Ho Ho Ho Merry Christmas Santa Cake

HAT BOX HANTARAN CAKE

This cake was ordered by the groom's side as a hantaran cake for the bride. The hat box and the lid is made of rich sugee cake.The bottom tier is chocolate pound cake, filled with chocolate praline mousse. The cake is covered in dark chocolate fondant and embellished with edible crsytals. Flowers,bows and butterflies are hand made in gumpaste. Dowels are inserted in the bottom tier to support the hat box cake.

There will be no posting until after Christmas as I'll be flying off to Pulau Langkawi for a holiday. Hope get away far from this maddening crowd and relax a bit. Then I'll be flying off to Singapore to attend a relative's wedding reception.

I take this opportunity to wish christians all over the world a blessed Merry Christmas.

EDIBLE CRYSTAL CAKE FOR A 50TH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY

My client wanted to order a cake to celebrate her parents 50th wedding anniversary. She wanted the cake to be special as she and her family will be relocating to another state soon. I suggested to her to make a 2 tiered cake and decorate with edible crystals around the cake, with applique decorations and Roman pillars to make the cake look unique and special. The first tier is our popular walnut butter cake and the bottom tier is American chocolate cake. I used lace with hanging crystals to decorate around the cake instead of ribbons. My client was ecstatic when she laid eyes on the cake and thanked me for making her parents 50th wedding anniversary so special. I presented a small box of couverture milk chocolate (foc) to be given to her parents. It was a small token from PG Cake Craft to a wonderful couple. I sincerely hope that Mr&Mrs R will have more anniversaries like this with their wonderful children.

WHITE CHOCOLATE MUD CAKE WITH FERRERO ROCHER GANACHE FILLING

This cake was ordered by a group of friends for their friend's 24th birthday. They wanted a chocolate flavoured cake as the birthday boy was a huge fan of chocolate. I suggested to make a white chocolate (couverture) mud cake and fill it with ferrero rocher ganache. They liked the idea of mixing the white choclolate cake with the dark ganache ferrero rocher filling. The decorations were kept simple as it was for a guy but the brightly coloured fondant stars and semi circles on the chocolate fondant looked attractive.

TUXEDO 'HANTARAN' CAKE

packed in cake box


moist vanilla butter cake
chocolate velvet cupcakes with modeling chocolate flowers

This is among several cakes that we have been making at our cake decorating centre. It is quite a big cake weighing more than 3kg. The flavour is moist vanilla butter cake and filled with strawberry preserve. The cake is covered with modeling chocolate (plastic chocolate) which we make at our centre. Modeling chocolate has become a favourite with my clients as it taste better than fondant and has less issues with the weather.

My client asked me to make a cake for her daughter's engagement which is to be given to the groom's side as 'hantaran'. She asked us to make a red tuxedo as it was their colour theme. I expalined to her that a red tuxedo will not look nice as the groom was attached to the corporate sector. But to stay with their theme colour, I suggested to put a red rose flower as a corsage and also add red strawberries around the cake. The bride came to collect the cake and she was very pleased with it but she felt sorry that she could not taste the cake as it will be taken to Kedah (her fiancee is from Kedah). I told her not to feel sorry as I made some cupcakes for her from the same batter.These are some small gestures that we often give our clients to show our appreciation. Her mother called me to thank for the beautiful cake and booked us to make her daughter's wedding cake next year.

Sometimes taking a cake order is not that simple because at PG CakeCraft, we believe that the cakes we make must match with the theme of the occasion. If a client is wrong in her or his selection, we will explain to them and give them an alternative design but with their original concept in mind. We do not simlpy cover our cakes with white fondant and put ready made Indonesian sugar flowers and sugar beads (manik). Most of our cake decorations are meticulously designed and made by hand.

MY WEDDING CAKE HAS BEEN CHOSEN TO BE FEATURED BY SQUIRES KITCHEN, LONDON !!!

