Lions and Tigers and Monkeys! oh my! (also elephants!)
When you think jungle you wanna say “rawr”, but when you see our jungle themed cupcakes you’ll wanna say “awwww”. We made these for a wild baby shower! hehe
The Elephants and lions topped the vanilla cupcakes with mocha buttercream. The tiger and monkey went with banana cupcakes with peanut butter buttercream. See what we did there? Monkey and bananas! :D
Happy Baptism Sophia!
This cake cupcake combo is a sweet welcome for Sophia’s welcoming party into the Catholic community! If you know Erika, Sophia’s mama, you probably know her as a tree hugging, organic loving, nutrition supporting kind of person. So I wanted to make something that was not only delicious, but somewhat healthy too! Not that my other baked goods aren’t healthy…:P They give you a good glucose energy boost that give you more readily burned energy that people need!
On the dessert menu: Carrot cake with cream cheese frosting and banana cupcakes with peanut butter buttercream. And of course we didn’t forget to make doves for the cupcakes and the cake! :)
I’m sad that Gee and I actually only took two good photos of this project. I think because of the lack of sleep, we weren’t even thinking about taking pictures. Someone has to slap us if we ever get lazy to take pictures again! Any takers? Haha just kidding! kinda..
50 and Fabulous!
Happy Birthday to the cute twin aunties, Auntie Fe and Auntie Aida!
This cake is pretty self explanatory. These two ladies are divas! My roomie sista friend, Julie, is the one who actually approached me about a cake to get her aunties. She was originally going to go to a local bakery to get a specialty cake done, and she showed me what she wanted. To make a short story even shorter, Gee and I volunteered to do the cake! :)
I was excited about this cake because its something out of our scope. Nothing ‘nerdy’ or ‘geeky’. I constantly have to explain to people what our Supply Depot cake is about. Haha, not that I mind. Geek is the new cool! But this purse cake is definitely something more universally known.
Man oh man oh man ooooh the mishaps and mistakes. First off, the Louis Vuitton pattern can’t really be reproduced with a stencil. Well, its possible, but it won’t be accurate. And being the perfectionists we are when it comes to our work, our stencil that Gee spent her time and effort on making, wouldn’t work. We used the stencil as a rough outline, and basically painted each and every one of the symbols on the cake. We took turns doing the pattern, but after a while, I noticed that Gee had entered her zone, so she took care of the majority of the painting, while I spent that precious time looking at the inside of my eyelids.
After about an hour (?) of close examination, I realized that my eyelid interiors were a-ok. It was time for more work. After the first night of painting, and rolling and breaking and rolling again the fondant for the lining, we had ourselves an oversized clutch. Details are were finally ready to be added! This is the scary part. It took a verryyy delicate hand to add everything. We wanted to make the handles stand up, so we had to make em the night before. We probably should have made them days in advance because they weren’t as sturdy as we wanted. Oh wellz, we live and we learn.
Thank goodness the house was near and the rain was gone. We took it to the party, Julie presented it to her Auntie’s saying “See?! I told you I bought you a Louis Vuitton!” Teehee. Funnest reaction of the night: Auntie Aida saying “How are we supposed to share that?” (You know, cuz she thought it was a real bag.) :D
February in March.
I know I know it’s March, and we’re just now celebrating February birthdays. That’s what happens when we’re so popular. Haha I wish!
Brainstorming for AJ and Sharlene was easy. Creating a list of their interests was easy. Taking that list and actually deciding what we can make.. well that’s a different story. It’s funny because the less you know about a person, the easier it actually is to decide what to make. The more you know, the ideas are abundant. This shows that even baking gives valuable lessons in business and economy. Scarcity drives decision. Feel smart now? :)
We eventually came to a decision. For AJ, a Pocari Sweat ‘juice box’ cake. (This is a Japanese soft drink/sport drink that doesn’t come in a box, but we’ve seen an artists draw it in this form so we used it :P) If you’ve never had Pocari Sweat, its available to most Asian stores and supermarket. And yes, that sweat with an ‘A’, not E as in sweet. Weird huh? I had to do a double take to make sure thats what it’s actually called.
