around "attacking" the dementor hehe. There was a raffle organised where the prize was to be on TV with channel TVS cutting the cake and they also got to keep the snitch. In the end, one woman won and she had the hard job of to choosing between her 3 boys for this task.

The cake was the centre piece of the whole event and it was quite funny to see people ooo and ahhh over it. There were constant crowds surrounding the cake and through out the day you could hear people say .. "GO LOOK AT THE CAKE!!"& "OMG the cake!". There was one girl who forced her brother (who was not too interested). It was awesome to see such a positive reaction :)

When the time came to cutting the cake, I swear it felt like I was in a mosh pit. There were so many people and so many kids around that I just could not move!! Eventually, the 3 little winners of the raffle cut the cake with the TV crew exclaiming it "would be easier to film in a war zone".

I dismantled the books first, which were chocolate flavoured with chocolate ganache. Then moved onto the owl which was vanilla flavoured with white chocolate ganache. The suitcase was a hazelnut flavour. The cake served at least 450 people and there was still half of the suitcase left and the whole sorting hat left. Im sure Bradley and Hansen are still having cake for breakfast, lunch and dinner!

It was awesome to be apart of such a fun event! A big thank you to Anime at Abbotsford for organising and to Suiyi and Victor of Suictor Photography for the photos!

I'm actually currently at the airport waiting for my flight to London for the next 3 weeks... just trying to get this post done before I leave lol! So.. there wont be any cake updates for a while. But stay tuned for some London & France highlights when I get back! :)

x


Anime at Abbotsford
318 Great North Road
Abbotsford NSW 2046
(02) 9712 1418

Suictor Photography
http://www.facebook.com/Suictorphotography