I recieved an email today from Rosalind Chan, the CEO of ICCA (Wilton Training Centre)informing me that the wedding cake that I made during my Squires Kitchen Professional Wedding Cake diploma course was selected to be featured in the January 2010 issue of The Wedding Cake A Design Source Magazine. I'm extremely happy and proud that my cake was chosen to be featured in a UK magazine and which will be sold worldwide. I was really suprised when I saw my cake in the draft copy of the magazine that Rosalind attached with the email below. I will try to post the attachment that Rosalind emailed to me when I figure out how to do it. Anyway I will definitely place an order for the magazine. Meanwhile congratulations to me for reaching this milestone in my cake decorating endeavour. Below is the email sent to me by Rosalind Chan. Thank you Rosalind for helping me achieve this recognition and honour.




CONGRATULATIONS!



Congratulations to those whose cake entries have been selected by Squires Kitchen in their next January issue of The Wedding Cake A Design Source Magazine. The magazine will be published and released for sale worldwide in January and ICCA will definitely have available these magazines for those interested to purchase at the end of January 2010. Please put your orders in if you are interested.



Again my sincere congrats to all the successful entries. A draft copy of the actual pages of the magazine sent to me by Squires Kitchen is attached for your information.



If you have any queries, let me know as I am in KL now until Dec 21. Take care and Happy Decorating.



Rosalind Chan,

CEO & Founder,

International Centre of Cake Artistry Sdn. Bhd.,

1-1 to 1-3A, Jalan PJU 5/15, Dataran Sunway,

Kota Damansara, 47810 Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia.

Tel: 603-6140-8835

Fax: 603-6142-1501

Email: rosalindchan@rogers.com

Website: www.rosalindscakeartistry.com & www.2decoratecakes.com

NO MORE CAKE ORDERS UNTIL 2010

I regret to inform to our valued customers that we cannot take any more orders for cakes until Christmas as there are too many orders to fulfill. For those who like to place orders for cakes, please do so in mid January 2010. I have only two part-time bakers to help me at my baking centre and we work only in the evenings and on weekends.
For classes, please be informed that we will not be publishing our class schedules or class photographs as there has been too many cases where my classes are copied by other home based decorators. Please use the form on your right to register for the courses that you are interested and I will follow up from there and inform you when we will conduct the courses. Our courses will also be limited to a few classes a month because I'm in the midst of opening a new business and will be occupied with it but will try to find the time to have classes as I'm very interested in cake decorating. For those who are ordering cakes, you can use the form on your right or email to me. We also like to kindly inform to those who are enquiring about renting our cake stands and tiers that these items are not for rent as they are custom made and are quite expensive.

CHOCOLATE JAFFA CAKE FOR HOUSE WARMING PARTY.

This cake was ordered by a client who wanted to have a house warming party in her new house at Cheeseman Road. I suggested to make a cake with a house and garden with a 'welcome banner' to portray the theme of the party. It is a chocolate jaffa cake filled with chocolate bavarian cream. The house and butterflies are made of gumpaste and the rest is made of fondant.

CREATIVE CUPCAKES CLASS

These are some of the cakes decorated by Shanti. The rest was taken by her sister before I could take the picture. Her sister was in a rush as she parked her car in a no parking zone.

Actually our Ceative Cupcake will be HELD on the 21st November (Sat.) but a student, Shanti called me to have a private class on Monday because she will not be to take leave on Saturday. Normally we do not give private classes but I could not say no to Shanti as she was very eager and enthusiastic to attend the class. The class started at 11am and finished around 5pm. Shanti was a quick learner and was able to pipe her decorations after some practice. She also learned to mould some fondant and gumpaste figures. Shanti was taught to make 4 different types of buttercream, including one buttercream which does not melt or smudge easily. She also learned to make our Moist Chocolate Sponge cupcake.

For Saturday's class (21/11/09), there will be a bonus - Students wii be taught how to make a cupcake bouquet.

For those who are interested in our Creative Cupcake class on this Saturday (21/11), please call me at this number 016-4753114 or send me an email.

