Money Bag Cake

bakingbee proudly presents............. *drumrolls*.......

THE MONEY BAG CAKE !!!! *echoing applause*


I have to say, this is the master piece so far! :)
Once again, big thanks to Mrs. Citro for trusting me to bake cakes for her. :)
Thank you for always believing in me and for giving me opportunities to practice and improve myself. You are an angel sent from Heaven. XOXO

When she ordered the cake, she said, "I want a money themed cake, the cake is for an accountant. The design is really up to you. The birthday is on bla bla bla...."
Honestly, i was blank. Got no idea. Money themed cake is not a usual theme for a birthday cake! >.<" Thank God for my dearest brother, who suggested this idea to me.

This cake is also dedicated to all of you, professional accountants out there. May the Lord continue to pour out His abundant blessings so that your money bag will be overflowing with Heavenly riches. But don't forget to share it around, for you are blessed to be a blessing! :)


I was extremely happy with how this cake turned out. Very very pleased! :)

Triple C Goodness

Cookies&Cream Cupcakes = Triple C Goodness !


^^v
Coles was having massive sales of OREO. This is the sole reason of the Triple C Goodness.
Note to self:
1. Don't over crush the OREOs. Chunky bits will give nicer texture.
2. Need to R&D excellent butter cream recipe.
3. The cupcake base was too sweet. Add a pinch of salt perhaps. :)

D*** loved it anyway. :)

Disastrous Experiment

I've been craving for the Indo-style cheese cake.
It's just vanilla sponge cake garnished with grated cheddar cheese. So I decided to give this recipe which i got from my mom's recipe book collections back home, a try. This recipe used TBM, which is "a stabiliser used in baking sponge cakes. It helps the eggs to rise rapidly and stiffly. As it is acidic it also helps the beaten eggs to remain stable and not lose the airy and voluminous texture. It makes sponge cake softer and smoother".

Well, since i never used this kind of substance for my cake (Yes, all my cakes are made of natural ingredients, no preservatives, no artificial flavouring), i didn't put that TBM thingy in. I have a prejudice against this substance because whenever i ate any cake that has this thing in, the cake has "soapy" taste. :( I tried adding more egg yolks and decrease the flour to make it flully to no avail!! >.<" On a side note, Blueband margarine is BAD BAD BAD for making cake! The cake turned out like a stone!!! ARGH.. total failure! It was very dense, hard, and not nice at all! What a waste of eggs!! :(


Just watch out! I'm not giving up yet! The pursuit of the perfect Indonesian Cheesecake still goes on!

Perfect Match Made in Heaven

I say, dark chocolate + orange = perfect match made in Heaven.

Mrs. Citro, my very loyal customer, asked me to bake a cake for Wen and Julian.
I found this dark chocolate orange gateau recipe, and knew straight away that this is an awesome recipe. Turned out, i was right! I personally think this is the best tasting cake i've ever made thus far. Luscious dark chocolate orange gateau layered with jaffa mousse lavished with rum. I just couldn't ask for more!!!

Two thumbs up!!

bumblebees

I say, "Aren't they cute and adorable? Totally love 'em!!" ^^v


A friend of mine said, "Your bees are sooooooooooooo cute! They're so fat, and chubby, makes me want to squish them!"

What say you ?

Let's Sing Happy Birthday!

Have you seen a cake that sings the "Happy Birthday" song? Well, if you haven't, you are about to see one! ;)

This baby blue cake was specially made with love for my dear friend who is a music therapist. The initial plan was to paste individual music notes to make the happy birthday song. However, due to the restriction of modeling tools, the plan couldn't be executed well. After glueing some lines for the music stave, i realised that they were super messy and ugly. So i took them off and switched to plan B instead: drawing the happy birthday songs on sheets of white fondant.

Finally i could produced a smooth fondant covering for my cake. WHee !! ^^v


And here's the cake that sings happy birthday !!


Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you.
Happy birthday dear Joanne, happy birthday to you!
Mwah! ^^v

Have a soccer-ific birthday!

My little cousin asked if I could make a soccer ball cake for her boyfriend's 21st birthday.
At first I wasn't sure because I'm still a beginner at decorating cakes with fondant.
After some intensive research, this is what i came up with. Not perfectly neat, but i was pleased with the result. ^^v

After this photo floats around facebook, a colleague of her sister asked me to make another soccer ball cake for her boyfriend. YAY ! :)
This is the second attempt. Smoother, neater, more mature.

