Banana Walnut Cupcakes & Rainbow Cake for Sheffiq & Girl

I was requested to prepare these cupcakes and cake by Girl for her boyfriend's birthday. She requested that I secretly delivered it at Pullman Hotel while she and her boyfriend, Sheffiq was having a romantic dinner there. Girl had arranged with the hotel's staff to bring in the cakes and birthday present as a surprise during the dinner and I must say that it is the sweetest thing :) 

Sheffiq is a racer and the photo on the cake is that of his own race car. I wonder if he had the heart to cut the cake with the photo of his car on it...

Thank you Girl :)

Banana Walnut Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting, decorated with printed edible icing sugar sheet & fondant cupcake toppers

Rainbow Cake with printed edible icing sugar sheet decoration

Red Velvet Cake for Kamal Syafiq

My friend Zul was very kind to promote my cake to his friends and soon after I completed Zul's order, I received an order from one of his friend. It was also a cake for his mother's birthday and jt was a pleasure for me to work on it. I hope that Kamal & his family had enjoyed it :)

Red Velvet Cake

Rainbow Cake & Red Velvet Cupcakes for Zul

I was specifically told to make them perfect or else...such intense pressure was put on me while I was preparing the cake and cupcakes by my friend, Zul who had placed the order. But then again I can understand him as he wants it to be the best for his mother. Not sure if I had lived up to his expectation but I had done my best and hoped that his family had enjoyed it.

I was happy with the outcome; the decoration was simple but it was neat. Zul had wanted the colour on the Rainbow Cake to be orange because it is his favourite colour. I can wildly guessed that he had rooted for the Netherlands in the last the World Cup :)

Happy birthday, Aunty Jamaliah & may you be blessed always. And thank you Zul for putting your trust on me :)

Red Velvet Cupcakes. I had tinted the cream cheese frosting with red colouring and I liked the marbled effect

Rainbow Cake

Blueberry Cream Cheese Cupcakes for Ayu

My friend Ayu had brought a few of my Blueberry Cream Cheese cupcakes home before and her mother took a liking to it. So the next time we met, she ordered some for her family.

Thanks my dear & happy that you & family had loved the cupcakes :)

Blueberry Cream Cheese Cupcakes

Rainbow Cake for Baby Feroz's 1st Birthday

When my old friend, Fareeza, requested for me to make the cake for her son's first birthday, I was taken aback. The last I saw Fareeza was when she was heavily pregnant with her son, and all of a sudden her handsome baby boy had already turned 1. Time had really fly!

Although it was little Feroz's birthday, Fareeza or Peeja for short, had thought of her two nieces, so she had ordered a Rainbow Cake with their favourite filling, Chocolate Peanut Butter. 

The cake had turned out ok, but I was worried that the Chocolate Peanut Butter filling would turned oily and soggy after some time. Later I sought Peeja's feedback and indeed the filling had made the cake soggy, but she said all the same the cake was good. It was very kind of Peeja :) But next time around I would make it into Chocolate Peanut Butter Mousse filling so that it would stay fluffy and nice.

Thanks Peej & happy birthday, baby Feroz :)

Rainbow Cake with Chocolate Peanut Butter filling and Italian Meringue Buttercream frosting

Vanilla Cupcakes with Fondant Cupcake Toppers

I realized that I love psychedelic colours and sometimes would let myself run wild with it. Luckily the colours of these Vanilla Cupcakes that I was requested to make for my friends, Alo & his wife, were according to the engagement ceremony's theme colours. Alo & his wife intended to contribute the cupcakes for a relative's engagement gift and I'm glad they had liked it :)

I later learned that during the ceremony, the girl had worn a pink dress and the guy had on blue attire, so these cupcakes were just perfect.

Vanilla Cupcakes with Italian Buttercream frosting and fondant cupcake toppers

Red Velvet Cake for Wawa

An old friend of mine, Wawa, recently ordered this Red Velvet Cake from me. Everything went on smoothly for this cake; the buttercream turned out great, the cake was quite level that I need not cut off the top too much and it took me less than 15 minutes to frost the cake. I did not want to waste the bits of cake that I had  to cut off, so I crumbled it and strewn it on top of the cake.

I was happy it turned out great for him and that he, his family and friends got to enjoy it. 

Thanks Wawa! :)

Red Velvet Cake

Yummy savoury Quiche

Cheese & Onion Quiche anyone?

These savoury custard like pie is my family's favourite and you can basically have any kind of filling in it; Mushroom & Cheese, Sausages & Cheese, Capsicum & Cheese...the combination is endless :) Pictured below is Cheese & Onion quiche and when it is baking, the whole house would be smelling of baked cheese for 2 days! Yup, they're potent stuff and they're yummilicious!

