Aliah's 3kg Choc Cheese Wave Birthday cake (that left me ill!)

I spent a good 3 days baking and decorating this 3kg Choc Cheese Wave birthday cake ordered by Aliah for her bestfriend, Fara. The theme was for a girlie girl who adores shoes and bags (plus an elephant!). To be honest, today was my first time covering a cake with fondant. There was a point today when i nearly gave up and just hoped that the cake wasn't a whopping 10-inch square cake! My dislike towards fondant still remains, hence, told Aliah to warn her friends to simply push the icing aside when eating the cake.

Firstly, I made my own fondant & gumpaste. It's dead easy with my KitchenAid at my service! Not funny when I had to make using a hand mixer and hands! So I started offw with the shoe heel and pink duffle/tote on Thursday, and left them overnight to harden. Then continued making the sole & in-sole + the back + the front on Friday together with the brown tote and an elephant! I spent the whole of Friday baking, moulding and drawing sketches and measuring. At times, I did wish that I was first a cobbler, then a tailor, then an artist! Reality is such that I'm an accountant who turned into a housewife-baker.

Today (Saturday), I tried assembling the cake. I will not lie and boast that it went a breeze. I've never felt so pressured in my entire life! I guess that goes to every baker dealing with their first fondant experience! Anyway, finally i managed to finish the job which left me feeling VERY nauseatic/dizzy/faint (not to mention throwing up in the toilet!) i.e. VERY ILL - my mum asked me "Ira, are you sure you're not expecting?" LOL No, mum I'm not! I'm feeling much better after popping in an anti-nausea pill prescribed by the doctor earlier today.

However, I'm very proud of moulding the shoe, bags and ELEPHANT! Yay! So here are the photos of my humble creation.

P/s Aliah, hope you enjoy the photos! Fara, fiance & friends, hope you enjoyed the cake. Please ignore the icing! =)

[the pink duffle was the easiest! just a bit of imagination was all it took!]

[Kim said that my baby elephant looked scary with the eyelashes]

[so I took them off and painted her eyes brown =) please excuse my props]

[I was too nauseous to take photos of the work in progress so just a couple of shots of the final product would do]

[the end]

Brownie Bites Cheesecake

I've finally finished decorating the Brownie Bites Cheesecake this morning with a potential headache feeling in my head. A sign that I musn't overwork myself! Brownie Bites Cheesecake consists of dark chocolate brownie base with more brownies squares arranged in a plain cream cheese filling. Anyway, here are the photos. I got my Mum to have the first taste.






I plan to offer this cake in two sizes. The one I baked was a Petite (apologies for forgetting to weigh the cake before cutting!). I think one adjustment ought to be made especially for the Petite version. That the proportion of Brownie:Cheesecake should be adjusted. I feel that the Brownie Bites in the cake should be smaller in size for the same amount of cheese filling. What do you think? Judging from the photos, any comments how to make this a better cake?

Experimenting a cheesecake

I just realised that I haven't been baking cheesecakes that much. Initially i felt like baking a Tiramisu Cheesecake. Then I thought of putting my little Mini Fudge-Chip Brownies into a cheesecake...Like that ice-cream of Ben & Jerry's...was it Cookie Dough?? Something like that =) I will need to go over to Bake With Yen to get some ingredients and a 6-inch cake tin since I plan to bake a Petite cake. I will post photos once that is done, and if everything is well, I will add it to the menu =) Happy Baking!

My Bread & Butter Pudding

So here it is! Due to the stitches in the area between my upper lip and my teeth, I only had about 3 small rectangles of the pud. My mother who is a huge fan of b&b pudding, ate nearly 1/4 of it and has now dozed off ! It's only 8.20pm! I usually add some pecans in my b&b pudding to give it that extra crunch. I felt a bit stingy today and didn't bother getting any pecans at Carrefour =( After my husband footed my huge "Valentine's gift" bill as I like to call it, at Damansara Specialist Hospital, I think I should be a little thrifty this month. I am still a bit disappointed at Kim's insurance agent friend who sold us insurance 2 months ago and said my surgery wasn't covered simply because we haven't hit the 3 month minimum period (or whatever you want to call it) of joining. It's annoying because everything were 'yeses' and 'okays' before taking up the insurance. But after that, if anything happens and it would be beautiful if you could benefit from what you took up from the insurer, everything becomes a 'maybe not'/'i don't think so'/'no's'. If the result of my operation comes out as something more serious than just merely a growth, and i still can't use the insurance, I don't think I would want to look at that husband's of mine friend's face ever again!