Jaffa Cupcakes

I was invited to a farewell dinner a few months back and they requested that i bring some dessert to share. Initially i wanted to make Orange cupcake, chocolate mousse, and sticky date pudding. In the end, I decided to make sticky date pudding, and Jaffa Cupcake.

What is Jaffa?
Jaffa orange is named after the city of Jaffa in Israel, where this orange variety is largely grown and exported world-wide. Australians and New Zealanders have Jaffas, a small round candy consisting of soft chocolate center with hard shell made of orange flavoured and coloured sugar coating.

OK, so this is how Jaffas candy looks like:

And this is how my Jaffa Cupcakes look like:

the brilliant Peggy Porschen

Peggy Porschen = pretty cakes!

I bought her new book last month at such a great bargain! ;) (Last time i checked at the shop, the price has increase by $20!!! woohoo!)
The following day happened to be my cousin's, A, birthday. Because i'm just so lousy at looking for gifts, i decided to bake her a cake; and because i just bought Peggy Porschen's new book, i decided to give one of the recipes a go.
This is what i came up with: Pretty in Pink - an adaptation of Peggy's Damask Delight.
The birthday girl loves pink, and chocolate, thus the colour. :)

I'd love to give it another go. This time around I'll use butter cream/ royal icing instead of melted chocolate for piping the pattern.

my very first fondant cake

After much excitement from looking at other people's pretty cakes, I finally got the determination to do my very own. The cake however came out disastrous, as you can see from the dent at the very front of the orange bit. The other side of it, is just as disastrous. >.<"
This is a birthday cake for Viv and Ivan, two very dear friends of mine. On the way home, Joanne and I successfully convinced Dan that the little pearls at the bottom of the cake were bubble gum *giggle*. Yea, Dan, gum-less bubble gum! ;)
I was quite happy with the outcome of my very first fondant cake even though it's not perfectly smooth.

Oh, and I stupidly tried making the fondant from scratch, without any heavy duty cake mixer. 1 hour worth of kneading sugar paste was enough to leave my hands throbbing with pain all night long. Thank God for my 3rd and 4th hands belong to my boyfriend who helped me kneading the other fondant batch and for the miracle I got that night. After struggling to sleep, I woke up with no trace of muscle pain whatsoever!!! So here's to an awesome God!!

bebe...bb...bakingbee...

My brother, H, came up with the name! :)
OK, so why bakingbee? Because its initial is bb and that's the same as my name, Bebe, which can simply be written as "bb" in Bahasa Indonesia.

Cooking was not an issue that bothered me much before I came to Melbourne in 2003. Back at home, Mom cooks scrumptious meals for us everyday. When my brother and I were little, she made lots and lots of baked goodies for us. So, thank God for giving me the innate ability to cook and bake through my mom! ;)

Mom baked that cake for me :)

I got familiar to cooking and baking when I stayed with my dear home-stay family, the GMs, for almost 2 years. Since I helped my home-stay mother, X, preparing dinner quite often after school, my love for cooking sparked. She was the one who shared with me that cooking is a way to love your family. No wonder Mom cooks everyday. She just loves us so much! ;) D, X's sister, who came to visit us often, is a great baker. She taught me a lot of things, from making brownies to muffin to chewy chocolate chips cookies! Moving out from the GM's house, I lived with H for a while and cooking suddenly became a necessity! Since he was super busy with his final year project, I got to be the cook.

I still remember the night H said, "Aiya, you got so confused in putting down your university course preferences now ah. Just wait and see, after you graduate you'll open a bakery!"
Come to think of it, I have to admit that he had a great insight! :)
Here I am, at the end of my 5 years Science/ Commerce Degrees, venturing to be a cake decorator!! YAY to great insight! ;)

In the beginning...

was the word...

Those who know me know that I love cooking and baking, especially for my beloved ones. Earlier this year, I stumbled across a few websites containing pretty pretty cakes. I guess that marked the beginning of my love for cake decorating. So, before I start writing down my journey with my babies, I'd like to thank those amazing cake decorators out there for sharing their work of art and being such an inspiration. Many thanks also go to my dearest family and friends who have always been supportive. Thanks for being my trusted quality controllers. Thanks for giving me the opportunities to create these babies. Thanks for staying up late with me because we were just too excited with the progress of this whole plan. Thanks for believing in me! Last but not least, thanks be to my Creator who knitted me together in my mother's womb 24 years ago. I am nothing without You!