The standard size is made in 10cm diameter tin foil cups and one or two would be filling enough for a meal. I am selling it for MYR 3.50 each and minimum order quantity is 20 pieces.

Cheese & Onion Quiche - MYR 3.50 each, minimum order is 20pcs

Vanilla Seeds overloaded!

My family & I celebrated my mother's birthday recently & it was a really simply affair for us, just the way we like to celebrate any of our family member's birthday.

We went for dinner outside & for dessert, I made this new Vanilla Seeds Cupcake and it was really good! I put the seeds of one vanilla bean in the cupcake batter and another in the liquid glaze, so you could see specks of vanilla seeds in the cupcake and also in the glaze.

The glaze was a bit sweet but it reminded me of Krispy Kreme's original glazed doughnuts which I really loved. Tiny specks of vanilla seeds in the glaze looks cute, but people who do not know what it really is may think that the dust had settled in the glaze :)

Happy Birthday, Mama!

Carrot Walnut Cake for Bhavhaani's 14th Birthday

My colleague, Shyamini was kind enough to order from me this Carrot Walnut Cake for her daughter's 14th birthday celebration. Just like most teens her age, Bhavhaani's a fan of the band One Direction. I have never really paid attention of their looks, but making this cake made me realize that indeed these teens have a valid reason to crush on these boys :)

I was really happy get the image, which was printed on icing sugar sheet, as I think these boys looked best in it.

Happy Birthday, Bhavhaani! :)

Carrot Walnut Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting; decorated with Bhavhaani's favourite boyband & the current  tween's  craze, One Direction (icing sugar sheet)

Bhavhaani is also a fan of the Union Jack; notice the colours? :)

Red Velvet Cake (Heart Shaped)

Salam!

This cake had been made 2 weeks ago, but only now do I have the time to post it. It was ordered by my sis in law's brother for his wife's birthday. 

Hope they had enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed making it :)

Heart shaped Red Velvet Cake

Rainbow Cake for Adrian's 3rd Birthday

Salam!

I would like to share with you photos of a Rainbow Cake I had recently done for Izyan, my repeat customer :) I love love love doing a Rainbow Cake and I was really happy to get an order for one. For one, I love the colours, and two, I love the challenge of assembling the cake. I like my layers of cake to be 'fat' so instead of 6 layers, I made only 5 layers of about 1 1/2 inches thick, so the final product was about 10 inches tall. 

As I do not fancy the overly sweet buttercream made of butter/shortening, icing sugar and a bit of milk, I layered and covered my Rainbow Cake with Italian Meringue Buttercream. I like the buttercream for its subtle sweetness and creamery taste.

Anyway, Izyan had ordered the cake to celebrate his nephew's third birthday. Little Adrian is a big fan of tractors and all these big boys' machines, so Izyan had planned to put toy tractors on top of the cake. I had left the decorating of the cake to a minimal so that she could do just that.

After I had finished decorating the cake, I realized that it was too tall for a standard round cake plastic container that I bought, so I improvised it. In my haste to get the cake ready for pick up, I had not snap a photo of it, but it was such an awkward looking container :)

Thank you Izyan and I sincerely hoped that everyone had liked the cake!

Rainbow Cake is being assembled

Simple baby blue decorations made with Italian Meringue Buttercream

Birthday boy Adrian happily playing with toy tractors which had been put on top of the cake . Seeing a cake sliced that way makes me hungry...

Non-Alcoholic Pure Vanilla Extract

Salam! Hope to find you in good health & spirit :)

Do you know that 95% of food or products that contains vanilla are actually made of synthetic vanilla? Well for me, I was more surprised to find out that vanilla essence is actually synthetic 'vanilla' that has nothing to do with real vanilla. No wonder that on its own, it tastes awful.

After knowing this, I went about trying to find real vanilla extract as I heard that it does wonders to baked goods. 

I first found it in a Cold Storage mart and I did a double take when I saw the price; it was MYR 29.90 for a small bottle of a few ounces. But then again you cannot expect it to be cheap because vanilla is one of the most expensive spice in the world. So before putting it inside my shopping basket, I checked on the ingredients and again did a double take; it contained alcohol :( As a Muslim, I cannot consume alcohol and though I would love to use pure vanilla in my baking, I had to put the bottle of pure vanilla back on the shelf.

That night I went about the internet to find out more about vanilla and vanilla extract. I managed to find out so much more about vanilla beans and why it is so expensive (vanilla beans can only be produced when the vanilla orchids or flowers are pollinated manually by hand, so it is labour intensive) and to my delight, non-alcoholic pure vanilla extract can be made by combining food grade glycerin, a bit of water and vanilla beans. After letting it sit in an air-tight jar for at least 6 weeks, you will have your very own homemade pure vanilla extract.