Anyway...getting back to my baking, all is beautiful except for the odd white layers of bread visible in the pudding. I just cannot see a single layer of bread in my bread & butter pudding. Every bit has to be fully soaked up with custard. That would be a must..anyway, I still enjoyed it heh heh heh No more cravings =)

Post-surgery cravings

I'm craving for Bread & Butter Pudding! I went to Alexis and tried theirs...uurrgghhh not up to my expectations. Since I had to deal with some matters at MPH, Midvalley, I decided to buy the ingredients and bake the B&B pudding myself...I hope I don't faint in the midst of baking! I still feel slightly light-headed after the operation. But the will is strong =) Ok, I'm off to cutting some bread now...

Strictly-No-Icing Choc Cheese Wave Birthday Cake

This was Reen's order as a gift for a friend on her birthday. She particularly insisted that she didn't want any icing at all. Just the writing, plus I thought of adding some tiny flowers just to soften the bareness.




Caledonia offers the Wave in two sizes. Grand (2kg) for RM80 and Petite (950g) for RM55. Caledonia's BEST SELLER by far!

Days off from baking

I would just like to announce that I cannot accept cake orders for 11th February 2009 onwards, for about 1 week. I should be back in good health, insyaAllah after that =)

I made a visit to Damansara Specialist Hospital this morning only to find that I have a polyp (growth) which has blocked my entire left sinus cavity (area). So I can't quite breathe comfortably with my left nostril. The only way to remove it is through surgery. I might spend Valentine's day in the hospital/at home with lumps of cotton wool in my left nasal passage. Not very romantic! So, that's about it. Just wanted to share this little piece of information in case friends/family suddenly find me missing in action =) Happy Valentine's Day in advance!

Aliah's Choc Cheese Wave Birthday Cake gift

This is my proudly produced Choc Cheese Wave birthday cake for Aliah's special someone. Everything was decided (type of cake, by Aliah)/bought cake supplies/baked/decorated/delivered (11km away) within 8 hours! I started as early as 9am and was done by 4.30pm the same day. I suddenly realised something, I think when I don't give too much thought about the decoration, then will it be produced nicely. Yes, I ALWAYS over-think things and keep changing them at the 11th hour.

This cake was ordered by my sister's friend, Aliah, who is in Leeds with Mimi (my sister), for someone who means a lot to her. Aliah gave me one single clue "lovey-dovey". So I decided to play around with those sugar hearts and coincidentally found a suitable butterfly to go with the cake. The cake is iced with yummy softly whipped Vanilla cream all over. I was glad that Emille (my mischievous 2 yr old daughter) was asleep throughtout the entire duration I was decorating the cake. Suddenly having a random object thrown onto an iced cake would set me on flames! (yes it HAS happened before!)

I managed to deliver the cake without problems and reached home as a happy baker =) Aliah, if you're reading this, I hope you like the cake presentation as much as his Mum does =) Enjoy!

Cakes menu

[please click on title for details]

Caledonia Quartet
4-Quartet (4 x 1kg) @ RM250 / 2-Quartet (2 x 1kg) @ RM150

Cappuccino Velvet Cheesecake
Grand (2kg) @ RM100 / Petite (1kg) @ RM75

Caramel Apple Cheesecake
One size (1.5kg) @ RM85

Caramel Ruffle Brownie
One size (700g) @ RM50


Cheese Fluff
Grand (1.5kg) @ RM60 / Petite (750g) @ RM45
[decorations excluded]

Choc-Cheese Wave

Grand (2kg) @ RM80 / Petite (950g) @ RM55

Chocolate-Orange Volcano
One size (1kg) @ RM75

Choc-O-reo Mousse Torte
One Size (1.2kg) @ RM85

Dark Temptation
One size (1.3kg) @ RM80
[decorations excluded]

