Angry Birds

Until now, I've been too busy and un-inspired to do any serious cake decorations. We celebrated our family birthdays in the past few months with store bought cakes. All of a sudden, in April, I baked and decorated three cakes in a week. Thoroughly exhausted! I probably over-strained my hands, as I've been feeling palm cramps and my thumbs hurt and i have a blue-black at the base of my palm. Never had that before and feeling a wee-bit worried.

This first cake is one that I truly enjoyed making. Since I saw a 'playable' angry birds cake on the internet, I'd been inspired. But I had no idea where to get a slingshot and how to fix it on a cake board. So my cake is not playable. Cake was made for brother-in-law.

Love the overall look of this cake. With its rugged 'structures'.


I made most of the birds. Except the green one.



The slingshot was made with chocolate fondant, with wire hidden inside.

I love the naughty pigs too.

I did not make the structures using fondant/gumpaste. I saved time by using wafers and biscuits. With a little royal icing to stick them firmly together. I used these :

Too bad they were no longer crispy by the time the cake was cut, but they held up well.

I used the same wafers to make a treasure chest for my 'under-the-sea' themed cakes. Stay tuned.

Dora Cake

This cake was made last Christmas. I thought for a long time before I accepted the request. I ended up spending most of Christmas on making this cake.

This cake was for Sarah's 3rd birthday.



Making Dora from fondant was a real feat. The first Dora looked like someone from horror story. If it wasn't for Christmas, I would go out and get a Dora topper. The final Dora looked reasonable.



And of course Dora would need her constant companion, Boots.




Added a few more animals for a jungle theme. A snake.


A crocodile.

A lion and a waterfall. The complete cake.

Cake was chocolate cake from 'Rose's Heavenly Cakes'.

Sheepy Cake

Made this cake quite a while ago. For one of my cell member's 50th birthday celebration. This was my present to him.

This is my first three tier cake. Took me a looong time to bake all the cake layers, let alone decorate them. It was decorated using his theme of sheperd and sheep.

Cake was a great success. It looked good and tasted good too. I can never go wrong with this carrot cake recipe.

I had great fun creating the different sheep characters. :)

Geronimo Stilton For Gabriel

Gabriel loves to read Geronimo Stilton books, like many of his peers in primary school. He has a collection of almost 20 now. When I was thinking hard about the design of his birthday cake, he suggested Geronimo Stilton. I researched on the internet but alas, google only returned two Geronimo Stilton cakes and both were 2D. Gabriel was not impressed. So I turned to his stack of books to seek inspiration. This book was chosen.

I incorporated elements of the book into the cake and this is Mr Stilton, complete with glasses and magnifying glass, as in the book.

His party was held at Lilliputt, Singapore's only 18 hole mini golf. Thank God its indoors, the haze situation is BaaaD.

The mini golfers had a great time!!

This is Gabriel and Zachary. The only kid from his class that turned up. I was really upset about the parents not bothering to RSVP to the invite at all. Some of the children told Gabriel they will come, but I never heard from the parents. And true enough, they did not turn up. I believe it is basic courtesy to just RSVP! So much food wasted.

Our lady golfers.


Start with a short briefing. The staff at Lilliputt were so attentive and patient. Great place to hold a party.



The 18 holes were uniquely Singapore and lots of fun too.


This mini golfer too young to play. But the staff were kind enough to lend her a golf ball and she had fun putting them into the various 'mechanisms'.




Singing happy birthday. Can tell by their face how much fun they had.

Nathalie is Two!

October is a busy, busy month. Its the end of the company's financial year which means work is extra busy. It is also the month that we have two birthday celebrations at home - Nathalie's at the beginning of the month and Gabriel's towards the end. Two other celebrations in between, so a total of four cakes to bake and decorate!

Its amazing how much Nathalie has grown in the past few months. She captures my heart with her every move and speech. And yes, she speaks really well now, in full sentences. She likes to say 'I show you something first', 'Mommy, can I play ipad/phone? can?', 'Ýeah, TV Show!' and many more. She loves to sing Twinkle twinkle little star, Nobody but you, ABC song and is a great dancer. She brings so much joy to me and my family.

Unfortunately, she is still allergic to many food items, which restricts her diet to rice, fish, vegetable and pork. She had not tasted ice cream yet, so while the older children eat ice cream, she gets a cup of ice. But she enjoys it as much as the others enjoy their ice cream. Many a times, she will ask to taste the food we are eating and when we told her how it might give her rashes, she will clasp her hands and bow her head in prayer, to ask God to take away her multiple allergies. Yes Lord, we pray each day for Your mercy on Nathalie!

For her second birthday, we had a small family BBQ to celebrate. I engaged Gabriel to help with the decorations.

This is the signage done by Gabriel.

If you are wondering what's that purple and green animal/thing, its Barney. Nathalie loves Barney.

And he did this on the white board.

I love how he signed off with 'Written and illustrated by Gabriel Tan Jia Xu'.

The girls had some playdough fun. I made my own playdough at home. Its so cheap and easy! No more buying commercial playdough.

Barney and friends came bursting out of the cake to celebrate with us!

I love Barney's purplish-pink colour! I love how the cake turned out.

As we sang 'Happy Birthday', Nathalie happily clapped along. She did not even fuss when Samantha blew out her candle for her. We had to re-light the candle and she did a great job blowing them out.

See how cheeky the other two kids are!

You are my pride and my joy, Nathalie. May God bless you endlessly and protect you always. Amen.

Cake for the Cycling Enthusiast

Made this cake for a boss who was leaving.



The bicycle was the most difficult part of the cake. It fell apart in multiple places and I just tried to stick it together.



I made the bicycle parts two days in advance. Here, the parts are drying. For the frame, I used spaghetti inside the gumpaste to help keep its shape.




Parts assembled.

A Princess Party!!

Samantha celebrated her 5th birthday recently. She was trying to decide between a princess or fairy themed party and was still flip flopping two weeks before the party. Finally settled for a princess theme. With the help of my two very talented couple friends, we had a beautiful party. It was such hard work, but lots of memories. Did many things that I had never done before and visited places that I had never been before. Thanks to Kris and Andrew who helped with the beautiful decorations and thanks to MIL and hubby for all the delicious home cooked food.


Here are some pictures from the party.



The princess of the party, dressed up as Belle. Gown lovingly altered by talented Grandma. Together with some of her princess friends.

My other princess came as a ballerina. I love this pic! Taken by my professional photographer friend! (THANKS, YH!)

My boy, a prince (a sloppy one at that) in a home-made cape. I made capes for all the little boys too.







Princess wands were gifts to all the girls at the party.




Now, the decorations.


A castle backdrop. Drawn, cut, and painted by hand. Many nights of hardwork from Andrew.








The children seated at a long table in front of the castle.



The 'better than my wedding' part - each chair tied with lovely chair back, done by talented Kris while I stared in awe. (ok, I tried to help too).



We also have lovely decorations hanging from the ceiling. We had the pictures printed, cut, pasted then hung.

The children played games like Guess the Jelly beans and Kiss the Frog Prince/Princess.

Finally, my cake.




A million thanks to Kris and Andrew, for being so generous with ideas and help. Kris, for bringing me from bedok to middle road to arab street and opening my eyes to so many possibilities. I had so much fun. I can hardly wait for the next party. :-)