Book Addiction

I am addicted with buying cake decorating and baking books. Opps!! Looking through my book shell, I realised that my cake decorating books are slowly piling up. And recently a friends of mine recommended me this online bookstore www.bookdepository.com with free delivery worldwide. After comparing the price, their books are really cheap!! Some could be 30-40% cheaper compare with the price in the bookshops here or even ebay! That gives me more excuses to get more books! I really need to practice self control to cut down my purchase!

For my dearest

Have been making a lot of cupcakes for friends’ birthday but never once I make cupcakes for my own family member! My husband celebrated his big 30 this year. His company “culture” required the birthday boy/girl to bring their own cake to the company to celebrate with the rest. So hubby thought it would be nice if I can make some cuppies for him instead of buying cake outside.
I let him decides what he wanted for his cuppies. He wants figures of his favourite things on top of the cupcakes. These are his list:
1. Soccer ball
2. Liverpool jersey
3. Figure of his favourite soccer player Gerrard – errghh, I don’t think I can do it.
4. Figure of two Samurai X characters – challenging

5. Slamdunk figure
6. Soccer shoes
I took up the challenge to do all these figures except for Gerrard’s figure. I am worry that I will turn him until some sort of unrecognised doll!
Soccer ball and soccer shoes are not too tough. These are the two items I did first.  

I have to google out the Samurai X characters and studied them in detail. It took me 2 hours at least to finish one figure of the samurai. I basically have to look at picture of the Samurai while making each part of the figure. Pretty happy with the result for Rurouni Kenshin Samurai figure, but the face of another Samurai (didn’t know the name) looks weird :(
 
I am pretty happy with Slamdunk figure too.
The rest of the cuppies is just with happy birthday wording, but I am not too happy with the design, looks messy and the colour coordination of the cupcakes are not too good. An area for me to improve on.
Happy birthday darling…glad that you like the cupcakes and thanks for your support always! 

30th Birthday Cupcakes

Few days after I sent out Sugar Rattle’s brochure and web site, Jo from my church life group sent me an email wondering whether I can make her 30th birthday cupcakes. It was a last minute order, less than 2 days to prepare but I took up the order. My pleasure to make the cupcakes for this lovely friend of mine. She wanted 34 vanilla cupcakes, with very simple buttercream design.
I am not too good with buttercream pipping, so I tried to add in some fondant design in some of the cupcakes. There’s 3 designs all together. Most satisfied with the fondant covered cupcakes. They are covered with white chocolate fondant and I draw some pattern on top of the fondant with icing.
 
I put chocolate ganache swirl for the 4 cupcakes in the middle and cover with a “Happy Birthday Jo” fondant plat.
Was not too happy with the overall result but Jo is so kind to give me a very positive compliment. Thanks Jo! I will try harder to sharpen my skill in buttercream decoration.

The Wong’s birthday

Our twin friends turn 30 and they had a celebration together with their brother at the same time. Coz of the bub we can’t make it for the birthday dinner, so I did some birthday cuppies for them. I used the design from Planet Cake. The faces didn’t turn out too good. Maybe that’s one of the reason why the Wongs’ can’t figure out which cupcake face is for who.

Born of Sugar Rattle

Amelie’s birthday cupcakes really give me much more confidence and confirmation to kick start my cupcake business. Weennee from Love-A-Cupcake once told me, as long as I have passion, I already win half of the battle. Yes, I have the passionate to make beautiful cupcakes for people. After much discussion with hubby, we decided to “JUST DO IT”! I passed the most important job to my husband – to think of the business name! He wanted a name which is totally not related to cupcakes. He thought it would be boring to have a name like “xxx cupcakes” or “cupcakes of xxx”. So ta-da, here comes “SUGAR RATTLE”. Maybe he got the idea from seeing the smile in our daughter’s face playing her rattle everyday? But I love the name. Hope our Sugar Rattle will be able to bring the smile to people’s face like how my daughter’s rattle brings the smile to her face!

Here’s how the web site looks like. Feel free to browse through.

  www.wix.com/sugarrattle/sugarrattle

I yet to set up the domain for the web site. Will update when I set up the domain.

First official order!

Since the last cupcakes I made, I haven’t been making cupcakes for very long, properly due to hectic schedule, then pregnancy after that the baby. After the bub, I have been hoping to work from home, however, due to my work nature, it is pretty hard. Hubby and some friends keep encouraging me to start up my cupcakes business as they think I will do well with it. However, looking at so many excellent cupcakes sellers out there, I just don’t think I am good enough to sell my cupcakes. Anyway, few months ago, Suzanne approached me, asking whether I am interested to do Amelie’s 1st birthday cake, she wanted to be my first customer for my future business. Without any hesitation, I said “Yes”! I was very excited to come out with nice beautiful cake for little cute Amelie!
Suz wanted vanilla cupcakes with lemon curd fillinh. She suggested to have Amelie’s figure and dog on the cake & cupcakes since Amelie loves dogs. The rest of the cuppies can be just simple flowers design. As usual, I did my research online and learned to do the dog figures from the net by Wayne and Aine. The rest of the flower cupcakes, I adopted some ideas from Kylie Lambert, my favourite cupcakes maker.
I started doing the little girl and dog’s figures one month earlier just in case I can’t get it done on time. But to my surprise I didn’t spend much time on them, maybe like 10-15 min per figure. I am pretty happy with them.

I did the flowers after that but they are just the simple flowers. Not much time spent on that. Next I did some bees and lady bugs to put on the mini cupcakes for the little kiddo and also some on the top cutting cake.
 
5 designs of cuppies look like these:

   

I think the most challenging part for me is to cover the top cutting cake with fondant. This is my first time covering cake with fondant! There’s possibility that I will tear the fondant, or fondant too thin or too thick. Thanks to the video guide from Planet Cake, I learned some of the technique from them. I covered my cake with a layer of chocolate ganache before hand (which was taught in Planet Cake book). It helps a lot to smoother the cake surface before covering. I really thank God that I am able to cover the cake without making a big mess out of it even though the fondant is a bit dry. I know I can’t do it alone without prayer. Here is the final product of the top cutting cake.
 
I am glad everything turn out well, and the Toh’s are very happy with the cakes. I also received a lot of positive feedback from the guests of the party about my cupcakes. It gives me more confidence to consider starting my cupcake business.
Thanks a lot Suz & Derrick for taking the risk and giving me this great opportunity to practice. And also thank you little cutie Amelie for enjoying my little cuppies!

P.S Thanks to Keng for his photography on the flower cuppies! Your photography skill make my cuppies look so yummy!