Inside-Out Profiteroles
One size (40-45 pcs) @ RM35

Jay's Mint Slices
One size (9"x9" tray) @ RM50

Midnight Fruitcake
One size (1.65kg) @ RM85
[decorations excluded]

Mini Fudge-Chip Brownies
One size (600g/48pcs of 1"x1" squares) @ RM40

Specialty Cupcakes: Cappuccino Cheese Cuppies
12 Cuppies @ RM55

Specialty Cupcakes: Choc Cheese Wave Cuppies
12 Cuppies (1kg) @ RM55

Toblerone Dark Temptation

Grand (1.3kg) @ RM100 / Petite (700g) @ RM70

My revised Choc Cheese Wave birthday cake

Choc Cheese Wave consists of a centre layer creamy cheesecake, sandwiched with two layers of melt in the mouth chocolate brownie-cake

I woke up at 6.20am this morning with my full intention of demolishing the decor of Wani's husband's birthday cake as in my previous blog. I looked at the cake and thought "I wouldn't be happy to receive this as my birthday cake!", hence carefully lifting all the white chocolate patterns/writing on the cake.

I stuck to the hearts-idea since Valentine's day is less than 2 weeks away. I obviously could not remove the large candles off the cake without cracking the Wave, so working around them, I carefully drew mini hearts with white chocolate, close to each other, to fill up the entire cake surface. I was done at about 8am with the dark cholate writing to finish off with. I then decided to outline the text with micro bead-sprinklers to make the dark chocolate writing stand out...that took me a good 2.5 hours. My neck took the strain the most. But at least I was happy enough to pass the cake on to Wani, so it's worth it.

After being busy for the last 24 hours, I only managed to check my mail tonight after I got back from spending time with my Dad in Parkroyal Hotel. I received a birthday cake order for tomorrow, 5th February, from my sister's, Mimi's, friend. I might be able to just squeeze baking & decorating the cake tomorrow and get it delivered the end of the day. It all depends on which cake the person orders. Let's just hope that I get enough time to think & dream of the decoration since I'm the most undecisive baker who exists on planet Earth when it comes to decorating! I'll update on that after it's over and done with! For the time being, here's my revised 4th February 2009 birthday cake for Wani's husband, Chor.



Caledonia offers the Wave in two sizes. Grand (2kg) for RM80 and Petite (950g) for RM55. Caledonia's BEST SELLER by far!

Choc Cheese Wave

[a petite - 950g Choc Cheese Wave consisting of a centre layer of creamy cheesecake, sandwiched with two layers of melt in the mouth chocolate brownie-cake ]

I just finished decorating Wani's cake for her husband's 30th birthday. She ordered a petite Choc Cheese Wave cake with the writing "Happy 30th Birthday Chor". My initial plan was to cover the cake in dark chocolate ganache and drizzle white chocolate over. However, after I turned the cake out of its tin last night, I decided to leave the cake bare for a change - no ganache, just to give the cake more character as the chocolate and cheese layers are visible. So I marked overlapping heart shapes using a cookie cutter around the cake edges and traced them with melted white chocolate. The writing was meant to be RED but I forgot that WHITE (from the white chocolate) + RED = PINK. So I had to make do. I finished the cake off by tying a black and white ribbon around the cake and stuck two huge number '3' and '0' candles. I hope Wani & her husband like the cake.

Caledonia offers the Wave in two sizes. Grand (2kg) for RM80 and Petite (950g) for RM55. Caledonia's BEST SELLER by far!

Mini Fudge-Chip Brownies

I experimented on some fudgy brownies today, which I called my Mini Fudge-Chip Brownies. Bursting with the richness of dark chocolate with additional milk-chocolate chips in them plus more scattered on top. Delicious! Only complaint was that it was too sweet!! I didn't realise those chocolate chips were made from milk chocolate! For some weird reason, I assumed they were bitter-sweet ones. O well, I'll just have to reduce the amount of sugar I put in them next time =)

[One tray (7"x10") of Mini Fudge-Chip Brownies yields about 48 pieces of 1"x1" (approx.) squares]



Caledonia offers the Mini Fudge-Chip Brownies at RM40 for 600g/48 pieces of 1"x1" squares