Pet Society Theme Cupcakes

What?? two posts in one day??? is it a miracle?
I've been trying to catch up with all the cakes & cupcakes that haven't seen the light of this blog yet and so yeah.. two posts in a day..who knows i might post the third one in a few moment..(but if lunch are calling me, then sorry..two posts they are..!) ^^So one of my best friends from high school was going to celebrate her birthday with us friends, so we decided to give her cupcakes for her birthday. so we were thinking to give a Pet Society theme cupcakes, seeing how she really loves that very-popular game on Facebook where people from different parts of the world, different genders and ages, come together to play it, me included :)) She, can be described as the guru of Pet Society with our other friend as her apprentice.

So, i started to open my pet society account (after a long time) and researched on her pet character, and here's the result:

It's sooooo harrrdddd to create those little characters including the mayor, who supposedly the mayor of the society, and the logo which I had to hand crafted it carefully. But all those hard work paid off when we saw she was really happy with the cake. wheeeww...*wiping sweats* Here's a picture of her with the cake:

Ben 10 cupcakes

Which kid doesn't love Ben 10 cartoon, the alien-fighting 10years old kid with the famous omnitrix watch that turn him into 10 different shapes of alien with different powers and capabilities? My nephews are practically glued to television when it comes to Ben 10. Sure, the stories are great, the images are excellent, but let me tell you a secret, it's every bakers and cake decorators nightmare he..he..i mean, have you seen the shapes of all those aliens?

When i was to do a birthday cake for a 5 year old boy, my first question is always, what character does he like? and as expected, Ben 10 was the answer. So, racked my brain on how to do a good Ben 10 cupcakes and here's the result:


What do you think? My sister thought i did a good job and requested one for her son (no problem sis, i figured not much pressure coming from my own 3 year old nephew) ^^. But from what i heard, the 5 year old birthday boy loved it too. Yayyyy...i think cake decorators are alien fighting heroes too!

Red Velvet Cake & Cupcake Review

I don't really know what is it exactly that l like about red velvet. For some reason, I am always attracted to the radiant of its color, what ever the shape it comes, thus..the name of this blog. They are always so appealing. So when I was a local bakery and buying breads, I saw that they carried red velvet cakes, yaay!! You see, here I seldom see bakeries nor coffee shops carry red velvet cakes or cupcakes for that matter. So, I definitely bought that red velvet cake (plus they were already calling me :)) despite the price of Rp. 20,000 (about $2.20) per piece that they charged for that one little piece of cake, which made me all more curious. Is it really thattt good? Anyway, here is the picture of the cake :

The Verdict : It is thaaaattt goood!! I know that the picture doesn't do its justice, but you just have to believe me. The color is that exact red color that I like (some RV cake turns out to be dark red which is not really my preference). What I really like about this cake is they have chopped up walnut in its filling (I'm a nut lover), so it feels crunchy, in addition to that, the cream cheese frosting have, what i think, to be coarse sugar? because once your teeth sinking into it, you can feel little bit or crunchiness. It's hard to explain but how is that for an idea? I can only think one weakness of this cake: no chocolate flavor, but i guess that is how they get that bright red color.

On another occasion, i got a chance to eat @ this restaurant in Plaza Indonesia, a local upscale shopping mall famous for it's world-known brand like Louis Vuittton, Hermes, Gucci, etc. The restaurant itself serves mostly western food, famous for its thin & crispy crepes. It always packed with people looking to grab a bite or just simply hang out. They serves excellent fresh lemonade too while you are waiting to get a seat. Don't they just generous? ^^ Anyway, after our dinner, I always looking for a chance to try out new desserts and when I was looking their display, I just this lovely Red Velvet cupcakes. Of course, at that instant, other cakes and desserts were invisible to my eyes and I immediately ordered one to go. Here is the picture :















The verdict: For a shocking price of Rp. 40 or 50 thousand (I forgot how much is exactly), I feel that it worth a little off the price. Sure the cupcake was moist and all, but that was all about it. I would've expect more flavor or variance out of it, but i was wrong. The frosting was okay, the shape was cute and attractive, but no cheese flavor or any other flavor other than sweet and if you eat the strawberry on top, maybe a little bit sour. One thing that i like about this cupcake is the exact red color, and perhaps the shape of the frosting. But if you are in the vicinity, i think this cake will do good for a dessert, just don't expect many flavor out of it.

So that's all my review for red velvet cake&cupcake this time, folks. In the meantime, I will continue my search for more delicious red velvet I can get my hands on. Enjoy!

