It's not too late for Halloween Post!

I love Halloween! I didn't grow up knowing anything about it, but now that I live here in America I have an excuse for another festive. Halloween colors are just so bright. It's so perfect for decorating party cookies, cupcakes, and cakes. One of my favorite project was the Halloween Baby Shower Cookies:

All these are sugar shortbread cookies and colored with royal icing. The addition of the pink little bow are just perfect for the occasion! They are not scary at all:)


We made a new set of Halloween sugar cookies design, witch hat, shoes broom, cauldron,candy corn, bat, ghost, and pumpkin.

Fun decorated Halloween Cupcakes and Cakes:

 This little mermaid cake was a blackbottom cake, covered with fondant. It serves up to 75 guests.

Ben and I didn't get a chance to dress up this year, due to crazy busy week at the shop. We are thankful and blessed to have the support from all of you! Thanks for looking!

The Sweetest Note

I just have to post the sweetest note I received this past weekend. This note made me cry, of course, happy tears! I am going to plaster it all over my kitchen wall. I always put 110% or more on the cake that I work on every minute, days, and weeks. I feel guilty, if I say NO to cake order. I just have to know my limit. My health is more important than staying up all night long trying to finish/rushing meeting a cake deadline.

I am thankful that I can be where I am today, even it isn't always a good day. I worked with my husband. I wish I wasn't so harsh with him. Then again, we are completely different individual. He's very laid back, where I always on the-go, planning here and there. Sometime, I want to scream to him, "Do you understand the word coming out from my mouth?"  A Thank you letter will make the day better! Thank you Danielle.

 Here is the cake that I made for Travis this past weekend, Happy Birthday!

This two tiered topsy- turvty cake above was an  8" round chocolate cake with chocolate swiss buttercream and a 10" round cake vanilla cake with vanilla swiss buttercream covered with fondant. The monster truck was from "TAR-JAY!"  Got to love Target!

Fun Custom Cakes!

I heart my customers. They always come up with fun ideas for cakes that I haven't made before.Yup, I love challenge which can drive me nuts! This past couple weeks, we had an animal week birthday theme cake. First was our popular zebra cake:

A 6" round red velvet cake covered with American vanilla buttercream, decorated with black zebra stripes, and pink fondant bow. It's simple, clean, and sassy!

The second one was a cheetah birthday party. The cake was covered with fondant and it's a vanilla cake with swiss vanilla buttercream.

Next, it's a super cute chubby penguin cake! The fiance surprised her with this cake, after his first attempt last year to made one at home.

 It was a devils food cake, raspberry jam and cream cheese buttercream! Yummmm.

I just can't get enough of anything monkey theme, next our first topsy turvy modern monkey first birthday cake. I love the simplicity of the color, whimsical, and clean looked. It's a 8" round black bottom cake, and a 6" vanilla cake with American Vanilla buttercream.

 Thanks for looking and I can't wait to make you one!

Dream big - Empowering young women leaders

October is finally here and the weather has been so nice for the past week. This past Tuesday, I was invited to the Ann Richard School (ARS) Birthday Bash. It is a all girl public school in Austin for Young Women Leaders. Yes, that's right! Girl Power! The opening speech from one of the 7th grader students, " America is a land of opportunities, people came from all over the world to chase their dream.." Dream big. I was born in Indonesia, came to the USA when I was 17th. Why? I want to choose my own school since my parents had send me to all girls school for 6 years (7th - 12th grade). At the time, I hated it. Why? It was so hard and very competitive. Both of my parents didn't finish high school, nor college. Back then, I didn't understand why I have to go to that school. Through out the years, the school taught me to DREAM BIG. All things are possible! "When there's a will, there's a way". I wasn't a brilliant student that got all A's, but I thought I was pretty studious. I always good in Math, Science, or Art, but I never good in any language or sports. When I applied UT for college, I have to take TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) at least five times - just to get the minimum score. Hahaha! Looking back 13 years back... I am glad that I was able to come here to Austin,  came without knowing how to speak proper English, graduated from college, able to run Polkadots with my husband, and support Ann Richards School for a good cause.  This country give me freedom and a chance to prove that anyone can have a big dream!  To learn more about ARS, click here.

Here is the cake that I brought to the charity event:

 The flavor from top to bottom, vanilla with swiss chocolate buttercream, black bottom, strawberry shortcake - vanilla cake, fresh macerated strawberry, and swiss vanilla buttercream. All the girls on the cake have different roles, of course, one of them is a chef! (first tier on the top right). This cake serves 80-100 serving.

I can't wait to work with the school for the next year birthday bash!

Cake, cake, and more cakes!

September is an extra special month because it's my birthday month, too. Unfortunately, I have to leave the crazy, fun 20's and move on to the big 30's. Yup, I turned 30 this past week. I was such in a denial why do I have to turn 30?! I know its going to get better, fun and more challenges ahead.

Want to know how I spend my birthday?

I had the honored to make this special cake for this little boy, Luke. His mom contacted me the week ago about the theme of the party and send me the birthday invitation. Luke has been in the hospital due to digestion/intestine issues. It's just break my heart, how could one little body handle all the IV's, needle, and those medicine....

You can follow more about him on his parents' blog The team of the cake is Superhero Luke, here is what I came with:

  

This two tiered cake serves 30 adults. It's a 6" and an 8" round cake. I covered the cake with buttercream and fondant decorations. I also did a mini smash cake for Luke with similar theme, black, red dots and super hero logo on the top.

