Coffee (cup) Cake

 It was my sis and bil's birthday end of July and early August. Have been having joint birthday celebrations for them for the past few years.

 Bil is not a dessert person and only go for certain cake, so coffee cake was usually the choice for his (and sis') birthday cake. This was a coffee cake that was made to look like a cup of coffee.

 Fake but edible cookies, made of fondant

 With the candles to "cheer up" the cake

Birthday Valentine

Nope, it's not Valentine's Day delivery though it can be, that's why I've also labelled this Valentine's Day.. It's Valentine TTB for a birthday cake. Aunt Elvy said she doesn't know what else she wanted TTB to do.

This was for a birthday celebration in her office.

TTB on a Hokey Pokey cake - coffee walnut cake with coffee butter icing.

Something concerns me - Aunt told me that the head of TTB actually fell off when she had the cake. Hmm... so eerie I know to find a headless TTB. But this was the second time for her. Anyone of you experienced this problem with TTB? Please let me know, so far I only know that this happened to Aunt's TTB only. Strange. I lifted TTB by it's head after I made it and it didn't fall off, how come it couldn't survive the... erm... what? Car journey? WHAT caused TTB to be beheaded??? :( :(

Aunt said put a toothpick to hold the head, but I'd preferred not to because it's dangerous if I forgot to remind and someone were to bite on it. Furthermore, it would be great if the whole bear can just stick together without internal structure. BUT for Aunt Elvy's TTB in the future, all will go with an additional stick to hold the head. Hmmmphhh...

Hokey Pokey Coffee Cake

Here it is...

SSB MSN-ed for a birthday cake request. Yeah she's back in town till Monday. When I asked her what flavour, she said coffeeee... okay. I've got this coffee walnut cake recipe, and since SSB liked the name of the cake too, we've decided on it.

However, SSB asked for a smaller cake. Okay, instead of making the recipe into half (lazy to calculate the measurement), I made the full recipe, and make the remaining into cupcakes. Though, I had to admit, the "little" cake is taller than it should be, take it as a special treat and not the permanent specification of this cake :p.

The cake was baked at a relatively lower temperature, so as I thought, we got a rather moist cake, which I think should be nice - SSB let me know. The cake is reduced sugar as usual, moreover, the icing is butter icing, so will be a bit sweet if the cake is also very sweet.

Baked the cakes in two separate container, it would be advisable to do so especially with cake that's got nuts or fruits, because cutting the cake into half will be messy.

Sandwich the two parts with some butter icing.

Sprinkle with the chopped walnut pralines.

Stack the two parts together and thinly cover the cake with icing first. This will stick the cake crumbs together. If not, when you do the final layer of icing, you will see cake crumbs contaminating the icing, and if like me, the piped icing will fall off the cake.

Did the side with star shape nozzle, quite tedious, next time I will just weave the sides too. But last night I thought of reserving the weave for the top.

My "signature" weave for the surface.

Silver balls to add to the 3D effect.

Whole walnuts, birthday tag and some colour to decorate. Happy birthday uncle!!!

And the remaining for the cupcakes.