The fact that I was sick the week of this event kind of threw me off my game. When Friday came rolling around, I was ill prepared. Sooo unlike me! Blah! But thankfully, Gee and I are trained in making the best of what we have. Funniest part of the night, the cake tower that experienced what looked like an earthquake. Haha We wanted to make a big juice box that actually stood upright, buuuut without the right supplies, it wasn’t gonna work. We moved to plan B and made 2 mini cakes that laid horizontally. Don’t worry, the remains of the destroyed cake tower did not die in vain thanks to the next birthday baby! ;)
For Sharlene, cupcakes that looked like sliders! For the fast food meal we made cupcake buns, brownie patties, and sugar cookie frys. We even make the little trays and the personalized french fry holders. Aren’t they adorbs?! (adorable) She loves food. So how fitting it is to make desserts that look like real food! It was a nice touch when she actually said she was caving burgers that morning.
That day, we all had dessert before dinner. Happy Birthday Shayjay! :D
Hakuna Matata!
Kaleb is turning the big 1 year old! Kat asked me and Gee to make the baked good for the party. And when she says party, she means PARTY. Like 300+ people party. This big project was an awesome way to kick off the new year!
The request:
100 Brownies
100 Caramel Apples
150 Cupcakes
After much much planning, we came up with ideas fit for the future King of the Jungle! (Or King of the Osoimalo Clan)
The Game Plan:
100 Brownies cut into paw shapes
100 Caramel Apple of 3 flavors (Apple Pie, Drizzle, and Peanut)
150 Cupcakes of all different varieties with Lion King toppers (Cupcake flavors: vanilla, chocolate, and banana. Buttercream flavors: vanilla, chocolate, and peanut butter. All of em mixed and matched)
The apartment looked like a factory. Thank goodness my roommate wasn’t home to witness the baking hurricane that occured here on Mildred Street. (Tip: Planning really does wonders for a project of this scale!) P.S. thank you to my dear friend Joan who offered her expertise in buttercream making. ;)
On the day of the party, the baked goods took up an entire table! At first, we thought “This is A LOT of stuff”. We questioned ourselves and we almost sure we overestimated. But, alas, by the end of the night, the party proved us wrong. Phew, I’m so glad! :) I watched the baked goods table like it was my baby making its debut out into the real world. *tear*
The biggest hit of the night: Banana cupcake with peanut butter buttercream. Who knew? I actually thought people might be hesitant because its a bit out the norm, but I love that so many people gave it a chance. Give bananas a chance! I love how they bring so much moisture and flavor into baked goods. I <3 banana.
So our hard work paid off. I love to see people enjoying the fruits of our labor. Or should I say: the BANANAS of our labor! :D No? OK fine.
HAPPY 1st BIRTHDAY KALEB! And thank you to his parents Kat and Mike for allowing us to be a part of his special day!
Holiday update!
Merry Christmas everyone! I received special gifts from very very special men in my life. Thank you Daddy, Kuya Darryll, and Erick! These will definitely increase our creative level exponentially! I predict a sweet 2012 ahead! :)
Cali-fornia girl you’re unforgettable, tutu dress, cupcake in hand! (Sang to the tune of Katy Perry’s California Girls)
It’s Cali’s 1st birthday party! She’s my unofficial God daughter. :P Her mom Cassey, my good friend, planned it out to be a Candyland/California Girl Video themed party. Our gift to her, a cake of course!
I think every time we have a project, we definitely get better. This wasn’t so bad also because we used candy for most of the decor. Also, we are slowly building up our baking equipment which helps a lot. A REAL 9x13 cake pan, and actual rolling pin, and little alphabet cut outs. If we didnt have them, our project would definitely cut into our sleeping time. And that’s a big no-no!
Our cake was completed with airhead pathway, tootsie roll chocolate marsh, rock candy crystal canyon, lollipop lane, candycane peppermint forest, gumdrop mountain, frosting filled cones for the candy castle and fondant game pieces! Put it all together with a hint of lovin, and you get a cake!