I have since made two batches of vanilla extract and now awaiting for my third batch to mature by the end of November, and I have never used synthetic vanilla ever since :) I find that using pure vanilla gives more flavours and aroma to my baked goods. 

If you would like to purchase pure vanilla extract from me, I am more than happy to share it with you. However, do note that pure vanilla extract made using glycerin cannot achieve the same deep amber colour of those made using alcohol, but I compensate it by using more vanilla beans per litre of glycerin used. Anyway, they make great gifts too!

Sizes available and price (not inclusive of delivery charges):

200ml (approximately 40 teaspoons) - RM 30.00

100ml (approximately 20 teaspoons) - RM 20.00

To purchase, please email me the following details and I shall send you my bank account number and the amount to be banked in. Once payment has been confirmed, I shall send out the vanilla extract by Poslaju within the same day or on the next business day, insyaAllah :)

1. Name

2. Quantity (please specify size)

3. Address

Non-Alcoholic Pure Vanilla Extract - 200ml (MYR 30.00) & real vanilla beans

Birthday cakes for Minty's babies

My cousin Razmin or whom I love to call Minty recently celebrated the birthdays of two of her eldest children. Shown below are Aristocat's Carrot Walnut cake for little Sofea and Ben10's Chocolate Cake for big bro Zafran.

I couldn't come to the party so I had no photo of the children cutting the cakes but I do hope that the birthday kids and the guests had liked the cakes :)

Thanks Minty!

Carrot Walnut Cake with Cream Cheese topping - 10" square

Chocolate Cake with Chocolate ganache topping - 10" square

Red Velvet Cake for Didi

The beginning of Syawal is a celebration for Muslim after successfully completing a month of fasting in Ramadhan. However, nowadays the celebrations seems to be going on all month long and weekends are usually filled with 'invitations' to open houses. No complaints but sometimes I do feel robbed of a good rest on my weekends :)

Anyway, Didi, my high school friend was kind enough to order a Red Velvet Cake for her office's Aidilfitri gathering recently. The cake was not that leveled so I cut off the top and crumbled it up to be used for the decoration on top. Hope it turned out nice for her and her officemates.

Thanks Di!

Red Velvet Cake - 9" round

Hello again :)

Assalamualaikum!

It's been so long since I last post here~! I have been so busy these past few months and had so many things happening in my life :) Anyway, it may be too late already for me to wish it, but here it goes anyway: Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri to all... :)

In the short span of a few months, I've had my brother changed from a boy to someone's husband, gained a sister-in-law, took a big financial leap in my life and went for a few vacations. It has been the busiest 7 months of my life :) But all is good and I thank Allah S.W.T. for giving me such a blessed life.

Anyway, my sister-in-law's baby sister celebrated her birthday in July and her sis was kind enough to order a cake from me :)

Chocolate Walnut Heart-shape Cake with Dark Chocolate Ganache

My friend Fish had previously ordered cheesecakes from me, so this time around she wanted to try out something different for her husband's birthday. She had requested for a Chocolate Walnut Cake, which I had never made before but knowing that I could also gain from doing something new, I accepted her order. Every order is like a challenge to me...


I scoured the internet for a good recipe, but could not find a good Chocolate Walnut Cake recipes, only Chocolate Walnut Brownie recipes. I could take a moist chocolate cake recipe and add walnut to it, but I'm skeptical if the light batter would be able to support the weight of the nuts, so I scrapped the idea. Finally I decided to try use my brownie like cupcake recipe and add walnuts to it. Alhamdulillah it worked and customary of my family, the test batch was 80% gone within 2 hours of it being served. It's a 1.5kg test batch cake, so now you know why I am surprised :)


Fish had given me a few samples on her preferred decorations and I took a liking to a sample instantly. I was also requested to bake a heart-shaped cake, so here's the final product...


Didn't look exactly as the sample given, but I hope Fish & Rudy had liked it all the same.


Happy Birthday, Rudy!

Chocolate Walnut Cake with Dark Chocolate Ganache

Tahlil & A Small Gathering of the Supek Clan @Aunty Adi's

It's been nearly a month since I last posted! Not much has been happening lately, but I do bake occasionally for orders and to be placed in the office's pantry. Other than that the month of February has been quite slow paced.


