Angry Birds Are A-Chirping  

Posted by: Audrey in

YES! My biggest project so far completed! I'm quite proud of myself that I managed to get this done, so please allow me this post for some gloating (even though the result is kinda nowhere near the perfection of other food bloggers!)

The collage that I made using the PicStitch app...heh! Yup, it's an Angry Birds fest =P Let's see some close ups. LOL!


View from the top. This was a birthday cake requested by my manager for her son's first birthday. Initially, she wanted a playable Angry Birds cake (wouldn't that be a super fun project??!!), but she was worried that the cake would be umm...'too destroyed' by the time the kids were done with it, so she decided on a normal cake with the characters on it.


Excuse the horrible background. Table was messy. LOL! The initial plan was to have a cake similar to THIS design. But I forgot to print out the photo as I was decorating the cake (laptop was in the office) and I figured, oh what the heck, I'll just wing it. Ended up like this. LOL! 


 Okay, this was SLIGHTLY better. LOL! Anyhoot, as you can see I totally, TOTALLY botched the 'grassy' parts. Never occurred to me to pipe small blades of grass. Pfft! But what's done is done...and my sis commented that it looked like MOSS growing instead of grass. Wahahahahaha!


Some close ups on the fondant pieces....these were my first foray into playing with fondant. The first half an hour or so, I got so frustrated into just coloring the fondant and shaping the pieces into balls and triangles! But after a while, once I got the hang of how the fondant feels and works, the pieces came together quite quickly...sort of. Does 4 hours count as long to make these 10 pieces of birds, pigs and stones? =P Anyways, the birds were the harder ones to make. I think the most challenging one is the yellow one here. Shaping it into a pyramid-like shape was a nightmare! But I liked how it turned out though...so much so I made TWO! =P


 Frosting a cake is SUPER hard....especially a square cake, as I'm told. Maybe I'm consoling myself, but yeah...my frosting skills DEFINITELY needs work, coz I can't seem to get it to be level enough. =/ The cream is actually whipped cream....and I finally got to use the whisk attachment on my KitchenAid! Super super cool coz it whipped up the cream in minutes!  


Ooh yes...the little 'nests' are made out of mini pretzels stuck together with a bit of cookie icing. The initial plan was to use pretzel sticks, but I couldn't find them at the Cold Storage that I went to =/ So I just bought the mini pretzels, cut them up and stuck them together. =P Less than perfect-loooking nest, but it did hold up the 'eggs' (which are chocolate raisins...I underestimated the size. Should have used jelly beans instead!) so all's good I guess.


Three little piggies sat on a rock....LOL! They kinda SUNK into the rock frosting coz they were too heavy! (Go figure! LOL!) So much so, at some angles, it'll look like they have EMERGED from the rock or was part of the rock! LOLLL! These piggies were the easier ones to make...quite fun to make too! Ooh, I have to mention that the rock is made out of cake too =) I had to crumble the cake and shape it like a rock a la Cake Pops, and the put brown whipped cream on top. Halfway through decorating, I realized I had no brown food coloring...o.O" The shops were closed, and I had to deliver this the next day...so I improvised by mixing colors. Black, red and yellow....at some point I thought it would never become brown, but thank goodness it did =) 

I know...could have used cocoa powder right? I DID! But it didn't turn out...hence the frantic mixing of colors and hoping they turn brown. LOL!


 
Last photo, I promise! Yes, the one on the left is intentionally left on its side. My sis, the ever creative one, says that the placement of the pieces made everything look too symmetrical and perfect and she dropped this one on the side to simulate that it's been plopped over by another bird a la the game. 


Yup, so there is my biggest birthday cake venture yet. Hoping to get more projects like these so I can try out more techniques...=) Any takers? I don't charge expensive...just that I hope you don't mind the amateur-ish feel to the cakes. Heh! 

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Cookie Monster Never Had This Good....  

Posted by: Audrey in

This will just be a short post since I'm a bit preoccupied with work and more 'projects' at home...hehe! The cookie craze is still on, so here are photos of my projects (some are done quite a few weeks ago...I know. Lazy me!)


I am liking this PicStitch app on my phone that allows us to edit the photos before 'stitching' them up into collages like this! Kinda like having a mini Photoshop in my phone. *grins* These are cookies from my recent surge of 'creativity' (should be read as 'inspired to try out the designs made by other cookie bloggers'!). Cherries on a polka dot background, some marbling and even some dabbling with drawing using an edible ink pen...Heh!


The "Love" series...I liked how the marbling turns out this time around. Piping still needs work though. Think it's also the consistency of the icing (made it a bit too runny so it doesn't hold its shape well). That 'film negative' effect is quite nice I think...