OUR 3 TIER WEDDING CAKE CLASS IS ON THE 19TH DECEMBER. YOU WILL LEARN HOW TO COVER YOUR CAKE IN FONDANT AND STEAM BUTTERCREAM. LEARN HOW TO STACK AND CONSTRUCT TIERS.MANY OTHER NEW CAKE DECORATING TECHNIQUES WHICH I LEARNED IN MY SQUIRES PROFESSIONAL DIPLOMA IN WEDDING CAKE COURSE WILL BE TAUGHT IN THIS COURSE. PLEASE REGISTER EARLY BY SUBMITTING THE FORM ON YOUR RIGHT.

NADIA'S PRINCESS ARIEL BIRTHDAY CAKE

This cake was ordered by my client for her daughter's seventh birthday. Her daughter Nadia, likes Princess Ariel and wanted her birthday cake with Princess Ariel. Since her mother told me to come up with a design, I decided to decorate the cake with a mermaid and ocean theme. The base of the cake is a moist chocolate sponge cake and the 'rock' is also the same batter but baked in a pudding mould. Decorations are made with buttercream, royal icing, chocolate fondant and gumpaste.

MOIST CHOCOLATE SPONGE CUPCAKES

This was ordered by a client for just a 'makan-makan'party with friends on Saturday night. The cuppies were very moist and spongy in texture. I topped the cuppies with a special ganache made with couverture chocolate. My assistants made the blossom flowers ( which were made in chocolate modeling paste). My client asked me to pack 6 cupcakes separately to be given to her boyfriend.I rushed with the 18 cupcakes as there is another order for a Princess Ariel cake to be delivered tomorrow. The cake is also made with same moist chocolate sponge cake batter, so my assistants and I have just to do the decorations only. Luckily, this client asked me to come up with my own design for the cake with Princess Ariel as the theme.

CHOCOLATE FONDANT BOW CAKE

This cake is for a client who ordered it for his wife's birthday. He came to my center and we had a discussion and finally after browsing through some cake pictures, he settled for a cake decorated with a bow. He did not want any flowers as it seemed too common, although I told him that we make our own sugar flowers.The cake itself is a moist vanilla cake filled with vanilla bavarian cream( I used real vanilla pods which my niece brougt from Switzerland). The aroma from the vanilla was pleasently sweet and it is very different from the vanilla essence which we commonly use. I have ordered another batch of vanilla bark from my brother who is now in London for a holiday with his family. Insyaallah, we'll be going to London and to Europe in a couple of months time and hope to bring more vanilla barks. We did not join my brother and his family now as I do not like the extreme cold of winter. Anyway coming back to the cake, I covered the cake with chocolate fondant which we make at our center. This chocolate fondant is really delicious as it is made with couverture chocolate. The birthday greetings are made from green modeling choclate and I used a clay extruder gun to mould the letters. The words are attached to the cake board with some royal icing. A very labour intensive cake but nevertheless a fruitful one because my client was exremely happy when he saw the cake. I will be teaching to make this cake and also the chocolate fondant in our upcoming classes. So please keep visiting my blog for more updates.

BABY SHOWER CAKE

This order is from a client who wanted to have a baby shower for her daughter's son. It was to be small family affair but a special one, so I suggested to her of putting a gumpaste baby shoes as the cake topper. I had to explain to her that the gumpaste shoes are not to be eaten and it can be kept as a momento for an indefinite period of time. She was overjoyed of being able to keep her grandson's baby shower shoes and agreed to my suggestion. The cake is orange yogurt cake and filled with orange buttercream. I flavoured the fondant (which we make at the center) with some orange oil to give a hint of citrus flavour to it. I made the baby shoes with gumpaste and it took nearly three days for it to be completely dry.