Little Miss Birthday Cake

I realized that i've been busy that i haven't posted in a while, and i don't know maybe the stress from living in the big city had caught up to me recently that my brain freezes a lot these days. Just yesterday, i was holding a plastic bowl in one hand and a trash in another, and when i was in front of a garbage can, i almost threw out the bowl in it...^^ Luckily, the brain works at that last minute so i didn't do what one my hand was about to do. *sigh*

All the hardwork of baking & decorating will always be paid off when the people that you baked for smiles happily and that is the case with this cake. A friend asked me to bake a cake for her daughter's 8th birthday and she liked the idea of a rainbow cake i did before. She asked me if i had any proposed design for the cake and i asked her if her daughter likes any certain characters or stuffs, and it turned out that her daughter likes Little Miss characters so...Little Miss characters it is.

Did you know that Mr. Men came from children's books in the 1971? The author, Robert Hargreaves, created the female version, Little Miss in 1981 as accompanying characters. I think it has more than 40 characters! Wow..and i only know them from my t-shirt ^^ I decided for this cake, i choose Little Miss characters that are happy & cheerful, we don't want Little Miss Bossy or Little Miss Naughty to be on the cake, do we?

So here's the cake, hope you enjoy it..and Happy 8th Birthday Moira, thanks for liking the cake.

Farewell..er..no..Best Wishes Cupcakes

It's funny how language works..one meaning can be interpreted by many words, and one word can mean different things. I've seen and experienced misunderstanding just because somebody say or interpreted words that sometimes they don't even mean it. Not to mention, translating words into different language that might not have the exact translation.

Like the word "Farewell" for example. It comes with the thought of someone's departure. The feeling of sadness, emptiness, and gloominess. Best Wishes, or Best of Luck, however, are often used to describe the positive side of farewell. We would really wish the best for them by leaving us.I'm sure that is what on Sylvia's mind when she ordered this cupcakes set for 3 of her work team.
She specifically requested little things on the cupcakes such as : coffee (because ivonne likes to drink coffee), dollars, stock reports and bank vault because they work in bank *doohhh...* and what's a bank without calculator to count all those dollars and pens to write all those checks? he..he..So here they are, i hope you all enjoy them.

Pen & Yong Chun Birthday Cake

Recently I was invited to a small reunion of some of best friends in high school. The plan was to meet in the reunion, but who knows that reunion happened to be the exact birthday of our friend too. So, that reunion turned out to be a small birthday lunch. A couple friends asked me to do a cake for his birthday as our gift and there were two things that she specifically mentioned over and over again to be on the cake : Pen and Wooden Dummy.

Why pen? Because he works at pen-producing company. Ok, no problem. Now, i don't know if you are familiar with a type of martial art originated from China, Yong Chun or more familiar with name Wing Chun. The name was said to be originated from a girl, Yim Wing Chung, who was taught this martial art to defend herself from a force-marriage by a local warlord. (Don't you just love Wikipedia? ^^)

Anyway, long story short, my friend wanted a Wing Chun mu ren zhuang, or usually called Wooden Dummy. If you have watched IP Man movie, you'll understand more but for me, somebody need to say Kung Fu Panda first, then i can say "AAahhhh....ok, i got it" Ha..Ha..I'm sure if you're a fan of Jacky Chan, you'll see this on some of his movie, so here is my creation for her request:



Happy Birthday Dy, hope you like the cake, and for everyone, thanks for believe in me and it's so good to see you all again.

Spiderman Red Velvet Cake

Red Velvet is my passion, thus..the name of this blog. I always think red velvet cakes, no matter what form it takes, cupcakes or just regular cakes, are always fascinating and elegant. For those of you who are not familiar with Red Velvet Cake, it is said to be originated from the Southern though this cake had been the signature dessert of Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in the 1920s. The trade mark of this cake is the red color that varies from dark red, bright red, or red-brown. Oprah did her part in promoting this cake again that she said to be "the best cake in America", I couldn't agree more.When my sister was here for our other sister's wedding, I got a chance to make Red Velvet cupcakes, though the frosting didn't come out quite right, she loved the taste. So when she arrived back home in Oz, she decided she'd bake a cake for my nephew's birthday (with her version of recipe of course). Here are some of the pictures, complete with Spiderman edible image ^^
The cake turned out lovely, didn't it? and according to her, moist with of course, delicious frosting. Here's a picture of the birthday boy & his brother with the cake.
Good Job Sista. Send one home will ya? ^^

Best Wishes Cupcake

People always say, life goes on, but I'm sure a lot of people had experience this once some time in their life, whether it's one's career, relationship, cultures, etc. It's the moment when you feel like you are walking on a treadmill. No matter how many kilometers you walk, it doesn't feel moving forward. So in that case, what should you do? Maybe it's the time to take a detour, away from the treadmill (cause we all know treadmill doesn't move forward at all) and perhaps then, we can start experiencing life outside of the box.
Enough of my rambling, so let's get down to, what else, cakes..Yum..So, A friend of my sister liked the cupcakes that i did for my sister's wedding. So when she decided to resign from her job, my sister asked me to bake her cupcakes.
Her favorite color is black, so black it is (combined with pink off course, afterall, who would want to eat black covered cupcakes?)