These were from a recent baking spree with Justina, a good friend of mine who also loves to bake....we had time to spare while waiting for some raisin cookies to bake, so we decorated these cookies that I brought from home. Inspired by some 'cute face' cupcakes that we saw online, we tried to replicate that. Hehe! Oh, and I wanted to try to make some curlicue like the ones on the Hostess Cupcake, hence the black cookie at the bottom of the pic...a little fail. LOL! Which reminds me that I wanted to try out that recipe...hmmm *grins*


Sis got the 'baking bug' too...only she wants to play with the icing instead of baking the cookies. LOL! So, I made up a batch of cookies, and she drew on the outlines using an edible ink pen before we decorated with icing (No way I can freehand ice these. Hands still too shaky!). Aren't they the cutest??! I think these characters are called Mr. Men and Little Miss, amongst some other cute characters...my fave was the ~Meow~ and Woodstock!


And last but not least, the easiest batch of cookies 'iced'. LOL! I found these pre-printed icing pieces while looking for references to Angry Birds for an order (more on that in my next post), so I thought of trying them with cookies....easy peasy! Just slap on some icing and stick the pieces on, and you're done! I piped a little border on the side just to make it like it adhered more...simple, and so pretty! Now I'm wondering if the people who prints these do custom-made printing....imagine the things we could do with these! Hehehe!


Yup, that's all from me at the moment...more to come, I promise! I'm attempting something bigger than I've ever done so far...wish me luck!

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Baking Projects Galore!  

Posted by: Audrey in

I've been bitten by the baking bug hard! LOL! This time around though I've been a bit more... obsessed with sugar cookies! 

Yes, it all started with the Halloween cookies...probably coz I was pressed for time and what not, it was painful for me. And that's just the test run cookies!!!  The real deal was actually for my neighbor, who wanted sugar cookies as her baby's full moon gift for her students. She showed me a photo of a design that she'd like from another blogger who made LOVELY cookie, and asked me if I could replicate that. I told her I'd certainly try but I can't guarantee that I would be able to make the exact same thing. But put to work I did, and while I'm still not satisfied with my 'handiwork', she loved it =) 

Yup, she wanted baby face cookies...pink for her baby girl. I made Annie's Eats sugar cookies and used I Am Baker's lovely glaze icing for decoration. Loved the taste of the cookies! Again, can't say much about my 'drawing skills'. My hands are not that steady using a piping bag to draw on a cookie, and while the photo looks okay, I still think I need loads of work =P


 The packaged cookies...I heart the pink ribbons with it. Usually I'm not a pink person but the pastel pink is cute =)


My next 'project' was also another order from a friend. After I'd posted a photo of the baby face cookies on my Facebook, she commented that she would like to order my sugar cookies! Previously, she'd tasted the cookies at the Halloween party and she told me she loved them (YAYY!). At first I thought she was joking...I DID have another batch of cookie dough that I'd thought of just playing around with the icing, so I jokingly told her I could have the cookies ready in a day or two if she's interested. And she said YES! Wow...it was so cool that I had another sale! A few PMs over FB later, I ended up with these:

 It's for Hari Raya Haji, and she wanted to share the cookies with her family who's coming to her place to celebrate =) Initially I had thought about just using a crescent and star cutter to make different shapes, but I couldn't find a crescent cutter in time, so I just made these. Played with some sanding sugar too...silly old me didn't know how to use it and I almost botched the cookies making the sugar part in the same layer as the background! The shapes were not visible at all, given that it's yellow and white...so to try and 'save' them, I outlined the shapes again after the icing had dried. Thank goodness they came out alright! 


 As you can see, the drawings still need work, but I found out that the consistency of the icing also helps with the drawing. Previously I had made the outline icing a little too hard, making it so difficult to pipe (and I almost got carpal tunnel from all that squeezing! Eep!) so the second time around, I tried making it SLIGHTLY more liquid-y, and it worked! 


Hahahaha...this was some leftover cookie dough and glaze icing. It looked like a skull when it came out from the oven, so I tried to make it look like one. Fail! LOLL! =P


Further inspired, I made these chocolate sugar cookies. I didn't have my usual gel food coloring, so I used a water base food coloring...boy, did it ever look weird! As you can see, they didn't cover the chocolate cookie base well. *sigh* Quality never does come cheap, IMHO. Cheap food coloring = bad coloring results.


I am still rather determined to make these work though, so I managed to get some red food coloring from my aunt (who also makes cakes for sale) and have made some more dough to be baked. *grins* Meantime, I had stalked I Am Baker's lovely designs and am very very inspired to try them out and practice my icing....hehe! These two sales got me hooked! Not sure if there will still be more sales from here on out, but I DO find that I like decorating cookies...even though it is time-consuming and all, if I can get the end result SOMEWHAT similar to the original ones, it's a great achievement for me coz I'm still a noob at this. Hopefully with more practice I'll be better *crosses fingers* Will post more photos of my 'practice cookies' next time!

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