CLASS SCHEDULE FOR NOVEMBER 2009

7th November (Sat.) CHOCOLATE & TRUFFLES CLASS RM220.00
(10.30am-6.00pm)

14th November (Sat.) FANCY COOKIES CLASS RM80.00
(10.30am-5.00pm)

21st November (Sat.) CREATIVE CUPCAKE CLASS RM150.00
10.30am-6.00pm)

These are the only classes that will be held for the month of October as we have quite a number of cakes, chocolate and cookie orders from our customers. Most kindergartens are having their annual school concerts and orders for lollipop cookies are starting to fill in and so are the wedding cakes and favour orders. Therefore we could not have much classes this month and I prefer not to have classes on Sunday as it will be our off day. If you have any request for other classes please submit the form on your right and I will arrange the class for the following month.

CHOCOLATE & TRUFFLES CLASS - these are following topics that will be covered

1) history on chocolate and the production various type of chocolate like dark, milk and white couverture, compound and Belgian chocolate.

2)Chocolate making process and techniques.
i)tempering chocolate without using tempering equipment
- tempering couverture chocolate
- melting compound chocolate

ii)Moulding chocolate in creative designs - techniques
- marbling
- drizzling
- brushing

3)Dipping chocolate -
- strawberry tuxedo/wedding gown and wafer decorating
- chocolate coloring
- lollipop ( 3 techniques) - couverture, oreo, color

4)Chocolate transfer - to create unique & beautiful designs on chocolates

5)Truffles -using oreos and hazelnuts

6)Almond Rochers & Chocolate Clusters

7)Delicious praline filling : recipes and hands-on making strawberry and mocha pralines

8)Chocolate Card ( making a greeting card from chocolate without using Indonesian mold)

9)name & address of chocolate suppliers given to get you started to make homemade chocolate

10)packing, pricing and marketing plan of your homemade chocolate

250 g raw couverture chocolate will be given free to take home to practice.




FANCY COOKIES cLASS - there will be a hands-on making of the cookie dough.

- Our recipe for crispy and tasty cookies will be given

- students will be shown the different types of molds available in the market

- 2 types of cookie icing will be taught and how to use these icing to decorate cookies

- run-outs technique will be taught

- a special fondant used to decorate cookies will also be taught.

- each student will be given 12 cookies or more to decorate

BONUS students will be shown how to make a COOKIE BOUQUET, suitable to be given for mother's day, valentine's day, aniversaries, etc


CREATIVE CUPCAKE CLASS

- learn to make super moist chocolate cupcakes

- learn to make 6 types of frosting to cover and decorate your cupcakes

1) buttercream that will not melt or smudge easily (tak comot),
suitable for Wilton rose, flowers, designs and borders
ii)buttercream which is suitable for free-hand drawing, filling & writing
iii) buttercream that is made with krimwell

2) royal icing made with meringue powder

3) royal icing made with egg whites

4) Buttercream that looks and tastes like whipped cream

5) super smooth and delicious ganache

6)use fondant and piping jelly to decorate your cupcakes.

Students will get 16 or more cupcakes to decorate

BONUS: STUDENTS WILL BE TAUGHT HOW TO MAKE A CUPCAKE BOUQUET, suitable to be given for birthdays, mother's day, valentine's day, teacher's day, etc.

Please register using the form on your right at least 3 days before the commencement of our class to facilitate preparations. Alternatively, you can send me a SMS at 016-4753114


For those who have submitted their names for our wedding cakes class, please be informed that our 3-TIER WEDDING CAKE CLASS WILL BE HELD NEXTH MONTH. In this class, students will be taught to make the best fondant and gumpaste. Different cake decorating techniques will be taught. Gumpaste flowers like the roses, blossoms, jasmines,leaves and two coloured ivy leaves will be taught.

SQUIRES KITCHEN PROFESIONAL WEDDING CAKE DIPLOMA

I have just returned from ICCA, Kuala Lumpur after attending the Squires Professional Wedding Cake Diploma course. It was a hectic 3 days course where our classes started at 9.00am sharp and ended around 7.30pm.By the time I reach my hotel, I will be too exhausted even to have my dinner.I also had the misfortune of cutting my finger accidently when I was cutting my styrofoam with a sharp knife. The cut was quite deep and luckily Adlina gave me a band aid. In a way my wound hindered me when I was piping the top tier with scrolls. But what can I say, it is all part of the game.