From what i hear, she really loved the cupcakes and would love to order more. Thank youuu and I'll sure be waiting for your order...^^

Tuna Muffin

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day they say. That is why breakfast menus can be varied differently each day from eggs (sunny sides up, hard-boiled, etc) to boiled or fried noodles, some might surprise @the idea full meal for breakfast but the truth is i think most Asian people are used to it.
So i was looking for another breakfast idea, other than bread, oatmeal, noodles which we so often have and stumbles upon a recipe book from Sedap. Getting bored with pretty little cupcakes that often taste sweets, i chose to try a tuna muffin recipe out of that book. I'm sharing the recipe here:

Prep. time : 45 mins
Yields : 10 muffins

Ingredients:
225 gr all medium-protein flour
1 tbs baking powder
25 gr unsalted butter, room temperature
1 tbs sugar
1 egg
1/4 tsp salt
150 ml milk
1 tbs onion, finely chopped and quick stir-fry on the pan with 1 tsp of butter
75 gr tuna in water
2 tbs cheddar cheese

How-to:
Sift flour and baking powder, add butter and sugar. Mix well until they forms crumbles. Set Aside.
Lightly beaten egg, salt and milk
Pour the egg mixture one at a time to the flour mixture, mix well.
Add onion, tuna, and cheddar cheese to the mixture, and mix well.
Line muffins pan with muffin or cupcakes cups, and using a spatula or ice cream scoop, put the batter in the cups. Bake for 20 minutes on 190 degree Celsius or until they are done (mine were less than that).



They looked beautiful indeed, but it was a little bit of blunt to my taste (or perhaps that was because i used a left over cheese?), so for you who loves salty food, you might want to crank-up the salt or fresh cheddar cheese a bit.

Piggy Birthday CupCakes

How does a piggy sound? "Oink! Oink!" At least that's what my nephew, jayden, answered my question when i asked him yesterday. That brings my memory back to childhood with the Muppet show and Kermit the frog and of course Miss piggy with her habits of overdressing on the show, and her rage when she felt insulted LOL :)

Anyway, she wasn't what's on my mind when i decided to do this cupcake. It was my friend's birthday and let's just say, it's kinda a-light-bulb-on-top-of-your-head thing for me. He..he..(he's so gonna be pissed off reading thiss...), but hey..it's the thought that counts, right?


Hmm...he mention about a revenge and that i shall await for it..i wonder what...^^

The Wedding bell has rung

I finally just got the chance of posting everything after being suppperr bussy helping out with the wedding. From planning, meeting, rehearsing, and final execution, who knows helping out a wedding could be so draining? All this time, i thought only the groom and bride to-be were the one who would do all the hard work =PThe idea was to give out snack boxes to guests attending the holy matrimony, and ta..daa..the result was a white & pink theme snack box with the groom and bride's name as appear on their wedding invitation.
Still using cupcake as the main attraction, accompanied by cream puffs Indonesian style and Surabaya layers cake (a.k.a Lapis Surabaya) and a glass of water made it a delicious snack after attending 2 hours of holy matrimony. And last but the least, a snack box especially for the bride & groom (too bad the picture was taken @night)

It's A Girl

What better way of saying CONGRATULATIONS other than a cake? It's delicious and the message will get delivered (to your tummy too..^^). That was the idea behind these cupcakes. White dominated the color just so touches of pink, blue and yellow were combined to make it more attractive. It was a gift for a new born baby girl so the baby figurine was dressed in pink (Dohhh!). Congratulation again for your daughter, Egie.

2 weeks till the wedding

Google is my best friend after all. I didn't know that the english word for "Sangjit" is "The Betrothal" or "Espousal" until Google worked it hard-working super-brain to find it for me in say..0.18 secs. Isn't it amazing?. For those who unfamiliar with the Chinese tradition, it's basically a formal engagement to be married, or should i say contract signage (He..He..).

There is usually food (lots of them) involved so for this occasion, i decided to present the groom and bride with a little pre-wedding or betrothal or espousal (or whatever you call them) gift : Bride and Groom Cupcakes.

Leo came up with the idea of the groom got down on one knee and hold the flower, and it turned out fine! So thank you babe.

The bride and groom centrepieces are surrounded with cupcakes with pink bows, just for those people who likes their cupcakes sweet but not too sweet ..and almond covered cupcakes just for those nut lovers.

Anyway, everything went smoothly, and people went home with grins on their faces, i'd like to think it's from the cupcakes but oh well..as long as all ends well.