SPCA Chocolate Banana cupcakes

This order came through Trademe. They asked for 12 cupcakes, and said they didn’t really mind whatever flavour, whatever colour, they just wanted 12 of them.

I was a little surprised to hear, usually people would be a bit more particular about what type of cakes they want! I later found out it is to be used to fund-raise for SPCA, so I went to work!

I decided 12 wasn’t really enough, so ended up making 18 of these, and as I haven’t made banana cakes for a while, I went with chocolate-banana cupcakes and topped with yellow icing, as for a hint of our cute paw friends, I piped some chocolate footprints on them, so cute!

Tres Leches Cake

Now this is a first!

For Americans/Canadians, this is probably a very common cake, but for us down-under, it’s very rare!

I for one have never heard of it, never seen it at restaurants or cafes, and no one I know has heard of this cake.

This was my first order through Neighbourly website, and they were game to try this cake they’ve heard so much about (I’m guessing they didn’t hear about it in NZ!)

For those like me who’s never heard of it, it means 3 milks cake, and the 3 milks consist of cream, evaporated milk and condensed milk.

The cake is drizzled and infused with the 3 milk and iced with chantilly, sounds indulgent or sinful? You decide 🙂

As strawberries were commonly used to decorate this cake, I’ve added them to the layers as well as used as topping – apparently the cake was a hit!

Princess Tiara cake

Last cake of the year 2015 was for Aanya’s birthday. She wanted a beautiful tiara on her cake, and loves all things pink and purple.

Her mother got a beautiful Tiara (I secretly wanted one for myself!)

This was a very unique cake indeed, 10″ chiffon cake with pineapple filling and pineapple chantilly cream! It was not just pineapple juice, it was a special Indian pineapple essence provided by Aanya’s mother, which she brought from India and could only be found in India.

The essence was super powerful and amazingly fragrant, just 2-3 drops of this essence in 1 litre of cream and it was flavourful and tasted amazing.

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Mickey Mouse Banana Cake

First order in 2015, last time I made a Mickey Mouse cake it was my first time trying the piping-cartoon-character decorating style, how I’ve come!

This is also one of the very few none-circular cakes I’ve made, also the first banana cake order I’ve had, so a few firsts!

The cake turned out very well, super soft and moist, it was filled with buttercream of course, and quite liked the red/blue border that I attempted.

Disney Frozen Elsa & Anna cake

This was actually made end of November, 2014, an order from the Facebook site.

Up with the fashion, Sanvi asked for a 9″ Elsa & Anna pineapple pound cake for her 5th birthday. I thought it sounded like a good challenge, as it seemed quite complicated (eyes and facial features can come out very weird with just a tiny touch), so I said yes.

It turned out this one really was hard, especially their eyes which I had to tweak several times, also the amount of colour icing I had to mix used up lots of bowls! At the end of it, I think it was all worth it though, still not 100% happy with their eyes but I felt like the more I tweaked it the worse it would get, so I just let it go! (get it?)

Here’s the response:

cake was great…could see how much effort you had put into it…Thanks so much. .my daughter simply loved it

 

Black Forest Cake #2

There are lots of numbers with my recent posts! It seems people are placing orders based on what they’ve seen previously made by me, and wanted one just the same.

This was the cake with this lady who ordered a black forest cake that looked just like the one I’ve made for her partner’s birthday. Unfortunately back in August (yes, we’re still in August!) cherries weren’t in season, so after searching up and down, I asked if it was ok that I used Glacie cherries instead. I am so glad she said yes, or else I wouldn’t know whose cherry tree to chop down to get those fresh cherries!

I must admit, due to the bright colour of the glacie cherries, I quite prefer this version, purely based on the look though, fresh cherries still can’t be beaten on taste!

This was a 7″ round chocolate chiffon cake with whipped cream, coated with lots of dark chocolate pieces!

Doraemon Cake #3

Continued from last time’s Peko Cake, they seemed to like it so much that they’ve placed another order, this time for their son’s birthday, and have asked for exactly the same cake (strawberry filling with vanilla chiffon cake) but replacing Peko with Doraemon instead.

Consistency becomes the key! Had to make another cake that tasted just like the last one and it’s not mass produced, I had to trace back to see what I did?

The filling was filled with strawberries that I bought and soaked in syrup until they’re tender and juicy, then laid them all evenly between the slices. I wish there’s a photo of the cut-up cake to see the strawberries inside!

Nonetheless, they had provided a picture of Doraemon for me to use, so this isn’t exactly the same as the previous Doraemon cake I’ve made.

and….here it is!

 

Peko Strawberry Chiffon Cake

Had a very different and “current” order a few weeks back for a cake with Peko, a character from the new Japanese Doraemon movie, on the top of a strawberry chiffon cake.

She’s probably one of the very few people in NZ who actually KNOWS of this character, and after further discussion, I found out that the birthday girl Abby has recently returned from Japan, so this explained why!

They ordered a 7″ round cake, and we discussed to have defrosted strawberries as the filling (as middle of winter isn’t exactly strawberry season in New Zealand) which turned out quite well! Although next time I will change the colour of the writing…

Here’s their feedback:

Just perfect! Great experience dealing with this gifted person. The kids loved your cake, absolutely recommended.

Floral fruit cake

So I’ve made some Asian fruit cakes (ie. soft springy vanilla cake with fresh fruits on top) and although my 1st attempt was pretty good (see here) my second attempt was way below my own standard and I felt quite bad for the customers I made it for, I thought I should rectify my album with this 3rd attempt!

Tony has been a loyal customer who’s ordered a couple of times from me now, and this time it’s for his mother in law’s birthday. She wants something colourful, fruits with lots of flowers coming down to the sides (his exact words) so I made an attempt to have flowers coming down to the sides! I played around with a popular decoration technique specifically in the Taiwanese Taro cake, although it’s not as pretty as I had hoped (purely technical problem) but hey, it’s not too bad right?

I’m glad I made it so colourful, it really wasn’t as busy as I thought it would, and it was well received yet again, thanks Tony! (The Chinese characters reads “Happy birthday”, which was also requested by the birthday girl!)

Lychee Creme Brulee

First of all, yes, I’m still around! Haven’t had any orders recently, so am posting one of my home-experiments instead.

We were at Logan Brown a few weeks ago, and had this absolutely amazing Lychee Creme Brulee, that I thought I should try making!

So after taking out 50ml of my cream and exchanged for lychee syrup, and putting 1.5 pieces of lychee in the centre of each creme brulee before pouring in the custard, here it is!

I must say it wasn’t as amazing as Logan Brown’s, but I’m getting there, will try again next time when I have lots of egg yolks 🙂