Rosalind taught us alot of new cake decorating techniques. She also taught us to carve a pillow cake and we also made sugar paste flowers. We were also taught how to make a flower spray and how to assemble our flower spray creatively on our wedding cakes. All the students who attended the course were really skilled cake decorators. They came up with many outstanding cake designs and I felt really happy to have attended this course as I learned so much from them.I can safely say that i'm now more equiped with the different and latest techniques in cake decorating.

There will be an entourage to the Squires Kitchen in London in March 2010 for a cake competition and Malaysian cake decorators are invited to join under the umbrella of ICCA. A few of my friends and I have decided to join the entourage to London. In fact on the second day of our class, Rosalind recieved an email from the Malaysian ambassador in London saying that he was very proud of the Malaysian cake decorators and he'll be there to join us.This invitation is opened to students of ICCA and if anyone is interested, please contact ICCA for more details. I think they have the details in their website.

Prior to my departure to KL on Sunday, we had a Creative Cupcake classs on Saturday. This class was attended by 11 wonderful and talented ladies and I really had a good time teaching them the basics of cup cake decorating. All of them took less than half an hour to learn the technique of piping the Wilton rose flower. I'm sorry to say that I totally forgot to snap pictures of the class because there were so many students present and I was too engrossed in conducting the class. In this class, students were taught about 6 types of icing, 3 types of buttercream of which one will be not smudge and melt easily. 2 types of royal icing, a type of buttercream which looks and taste like whipped cream but need not be refridgerated. A delicious ganache was also taught and my students had more fun licking the ganache than decorating with it. To all my students, I wish to convey my heartfelt thanks for attending my class. Most of them are waiting to join my Wedding Cake Class which will be held soon.

Lesson learned :- snap pictures of students before and after class so as to ensure that i'm not carried away teaching. I must also make sure to put my camera in my apron pocket. The other day, my camera was kept in my handbag and I forgot about taking photos.

CLASSES FOR OCTOBER 2009

Our October classes will start on the 24th October(Sat)and the first class is Creative Cupcakes. In this class students will learn

1) how to make moist chocolate cupcakes

2) how to make smooth & shiny buttercream(for free hand drawing/piping and filling-in)

3) how to make a special buttercream which does not melt or smugde easily (tak jadi comot). this buttercream is suitable to pipe flowers,designs & borders on your cupcakes. the buttercream is hard but you can bite into it.

4) how to make royal icing & smooth shiny ganache

4) learn how to decorate your cupcakes with fondant,ganache, piping jelly and edible image.
As bonus we will give 4 cupcake recipes

By attending this class you will be guided through all the rudiments of baking delicious cupcakes and decorating them creatively with all the different medium of icing and decorations. You too can develop your talent in cupcake decorating to something rewarding by taking orders from customers. Call me at 016-4753114 or submit the form on you right with all your particulars to attend our class.

Our popular Chocolate Making Class will be held on the 31st October (Sat)due to a large number of requests from students. Please be advised that we have revised our fees for this class to RM220.00 due to some new additions in our module. Our new module is as follows and the new lessons are in italics.


1) A history on chocolate and the production various type of chocolate like dark, milk and white couverture, compound and Belgian chocolate.

2) Chocolate making process and techniques.

i) tempering chocolate without using tempering equipment
- tempering couverture choc
- melting compound choc

ii) moulding chocolate in creative designs using various techniques
- marbling
- drizzling
- brushing
- dipping chocolate - 2 techniques ( strawberry- tuxedo/wedding gown and wafer decorating )
- coloring chocolate - creatively to make designs

iii) lollipop ( 3 techniques) - couverture, oreo, color

iv) chocolate transfer using transfer sheets

v) clustering ( new technique)

vi) dark choc mint

3) delicious praline filling : recipes and hands-on making strawberry and mocha praline

4)Making of Chocolate Card ( making a greeting card from chocolate - not using Indonesian mold !!!)

