Big Project at the Weekend

This is one of my biggest project at weekend for 2008. Doing 3 birthday cakes, 250 mini slices cakes and savory snack (risoles). I am glad, Mbak Sri came to help so I could give the savory snack project to her 100% and I just focused on cakes.

First birthday cake was dedicated for Ruth & Jonathan's pediatric, Doctor Purnamawati whose birthday on last Saturday, 2nd February. Together with Ruth and Jonathan we decorated the cake, it was so much fun , and we made it with full of love and respect to Bunda Wati (the way we call her).

Second birthday cake was ordered by Mom Risti, a friend from We Are Mommies mailing list who ordered 7 1/2 dozens of cup cakes last year. 4th birthday cake for Rashad with Ultraman theme. Actually Mom Risti orderd for Ultraman and Power Rangers them but I was missunderstood I though it was Naruto and Ultraman, hiks....so we just left Naruto and put the Ultraman on the cake. I am glad to hear that Rashad loves the cake & everyone on the party also.

The third birthday cake was for Petrina. Petrina's Mom, Evi, found Joris' Kitchen from browsing in the internet. The theme was Winnie the Pooh and friends and basic cake was lapis surabaya covered full with chocolate ganache.

Last order was to make 250 mini slices of cakes & chicken rogout risoles. For the cakes I combine chocolate, cheese, lemon and strawberry flavor.

cheese

lemon

strawberry

chocolate

chicken rogout risoles

I felt so good when all was done on time. Tired...but happy :-) Thank you everyone for orders and thanks a bunch for my family who always in full support.

Lapis Surabaya Chocolate Fondant BDCK

This order came from the same person that ordered 2 Lapis Surabaya Chocolate Birthday Cakes. This time she challenged me with combining chocolate & fondant (plastic icing) decoration. I took the challenge and when I did the decoration last night I decided next time I would tell my customer that it's not a good idea actually. The heavy ganache makes the fondant soft, at the same time I need to always check whether the heavy ganache will not melt while I put it outside for decoration. It's impossible to keep the cake in the refrigerator as refrigerator will destroy the fondant.

Well, even though I am not too satisfy with the result, my customer loves it and that's the important thing :-)

Lapis Surabaya Chocolate Birthday Cakes

I received order to make 2 chocolate birthday cakes with basic cake Lapis Surabaya (Surabaya Layer Cake).

The flowery one is for the woman's birthday

And the fruity one is for the man's birthday.

Barbie Cake - Plastic Icing

The idea came from the movie of The Princess and The Pauper...one of Ruth's favorite movie from Barbie' series. I love this movie too, especially the songs....very beautiful soundtracks indeed.

The theme must be pink as I dedicated this barbie cake for my lovely princess, Ruth who really loves pink. And while decorating the cake, I sang along one of my favorite soundtrack..."I'm just like you...You're just like me....It's something anyone can see....A heart that beatas, a voice that speaks the truth...Yes, I am a girl like you!"......

Plastic Icing Decorating

Second day of class was learning about Plastic Icing. Wow...I found it very interesting and I think I am in love with plastic icing :-)

First decoration, I was a bit lost but finally I could get myself to finish the decoration. One thing I've found very interesting was making rose from plastic icing was alot easier than butter cream!

But my favorite is Calla Lily! I was amazed how simple and easy to make them. They are beautiful too...no wonder Nike, my best friend who live in OR, really loves and adores this flower :-)

Again, pictures are not good. I will take better pictures of them tonight with my SLR though.

BC Decorating 1

Finally I could set time for joining Cake Decorating Class. I want to be serious in this business that's why I decided to join decorating class.

I am glad that I have made the right decision and I don't regret it at all. On the first day of the class I already received many tips and gained more decorating knowledge that I have found very useful.

Apologize for the pictures as I didn't bring my SLR and I still not familiar with Jeffry's pocket camera.

Improvement and more practice are still needed though :-)

Lapis Surabaya (Surabaya Layer Cake)

This cake is very famous and common for Indonesian as the texture is very moist, soft and the taste is yummy. But, for westerner they will need to think hundred times before consuming or making this kind of cake in their own kitchen as for one recipe you will need 32 egg yolks and 450gr butter.

It was my first time of making the real Surabaya Layer Cake. Before, I just made 3 layer of light sponge cake which contains less eggs and butter.

As customers are always number uno in any business, I must follow their demand. So, I experiment to combine 2 recipes that I've found very interesting and good to try. When the cake done, to be honest...I was amazed with the result as the cake just turned out what I expected. I haven't satisfied 100% though, I still need more advise from expertise but mostly they said for the taste my cake is good. I just need to improve the baking technic and try to use other tips given by Ci' Ine for a better baking result.

I brought some slices at work on the following day and ended up with 4 orders for this coming Friday, yeah!

Lapis Surabaya anyone??? please just give me a call or email me :-)

MUBES Cupcakes

After last December Rully ordered cupcakes for christmas, this time she ordered more for I-Radio listeners who had MUBES (Musyawarah Besar or Big Meeting) on Sunday.

She asked me if I could make various design for the cupcakes and I said "yes, I will try.."

I did some new and old designs for Rully's cupcakes.

So...here they are :

pink & blue

blue & yellow

brown & yellow

butterfly

flowery 1

flowery 2

pink & purple

pink bow

pink rose

purple flower

red cheery

strawberry

sun flower


I am glad that Rully happy with the cupcakes so did the Miners who received this cupcake gift from Rully.

Birthday Cake for Maria Christina

In the beginning of 2008, I am thankful to God that my kitchen already received a birthday cake order from colleague here at DHL Express.

Maria Christina is the boss of Operation Department whose birthday was on 1st January. Her secretary, Fong, asked me to make a special birthday cake for her boss to be sent to the office on the 2nd January.

