Sweet May

May and I met at the first PME Professional course, we've since completed all 3 modules together. The most bubbly person one could ever come across, May called me this morning all concerned because I had not made an update on my blog in a while. How sweet was that, you tell me!

As I had told May, the reason was because most of the work I've been doing lately are repeats of previous work so there hasn't been anything new to feature. But time does fly past and now I do have new stuff to show.

Thanks for your call May, stay sweet and I know I can count on you for the most infectious laugh!



For Hida, the science student.



I didn't have much time to put any thought into this graduation butter almond cake. The only request was for lots of icing!










A Mummy, wife and lawyer... what a job!








Kinda obvious what this dude's interests are! *wink, wink*



Butterscotch mini cupcakes.





















Banana and walnut cake for McCann's June birthdays.

An order from England. From Graham to his daughter who teaches at the Alice Smith school.

Cakey-cakey for the DCruz family

That was how my dear friend Sue described her order when she emailed me. The cakes below were for one of their regular family get togethers, nearly 50 pax each time.



Vanilla butter cake. Sue's mum turns 70. Her cake incorporates all her interests: children, home, baking, reading, girl guides and sewing. After my royal icing course, I decided to include the recently learned smocking technique here.
Date & walnut cake. For Sue's sister and BIL's 16th anniversary. This is a new recipe shared by Beryl in England. I've not received feedback so I've no idea how this cake turned out but the 'greenies' theme made it fun to do!

Moist chocolate cake for the June babies. Here I played around with colourful glitter piping gel.

PME Professional Diploma in Royal Icing

And so I've completed all 3 Modules offered by PME, UK. What's next? The Masters certificate is so tempting but let's wait and see. However, it does give me a sense of achievement to hold the 3 diplomas and Calvin's (our sifu) words ring out loud and clear, "You are now a Cake Artists, not home bakers anymore." Wow, that will take a while to sink in!

One thing for sure, I'm no longer intimidated by sugar paste (fondant), sugar flowers or royal icing... bring it on!

I so need a new camera... among other stuff!

My Fuji Digital cam has seen better days. Followed me to Australia, Bali, New Zealand and all around here. Went for repairs twice... so what more can I ask of it? You have served me well but dang it.... I have to take a dozen snaps before it yields a clear picture!

However a replacement has to wait. I have a water tank, damaged ceiling, walls and floor to think of first (see previous post).

Just when you thought things might go smoothly...

Sometimes things just falls into place. You sell similar ideas to different clients and in one sitting you get all the toppers done and drying nicely until bake day. See below, how alike everything looks? Same colour scheme, all in buttercream.... aaah, easy peasy, right? Think again....

















Before I could really rejoice at how relaxing my weekend is going to be.... the water tank decides to burst and rain on our heads... indoors! So in between baking, I mopped and mopped, searched for a plumber.... mopped some more, all 150 gallons of water the tank held. I'm not even going to show you a picture of the gaping hole in the ceiling the plumber made to get to the source of the leak.

The sound of silence.... and hot air.

It's been a long, hot, dry and quiet past couple of weeks in my home. My beloved Ken(wood) went on a unannounced vacation (did I over-worked him?).... and I kinda followed.

Only a few orders came along the last couple of weeks. Not that I'm complaining; it must be the hottest season yet! I made all these using good old fashioned brute power before I borrowed a hand held mixer from my kind SIL.









Vanilla butter cupcakes.










Mini cupcakes in butterscotch.












Someone just wanted a good 'ol carrot cake to enjoy. I like it this way too... no fuss and no extra calories!

Chocolate indulgence

Elaine and family loves my chocolate cakes and cupcakes. And I love them for loving it! Below are all that she ordered recently and including this new addition.... Brownies!!





Chocolate cupcakes.













Moist chocolate cake.













Chocolate Mini cupcakes.










Of course there were orders from others too!


A double orange cake.












Thomas Tank & Friends edible images. A mix of vanilla butter, chocolate and butterscotch cupcakes.











My fave, vanilla butter cake.

Funny bunny

Let's just say I've always wanted to try this and finally got the chance. I'm pretty pleased with the results. The green letterings are piping gel with glitter... fancy or what?!
Now, if only I had all these branded goods in my wardrobe!

Made these for a friend's brother's 60th birthday bash. Guests thought it was part of the deco!
Oh, and I got another cake display stand in my collection! Yayy! Thanks Bhav!








Carrot and walnut cake with cream cheese frosting.
Something seems amiss with my bunny, I can't quite put my finger on it....
Anyone ...?

PME Professional Diploma in Sugar Flowers

We kneaded and kneaded, added colour and kneaded some more. We rolled, we stretched, dusted, cut, frilled, pierced, layered and screamed at our failure to create something/anything similar to what Calvin showed! *mumbles under our breath.... what did we get ourselves into?!*

The last day (graduation day) was the most taxing. We dusted, and dusted and sneezed a rainbow of petal dust. Then came the binding of the flowers. Some took notes, some didn't.... others screamed, "Calvin, help!!" But we persevered, although come 9pm some were packing up and prepared to leave unfinished. Let me give you an idea of how long a day it was, I left the place at almost midnight!

And so we all graduated, and we have pictures to prove!

































A Christmas arrangement - Poinsettias.
The strawberry and blackberry bushes.

Now where was I ......?

Gosh, it's been so long I've forgotten how to do this! No, I lie... it's a cop out for having all the pictures in a jumble! The layout usually goes awry, it always does.... I don't expect it to be any different this time. I've no idea what I'm doing wrong!

My iBook crashed. I lost everything *sob, sob* All my music, bits of info on baking and decorating, saved Bookmarks, my manuscript (did I mention I was writing a recipe book?), pictures of my works are gone (I think I have most of them here and in Flickr, so that's a consolation).

Having said all that, here are some highlights of what I've been up to.

May I present the easiest design in the world!




























Some wedding favour ideas.















Something decadent.





























For the little ones.



























A star is born. I know, that was corny....




























For the football fans.



























When you're out of ideas for kids, racing cars are always good!