6)name & address of chocolate suppliers to get you started to make homemade chocolate

7)packing, pricing and marketing plan of your homemade chocolate

Free packing items

250 g raw couverture chocolate will be given free - to take home to practice

OUR NEW CLASS MODULES

Princess Bella Cake
samples of cupcakes decorated in fondant, gumpaste and royal icing
single tier cake decorated in fondant and royal icing

We will be introducing more new modules in our cake decorating classes as per our students requests. For example, in our doll cake class , students will be taught how to bake a cake using the Wilton wonder mould. They will also be taught how to make the best fondant and how to cover the cake smoothly. Students will then be taught how to decorate their cake with different techniques like frills,embossing, bows, lace, flowers, etc.This is a one day class and our students will learn a lot of techniques. If you are interested to join any of our cake decorating classes, please fill in your particulars in the form on the right column and submit to us. We will then email to you with further details our class schedules. All our classes are limited to 6 students as we emphasize on giving individual attention.

Bonus for our doll class: Students will be shown how to decorate a Barbie Cake with Kebaya using buttercream and royal icing.

CHOCOLATE TRUFFLES

Chocolate Truffles

We will be teaching how to make chocolate truffles in our chocolate making class. Since home-made chocolate has become popular with chocolate enthusiasts, we decided to add some new recipes in our chocolate class module. In this class,our students will learn how to make delicious truffles sitting inside pretty and colourful shells. These shell enclosed truffles are suitable to be given as gifts for birthdays or on special occasions like 'hantaran' , valentine's day, mother's day etc.

GOODIES FROM LONDON & SWITZERLAND

My niece, Parveen Banu and her husband Mohd Nazim who got married last month went to Europe for their honeymoon. They returned home a couple of days before the first day of Ramadan and thank god they were spared from the HINI virus. My niece said they spent most of their holidaying in France and Switzerland as ithose were their favourite countries. Amidst their holidaying, my niece managed to get some 'cake related' gifts for me as she knows that I love cake decorating. She also bought some fondant embosses, cutters and chocolate moulds. These are not posted in the pictures as I have not opened the package yet. Will remember to post the pictures when I open the packages.

WEDDING CAKE FOR MY NIECE, PARVEEN BANU

3 tier wedding cake decorated in fondant and royal icing. comprises of walnut butter cake, sujee fruit cake and belgian chocolate mud cake
close up of cake decorated in maroon coloured royal icing and topped with fresh rose flowers
adorable & romantic cake topper
specially made golden hued tiers.

WEDDING CAKE

stringwork and royal icing roses make this cake covered in ivory coloured fondant look elegant

first tier of the cake

second tier of the cake constructed with pillars


English roses and fondant ribbon roses creates a romantic theme for this stacked wedding cake.


colourful royal icing piped Petunia flowers.



roses waiting to adorn the romantic English theme wedding cake

Sorry for the long hiatus in updating my blog. I have uploaded some pictures taken before Ramadan and hope you will enjoy looking at the pictures. PG CakeCrfat's new class schedule will be out soon and please come back to our blog to check it out . I have a couple of requests to have a wedding cake class by my students and I hope to have this classs in my next schedule. In our wedding cake class module, students will be taught how to construct TIERED CAKES using STACKING METHOD and PUSH IN PILLARS METHOD. What you will learn in this class :

1) bake delicious WALNUT BUTTER CAKE and SUJEE FRUIT CAKE to use as your base

2) use fondant to cover your cakes smoothly

3) pipe Petunia/Roses in royal icing

4) pipe stringwork around the sides of your cake to make drop strings

5) pipe ruffles on the base of your cake to create borders.

These are some of the cake decorating techniques which will be taught in our wedding cake class. If you are interested to know more about this class, please don't hesitate to drop me an e-mail at zarmgmum@yahoo.com

BUTTERCREAM & FONDANT CUPCAKE DECORATING CLASS.

Buttercream rosettes in different designs

Buttercream rosette, Fondant baby in blanket, Fondant rose bouquet & Fondant busy bumble bee

Buttercream clowns & 2 D carnation flowers