Kirsty's Brownies

Kirsty and Paul were in Malaysia for their vacation. Kirsty was sis' colleague and close friend when sis was back in London. Kirsty first baked this delicious brownies for sis' birthday and it had since became sis' favorite. Since pregnant, sis doesn't fancy any desserts except for chocolate stuff so far. So, sis has specially requested for Kirsty to bring a full container of brownies all the way from Switzerland, where Kirsty now lives, together with the chocolates she used to bake these wonderful brownies. Here are the "imported" chocolate which I've used for this round of baking.



I've baked these before but they were not as good. The original recipe was in Dutch and Kirsty had got it translated for me, with some modification of her own of course which makes this brownie so perfect. I am still experimenting to see if there will be any huge difference when I use different chocolate, butter, flour, or...? Just baked some yesterday and they were close. Sis said it has to be the flour. Besides that, unsalted butter is strongly recommended for brownies. It gives the fresher, melt in your mouth effect, minus the sourish taste.

The fantastic part of this brownies is the chunky milk chocolate bits. Sis has them brownies chilled at the moment so that they can be kept longer. I quite like eating these straight from the fridge actually. When you eat them chilled, they are crunchy because the milk chocolate bits are harder. At room temperature, you have these melt-in-your-mouth effect from the same chocolate bits.

I like keeping brownies in airtight cookie jar. The brownies looks delicious when they are stacked up high. Cookie jars are also perfect to keep brownies fresh.

I had a piece for afternoon tea with my dosage of coffee. Sis had three after dinner, though she claimed that I ate half of her portion.

Gave some to my official taster, the brownies taste okay, don't they?

Cupcakes with little elephant

Lyn had referred TeaRoom to her colleague, Angie for her daughter's birthday, and the original request was cupcakes with cartoons. Lyn later said that something along the line of the booties are fine and I made a teddy and a baby elephant. I suppose I can make like just the teddy or elephant faces the next time.

The order was for 50 pieces, here's the extra 14 pieces in a separate box.

Squire Kitchen 5 day Diploma - String Work

This is beautiful! Trust me. Above is the star insturctor, Rosalind performing, what I thought before I started, the impossible.

Also trust me, it's actually not difficult when you get started, so long as you have the perfect icing. Of course you also need to have a good eye sight and the temperature has to be just nice so that the icing won't turn too dry. We had to request for the air conditioning to be turned off when we were half way through because our "strings" kept breaking.

Oh, having a good mood and patience are definitely plus points. :) If you talk or laugh while pulling the strings, they will break. Can you imagine if you have less patience, try to rush it or lost interest half way? Being in a bad mood will for sure not help. So, stay calm when you do this. Haha...

Here's to show the bridge that was built prior to the string work. (forgot to take picture on just the bridge, was so into getting on with the strings...). The bridge consists of 6 layers of thin icing.

This were the best parts of my strings (can you imagine the worse parts?) where I managed to at least get some what consistent with the distance between the strings.

Huh! Just when I thought I was loosing my eye sights and the hard work is over... we needed to put little dots ON the strings. Okay... I have to admit that it got kind of fun at one point - just stay calm.

Oh before that was piping on the scallops, pearl borders... You will be so pleased with yourself when you get here. Trust me.

But of course that was not the finale. Now... Little patterns like these need to be piped (I gave up, actually my hands had given ways, so I had requested for SOS - Thank god for all the help given the other instructors! Nancy did these for me) and these were supposed to be stuck on to the cake...

Like this!

Don't you love the sight of this too? It's very classy and elegant, isn't it? (Just don't look too close at the bad workmenship).

We were told that the charges for string work is like three dollar (US dollar!) an inch. ONE INCH. Wow... but actually one might still think twice before accepting such order, even at that price.

Birthday Cake with Teddy Bear

Got a birthday cupcake order confirmed about 2 weeks ago for Shenel, introduced by Swee (Thanks!). Shenel was one very creative customers who gave me a lot of design ideas. About 3 days before the delivery, Shenel wanted another birthday cake, a whole cake. She gave me the designs which were really great and cute. The colour theme was white and pink, the favorite colours for the 3-year old birthday girl.

The cake order was a rather short notice. The cakes were ready just before delivery and the fondant on the cake was still soft. My teddy bear was also a bit wet and soft, and teddy's buttock was sinking into the cake since the fondant was not firm enough yet. The cake board was covered as well so to avoid giving long "instructions and precautions" to the customer, I decided that it was best if I deliver the cake to the party venue. Besides, I can indulge myself in arranging the cupcakes as well.

Happy birthday Xin Yi!

I got this!!!

Here is my 5 days 5 nights of hard work! :)

Squires Kitchen 5 day Diploma - 1st project completion

This is one really intensive class and one very satisfying one.

We were doing things non stop until we didn't want to go lunch. There were so much happening but I don't really have time to tell now. Need to get some sleep to get myself through another 3 full day of intensive brain and eye work!

Here are some picture of our first completed project, brought home. A cake covered with royal icing, colour flow to cover the board and same technique to make the flowers.

It's so cute and so much like a display cake till my mum didn't know whether to cut it up to eat.

Baby Full Moon - Cupcake Toppers

Here are some possible toppers for baby full moon cupcake toppers, or if made larger, for a cake.

Bootees

Mittens

Mini bib

Bib that is with more details can only be done on large cupcakes. Cupcake message can only be done on large cupcakes as well.

Having a baby

I've had plans to make these since I've learnt about sis's pregnancy. She would have to order her baby full moon gift away from me right? Haha... So happened LGM got me a lead, an inquiry for baby full moon cupcakes. I've done something for baby shower before but I wanted to introduce something special. So since I finally had time today, I made a few of these.

The mittens need to be perfected, they are not round enough so you might not be able to figure out what they are. The bibs, they need to be in brighter colour since icing is yellowish. And bigger bibs allow more details to be included.

My immediate boss is leaving, his last day is next Tuesday. Sigh... work will never be the same anymore without him.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all wonderful mums. May you be blessed with beautiful and filial kids.

Posting the Mother's Day cupcake order first and leaving the pictures of the wedding cupcake order till next.

My favorite this round is the box made for Lynn. Order came in "last minute" but delivered. Lynn being my first cupcake customer, never turn down her order. :)

Another order from a new customer, a lead from Evon (Thanks dear!). These were for her to give to her church friends.

Packed in boxes of 2 cupcakes.