Anyway, my aunty had a tahlil over at her place sometime this month and though there were many guests, many members of the Supek Clan could not make it :( 


Supek Clan you say? What is this Supek Clan?? Well, that's the term I used for the extended family on my mum's side. The matriarch of the family is of course my grandma, who was affectionately called Supek by my late grandpa, hence the title. Go figure! haha :)


Not knowing the number of invites and thinking that it would be just among family, I contributed about 40 cupcakes for the occasion. I had baked these little Red Velvet cupcakes in those lovely green souffle cups and coloured the cream cheese frosting slightly yellow. I was quite happy with the simple but cute result, but was skeptical whether it would be enough. My mum assured me that it would be, so off we went. We were surprised to see rows and rows of cars parked outside of the house and was even more surprised when we went inside. There were so many people that the front door was blocked; we had to use the back entrance.


It turns out that so many had brought desserts that day, so my 40 cupcakes were just enough for those who had space to spare in their tummy after the heavy lunch treat :)

Reddish cuties in their green 'pants' & yellow cheesy tops!

Red Velvet Cupcakes for Fakhariah

These decadent and popular cupcakes were ordered by my friend from secondary school, Fakhariah. I had modified the frosting slightly by incorporating fresh whipped cream in it to tone down the sweetness. The milky and sourish frosting complimented the slightly sourish cupcakes really well and I hope that Fakhariah (and her unborn baby :)...) had enjoyed these cupcakes.


Thanks Fakhariah & Azri!

Red Velvet Cupcakes pre-frosting. The cake turned out nicely :)

Red Velvet Cupcakes with Milky Cream Cheese frosting ready for delivery!

Salted Caramel Chocolate Cupcakes

I tried out a new cupcake recipe last weekend. I have been coming across this recipe for so many times but thought that it was a bit cumbersome to do. However, since it was a long Chinese New Year weekend and I have the mental support (thanks, An!), I decided to try out the Salted Caramel Chocolate Cupcakes recipe.

It was a bit time consuming, but the end result was very satisfying. The cupcakes were moist and combined with the filling and frosting, it was just yummy. I could still remember the taste of the caramel and dark chocolate frosting everytime I see the cupcakes' photos. The caramel tasted so much like Werther's Original Caramel candies...yum yum :)

Cupcakes with the caramel filling

Dark chocolate frosting was settled on top of the cupcakes to cover the caramel filling

Blueberry Cheesecake for Rudy & Fish

My good friends, Rudy & Fish again ordered from me and since they are cheese lovers, I was requested to make for them a Blueberry Cheesecake.


The frosting is of fresh whipped cream and the cake is topped with blueberry sauce. However, later when I took out the cake from the fridge, I noticed that one side of the border had become lopsided. Sorry about that, Rudy & Fish... :)


I was also requested to write 'Happy Birthday Rina' on the cake; Fish, is it for your birthday??

Blueberry Cheesecake with Fresh Whipped Cream frosting and blueberry sauce

The cake before being frosted and decorated. The base is made using digestive cookies

Cupcakes for my brother's engagement

This was what I came up with as part of the offering given to my brother's fiance on their engagement day. It was concluded way back on Christmas, but I had only remembered to post it now... ;P

Anyway, I wasn't quite happy with the outcome as the buttercream was a bit softer than usual, so it was quite difficult to play with. Well, better 'rezeki' next time :)

All in all, congratulations to my brother, Anip and his sweetheart, Pujah, on their engagement!

Chocolate cupcakes with vanilla buttercream

Cupcakes for Firdaus

Our family's ex-neighbour had a small 'kenduri' at their house and though all of us were invited, only my mother and youngest sister could make it to the gathering. Firdaus, their 3rd child, is my sister's best friend and the thought of seeing her again really excites my youngest sister. So I made some cupcakes for her to present to Firdaus and I was told that she was really happy to receive them. I think it's the colour that excite her :)

Cupcakes for Uncle Amin and family

My father has a very good friend who is ever so generous and loves to throw parties for family and friends. On Christmas night, we were invited to join in a barbecue gathering at his house and I made some cupcakes for his family as a thank you note. The colour combination turned out to be cute and I hope that Uncle Amin and his family had enjoyed the cakes :)

Chocolate Cupcakes for Siti Khairani & family

I had not met Siti Khairani, a secondary school friend of mine, ever since I left school for more than a decade ago, but we are connected through Facebook. So when she ordered from me a batch of chocolate cupcakes, I had the opportunity to meet her again after all these years.  Though our meeting was short, we managed to catch up a bit. It was great to know that she is leading a good life; she is a mother of 5 now and has a very supporting husband. They were a happy family :)

It is sad to note though that Siti's beloved grandmother had passed away on the night of the day of our meeting; she had talked about her grandmother when we met. My condolence to Siti and her family...Al-fatihah.