Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Holiday happenings

I'm back!! Fully recovered and as crispily burnt as a crispy duck! I filled my two week holiday in KK with lots and lots of snorkelling and diving trips! I went snorkelling 3 days in a week and a 3 day dive trip as well...I kept going to the jetty so frequently that I made aquaintences with the boat guys there! LOL They're nice people plus handy especially when you need favours of getting an earlier boat than scheduled or simply to take us to the secret beautiful parts of the island, unknown to tourists, to enjoy the sight of beautiful corals and fish =) heh heh heh I took my Advanced diving course and a Nitrox specialty course inKK which took 3 days and did another 3 leisure dives before that. I experienced horrible horrible seasick when diving and honestly, it wasn't pleasant! As soon as I roll myself back into the water, I felt much much better. Kim says that I'm a fish and that I should just remain underwater hehehhe. It took me an extra 4 days to recover fully from my seasickness and to feel fully human again.

This weekend, we're off to Bali! Mainly to surf and dive...and the rest of the time filled with a bit of everything. I started baking some cakes today for the end of this week and just realised that I left my digital scale in KK! I'm waiting for my sister to bring it over with her when she comes to KL this Friday. I planned to make more of those teddies for some cupcake orders but looks like it'll have to be delayed til I get my scale back *shrugs* I find it difficult to convert back to my normal scale after being so used to precision on my digital scale. But as far as baking is concerned, my old normal scale would do for the time being =)


[One of our snorkelling trips - Manukan Island]

[We found what we were looking for! The blue-ringed Octopus...My instructor told me to prove it to the world that "There is the blue-ringed Octopus in Sapi Island, KK". wwoohoo!]

[when I did my Advanced buoyancy test. Writing on the pad while maintaining position only inches off the sea floor]

[The Kiwi guy with the tattoos? Yup that's Nev Kippenberger, my brilliant instructor from Sabah Divers]

Friday, July 10, 2009

Days off from baking (11th July-25th July) & (1st August-5th August)

I am officially on holiday as of tomorrow 11th July - 25th July and from 1st August-5th August. I will be spending two weeks in my hometown Kota Kinabalu (for July), so will not be taking in any orders. Although, due to some special request from friends in KK, I might accept some simple cakes for simple orders. Strictly no, fondant moulding and wedding/engagement cakes, Sorry!! =O

I will be spending most of my time easy diving the waters of KK apart from spending time with family and friends =) I wish everyone well and will be back in my kitchen on 26th til 31st July before heading off to Bali for my birthday holiday =)

Ira x

Johan's Akikah Choc Cheese Wave Cupcakes

A friend of ours from Bristol, Fariza & Eso, placed this order way way wayyy well in advance and I'm truly grateful for that. Fariza has been eyeing on the Choc Cheese Wave ever since she was expecting their son, Johan! So finally, as they made their trip back to Malaysia, showing Johan for the first time to family members, she placed an order of 96 Choc Cheese Wave cuppies which were specially created for her and family. She also requested that I put football/cute little bears/guitars/graduation scrolls/letter 'J' as the cupcakes topping.

I had real fun making the bears especially as they were soo cute!! I felt like pinching each one myself after completing them, but obviously that would mean my hard effort wasted! I must admit that the bears were the hardest among all. It took me days to slowly finish 20 bears in different baby poses. Anyway, I had a mixture of fondant covered cuppies as well as Chocolate Vanilla buttercream frosted cupcakes. I hope that both mummy & daddy will be happy with my creation. Enjoy the photos!



[Choc Cheese Wave Specialty Cuppies]

[thought I'd post a photo of my little helper Emille]


[graduation hats & scrolls]

[I just couldn't wait to pack them up in their boxes!!!]

[my royal icing footballs and clowns]

[my favourite!]

[guitars]



[letter 'J' swirls with blue sugar sprinkles]

[the group of bears]

[football swirls]

[Mr. clown]

[all packed, ready for collection! - yay, I did it!!! now I can go on holiday! =)]

Sara's Friday orders

Caramel Ruffle Brownie is a melt-in-the-mouth-brownie with a fudgy caramel layer.

The Toblerone Dark Temptation is another version of my existing Dark Temptation cake except that it contains bars and bars and bars and bars...of Toblerone both in the cake and ganache! This cake has a generous amount of Toblerone ganache between the layers of Toblerone sponge cake plus more all over!

Just thought that I'd post a blog about the Caramel Ruffle Brownie, since it's been quite a while since I last baked one. This was Sara's order. The borwnie for self indulgence and the Toblerone Dark Temptation for a friend's birthday. I delivered the cakes quite early in the morning to Sara's office as I had quite a few things to do for the day before I fly off to KK tomorrow for my 2-week holiday =)

Re-announcing, I'll be off to Kota Kinabalu starting from tomorrow (11th July) til the 25th July. So no baking for that two weeks. Have an enjoyable weekend folks! =)

[freshly out of the oven Caramel Ruffle Brownie]

[a Petite Toblerone Dark Temptation]

Saturday, July 4, 2009

Two-tiered Choc Cheese Wave Butterfly-Confetti Cake

A two-tiered Choc Cheese Wave wedding cake for Iza's cousin. This is my 1st tiered cake and the theme was a fun/party cake/butterflies with pastel colours of white/pink/lilac to play around with. I decided to randomly pipe confetti details around the cake to resemble confetti thrown in parties and weddings. The butterflies were specially requested by Iza, so I included quite a number, perched on baby's breath flowers.

My apologies for the not-so-well-taken photos.I had issues with lighting against the bright pastel cake so most of the photos didn't come out as good as I wanted them to be. Nevertheless, enjoy the photos!

[frosted with Choc Vanilla Buttercream]