Side note: if you are ever making a cake that is decorated with candy, BEWARE! I think by the end of the night we were pretty full of candy. Sugar rush straight to our brains!! SUGAR WASTED!! We were laughing at things that probably weren’t funny to the sugar sober. Fun night!
Happy Birthday Sweet Cali Girl! :)
Happy Birthday (next year) Louie!!
Louie didn’t want to tell anybody it was his birthday because he’s “old”. He kept telling everyone his birthday is next year. Which is technically true, but you know, his birthday was this year too!
Our friend Louie is an avid Terran player on SC2. Sooo OP. But that’s beside the point! Gee and I, of course, wanted to make him something that represented the Terran race. We also wanted to make a cake because we had just taken a fondant class and we wanted to use our newly found skills. After looking at a lot of the Terran structures and units in the game the supply depot was one that seemed like something we can make. We found really good photos of it.. and deng, there were a lot of tiny tiny details on these things! It never fails to surprise me on how detailed things can be when you reeeaaalllly take a look at it. You THINK that the supply depot is simple (which technically it is) but once we started recreating this thing, there had to be a lot of parts. But as usual we “made it work”. We also had to make cakes with limited supplies. I think our most creative feat of the night was when we used a paper towel holder as our rolling pin. Haha isn’t it great when we use our imagination we get when we don’t have money to buy things?
Lessons!
- The first time we made a cake it was too moist. This time I think it may have been too dense. haha I swear I’ll find a happy medium someday!
- Cake pans that you find in the grocery store LIE! it may say 8x8 but nooooo. I actually saw a professional cake pan at this cake store I go to, but they be cray cray expensive! ::siiigh:: thats on our wish list.
- As far as decorating goes, I think lessons are on a case by case basis. Every cake we make is different so it has its own separate challenges. We learn on the way. Spontaneous eh?
Happy Birthday and See you later Calvin!
As of now, Calvin is in Bahrain. Oh, the places the Navy will take you! He, just like his older brother, had a going away party (combined with his birthday party). Gee and I wanted to do something K-On-ish (an anime that he likes and introduced us to) so when we were brainstorming, we came up with a whole bunch of ideas. We also wanted to do something a little different. At first, we started practicing a K-On song. Buuuuuut, we never had time to practice with each other, we don’t’ have electric guitars (we both only have acoustics) and we were kinda running low on time. Not to mention the song we were trying to learn was in Japanese. Haha, maybe if we start practicing now we’ll have it down by the time he gets back.
Soooo we wanted to use another one of our creative skills. Sketching! I have always known that Gee knew how to draw. A lot of people don’t know that I sketch a little here and there, because it was never my best skill. I guess its time to start honing it again! It was funny doing this because our art styles are different. We both know how to sketch, but as far as coloring goes, we use different mediums. I usually scan my sketches to color them digitally, and she usually does everything else (paints, colored pencils etc). We ended up with just a sketch. Haha Gee put the daunting task of making Calvin into an anime character on me (>.<) and she took charge of the girls. ( You can see that what we first planned wasn’t what we ended up with.. as usual.) We put the completed version in a frame and had everyone at the party sign it!
Happy Birthaway party Cah-bin!!
It’s a boy!!
The last post was about a “practice run” we did for these cake pops. Honestly, Carlo’s cake pops were more challenging than these ones. We laugh at ourselves now for doing the more complicated project first. But at least this time around it went by smooooth like butta baby. Well, I did miscalculate how much cake we needed because our balls (teehee) were bigger this time around. We used a cookie scoop so all the cake pops looked uniform.
Gee decorated our styrofoam base with baby shower themed ribbon and we wrapped each one in their own individual bags with even more ribbon. I mean, cuteness was oozing out of this display! It was almost too cute to eat. ALMOST.
I think the most time consuming part was just decorating the pops with different colored chocolate and making sure we had an even amount for each type. And as much as I wanna say we didn’t run into chocolate problems, we still did. But at least it didn’t set us back as much as last time. (And for some reason Erick had magic chocolate hands cuz whenever he tried to melt the chocolate it never got chunky for him. Haha)
Overall, a project that Gee and I are very proud of. Enjoy the display of sweet sweet cuteness! Congratulations Kay and Robbie Dinglasan! :)