I was a bit nervouse doing this order actually as this cake is for a boss at work and once I make mistake then my kitchen is finished. Glad that staff at operation department likes the decoration. I haven't received testemony for the cake's taste. The basic cake is made from chocolate devil cake recipe with chocolate and mint butter cream filling. And the decoration theme is pink.

Maria Christina's birthday cake

picture taken from the top

flowers around the cake

Nabila & Nanda's Birthday Cakes

By the end of this year 2007 there are 2 little girls celebrates their birthdays. Nabila, the daughter of my colleague who celebrates her 3rd birthday and Nanda, our driver's daughter who celebrates her first birthday.

Order from Nabila's mom, Cici, is a chocolate devil cake with Barbie decoration theme. Colour theme is pink and the decoration should has bridge in it. I made 3 layer of chocolate devil cake covering with pink butter cream. And the decoration came up like these :

Barbie in the small park

left, right and back side decoration

Nabila - beautiful name and I like the way writing her name on her cake

Nabila's 3rd birthday cake

For Nanda, I made 2 layers of vanilla sponge cake with filling vanilla butter cream and strawberry paletta. As Nanda is not too girly, I made animals theme for her first birthday cake.

Animals gathered in the jungle

I wrote Nanda's name around the cake


Nanda's first birthday cake

Cup cakes for Lenny

This is the last order I received for 24th December and came from my colleague, Lenny. When I did the decorating, it was already around 4:30 am and I already very lack of energy. I couldn't think of anything instead of making swirl and pouring it with sprikles...so I did it.

Glad that Lenny liked the cup cakes even though I thought it would have been easier if Lenny gave me a theme :-)

5th & 6th Orders from Peppy

Well, 5th & 6th orders from Peppy actually were steamed brownies and cookies.

I didn't take any picture of the steamed brownies as I didn't do much decorating for the steamed brownis. Peppy asked for the special ones and I am thinking that starting next year I will only do the special brownies ones as it is more fun and tasty. I decorated the packing with christmas bow to make it nicer and more special.

For cookies, Peppy ordered Mocca & Cheese Katetong (cat tounge - aka lidah kucing in bahasa) plus chocolate chips oatmeal cookies.

I only took one picture on chocolate chips oatmeal cookies.

I am glad that Peppy loves everything I made for her including doing the wrapping of christmas gift for her nephews and nieces - she ordered motif towels as christmas gift and asked me whether I could do the wrapping also. She said everything was beautiful and she thank me for that. Well, for a loyal customer like Peppy....especially as she is my very dear friend...I will do anything to make her happy and for this christmas, I've tried to do my best to make her Christmas merrier...even though it turned out a bit messy and I had to apologize for that also :-)

Merry Christmas dearest Peppy, thank you for everything!

Christmas Muffins

4th order from Peppy : chocolate chips muffin & chocolate chips oatmeal muffin with some christmas decoration of course.

There was an accident when I made the chocolate chips muffin. Maybe I was too tired so I didn't think wright and becoming careless. I put baking soda instead of baking powder to the batter and it made the muffin tasted so wrong! I realized that something went wrong when Jonathan came to the kitchen and made a little mess with pouring the flour on the floor and made fun of it. I told him to stopped and he just kept doing it. When he then trying to open the baking soda can, there I realized that I have done something wrong! Soon when the muffin done, I tried one and yes, I have made a huge mistake! Thanks to Jonathan, if he didn't make any mess on my kitchen I would have not been realized that I have done something wrong to the batter. So...I have to re-do the chocolate chips muffin and this time I really made sure that everything was right.

I was also a bit confused with Peppy request for Christmas decoration for muffin. Well muffin is for decoration - if it's decorated then it becomes cup cakes hehehehehehe...but I didn't want to dissapoint my great customer like Peppy. I decided to make a simple christmas decoration for the muffins using melted DCC (dark cooking chocolate) and pouring them with christmas sprinkles. Glad that Peppy liked it and even my colleague when seeing the muffins said that they look great and cute.

Cheese Sponge Cake for Christmas

3rd order from Peppy : cheese sponge cake

Cheese sponge cake actually is my favorite one. Sponge cake is light and soft...and to moist the cake I pour simple syrup with rhum to give it more taste. Filling is cheese butter cream and after putting the vanilla butter cream around the whole cake, pouring shreded cheddar cheese as many as you want.

To make it special as this is a christmas time, I put some simple christmas decorations and green cheries to make it look nicer. I was kind of desperate when trying to write down "Merry Christmas" greeting on the top of shredded cheese....it's sooo difficult and I had to try it more than twice. Finally I got it and eventhough it's not the best one but at least it's the best of the worst hahahahahahaha....

Chocolate Devil with Blueberry

2nd order from Peppy : chocolate cake with blueberry....and I decided to use chocolate devil cake recipe for the basic cake instead of classic chocolate sponge cake.

As this is a special occasion I made it special too for Peppy :-)

I made three layers of cake, with chocolate ganache & blueberry jam filling. For the decoration, I made chocolate toppers and put them on the cake. I keep the decoration as simple as possible. Final touch....pouring christmas sprinkles on the top of the cake.

Christmas Cup Cakes - Peppy

Peppy gave me a huge order for christmas this time and her orders really made me sleepless for two days. I really glad I could finish everything in time and even though I was a bit messy in managing the time, so far everything was pretty good.

First order : christmas cup cakes for nephews & nieces.

Peppy wants the whole cup cakes have her nephews & nieces' names and should be also individually packed as part of christmas gift.

So...here they come.....basic cake - chocolate butter cake...I decided to make christmas wreath decoration using christmas springkles and white flower from fondant

Bush -nothing to do with American Bush though... :-)

Peppy's nephews & nieces

individually packing