The next cake was my very first 3D Lakers cap! Crystal came last week and wanted to surprise her boyfriend with his favorite basketball team. I never make a cap cake, but I thought why not! It's a 10" round base - 3 layers of them. I also added in one layer 8" round and 1 layer 6 " round on top.This was a chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream. I crumbed coat the cake, let it sit a few hrs and then covered with fondant. I was getting frustrated with the purple fondant. At first, I didn't get the purple color that I wanted it. I just can messed up Lakers color!

It's such an iconic  team, everyone knows the exact purple color. I am pretty happy with the result, but next time I am going to use air brush instead of painting. What do you think?

Another challenge this week was damask cake.. word.. I bought the stencil last Summer break, but I haven't get a chance to make any cake with damask design.  It was a 1/2 sheet cake, serves 50 and covered with white fondant.  One thing that worried me was the white fondant and the black icing combo. It does look classy and elegant, but... I just never did this before! In my heart, please please... this black icing better be the right consistency, other wise I will have a zebra cake instead of damask at 2 AM in the morning! Hahah 

The inspiration for the cake was the baby shower invitation. It's a marble cake inside ( vanilla and chocolate) with vanilla buttercream icing.  Welcome Peanut Lawson!

This next cake was actually from the week before. Leslie came to the shop for a cake consultation. Her friend Monica is expecting a baby boy. I asked her if she has any particular design that she had in mind. She said no. So I asked her what are the party theme? Toy, duck, dots,...? and She said no there was no any particular theme, but she brought in the images of the party platters. I asked her which one was her favorite. She said crocodile. And I said... what about a crocodile cake? She said yes! 

Here is the cute "crocodile" cake:

This cake serves 30-35 adults and it was a chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream. It was covered with fondant. Don't be scared! Our fondant taste good, no it doesn't taste like rubber :)

On the side note, I hate turning down custom cakes order,... but I can only do so much in one day, in my tiny 300 sq ft kitchen.  My next wishes is to have a bigger kitchen.. no matter I have more assistants, but there wasn't any room to work. Oh I would also love to have freezer, dough sheeter, walk in cooler, personal office, proper working AC, and the list goes on!

I know I always want more and more! Is that a part of getting older?

Back to school and a little break

It's been hectic since school is back in session. I finally feel I am catching up with all the daily routine. This coming week, we are going to have a little BREAK! Yeahhhhh It's labor day weekend, and we had  a family event so we will be closing early on Saturday, September 4 at 2 PM. We will back on Tuesday, September 7,  2010 at 12 PM.

Here are few of my favorites from our last creations. The first one was "It' s a small world" baby shower cake and cookies.We used the baby shower invitation for the inspiration.The cake was a 10" round lemon and cream, covered with fondant. Some of you may ask why we are starting to cover our cake with fondant? Our fondant is yummy, it tastes like marshmallow, almost like the white part cream filling of oreo cookies. I promise you will like it. It's not Satin Ice Fondant. It's a little bit more expensive, but it taste delicious.

We put the hot air balloon on top, Oscar and Emmy (the couple's dog) are waiting patiently, a little Korean and Vietnamese girl are playing on the side of the cake. Love all the color combination on this cake, it's just too cute! We also made 50 hand iced cookies for their party favors. Congratulations Tammy and George! We can't wait to meet baby Gabriella.

The next one is "Party Animals First Birthday Cake." This was a two tiered cake (6" and 8") serves 30-35 adults, vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream and black bottom cake (chocolate cake with cream cheese and chocolate chip baked in and cream cheese buttercream). I love all the bright colors dot, stripes, cute animals inspired from the birthday party plate. Happy Birthday Watson!

Last but not least, Elmo is back! We made a few version of Elmo birthday cake in the past, so far this is my fav! It's simple, clean, and everything is edible. The cake was a 6" round red velvet with cream cheese buttercream, covered with yellow fondant. Happy Birthday Sienna!

Hope everyone had a good week and looking forward for the first UT football game this weekend!

Under Pressure!

Last week was a total whirlwind. My whole body was dying from baking, stacking, icing cakes and racing the time. Totally underpressure like the Queen lyrics! " Pressure pushing down on me Pressing down on you no man ask for Under pressure - that burns a building down Splits a family in two" Nah.. Ben and I still together :)

Ben always told me that I shouldn't over promised, but I told him I love challanges especially on the cake that I never made/know/ think about making it. I took a topsy turvy graduation cake order  that served 200 guests for the first time. The only thing I know about topsy turvy is "slanted" cake. That's it.

So what did I do? I researched on you tube, watching many topsy turvy tutorials and read cake blogs about topsy turvy cake. On top of all of this,  the cake will be picked up and delivered to Giddings which is one hour away from Austin. It has to be sturdy! Oh.. I also have to covered this cake with fondant. Mmmm,  I never covered cake with fondant bigger than 10" round and this 200 serving cake will have a 16" round. Anyway.. the more I think on how doing this cake the more streess I became. Honestly, I never seen pimple on my face since my teenager years! Guess what? I produced four this past weekend.

So, did I survived? Yeah.. I am pretty happy for the first time result. Will I do it again? Yes!! yes!! Now I know how to do it. Here it is:

From top to bottom 6" round strawberry shortcake, 10" round devils food chocolate, and 14" & 16" round red velvet with cream cheese frosting.

I am so glad that last week went well considering the all nighter, aching body, and last but not least my finger got stuck into pastry tip while washing it. I'll be back with this coming weekend celebration cakes (wine bottle, willy wonka, and fiesta cake).