Materia Girls

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

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!

Bye California, Hello Florida! 

Our friend Carlo is now stationed all the way across the country. I guess it was time for some new scenery for him. So for his going away party, we decided we were gonna make cake pops. 

(Side note: our other friend wanted us to make cake pops for her baby shower, so we were using this opportunity to do a practice run) 

N-E-wAiZe.. I think it was a reeeealllly good idea we did a practice run. So many lessons we did learn! Red velvet is particularly moist, so I had to adjust the recipe. Lesson #1. 

We also experienced another one of the chocolate lessons yet again. Lesson #2. Initially we bought the Wilton Candy Melts because that was what everyone else was using. OH EM GEE. Every time we tried to melt it it turned out wrong. It never turned the consistency we needed it to be. STRAIGHT UP CHUNKY. I don’t even remember how many attempts we made. All I can remember is that Gee was very very angry. Like, I thought she was gonna take the damn chocolate pot and throw the hot chocolate onto someone’s open wound. Then the only solution we came up with was the get different chocolate. Please please work. 

So the next morning, I bought new chocolate (Nestle Tollhouse), and it worked like a frikkin charm. We did have to add a little shortening to get smoother texture, but it worked beautifully. Onto the next challenge… 

How the hell we were supposed to decorate these things? Lesson#3. At first we were just gonna decorate them like we do fondant, using edible food gel. Then we realized, chocolate does not equal fondant. We can’t paint on oil based food (chocolate) with water based paints. GAAAAH damn rookie mistake. So Gee had to take a journey to find oil based food coloring. She managed to find one last box. That ish was meant for us. Moving on…

Were we gonna just paint on these? Or do we have to color the chocolate and pipe the decor on it? Lesson #4. This project was turning out WAAAAAAY harder than anticipated. To make a long story short (this story is already long) we ended up piping on the decorations. Being the perfectionists we are, this took us most of the afternoon, but when it when it all came together, all the trouble was worth it. We were finally able to present.. 

CARLO’S TATTOO INSPIRED CAKE POPS! 

phew..

Aren’t these so darn adorable? They’re little graduation caps. We used a Reese’s Peanut Butter cup for the bottom part and made a chocolate square for the top. For the button it we used a mini M&M and the tassel was just thin strips from a sour belt. This was the other project we were working on at the same time as Erick’s Bday cake. It was definitely a looooong night. These were so easy peasy because we basically just put a whole bunch of different candy pieces together. But we did learn something that we will always learn every time we work with chocolate: 

CHOCOLATE IS VERY TEMPERAMENTAL. 

It’s like a PMS-ing girl. You have to be veeerry careful working with chocolate. If you heat it too long or too hot, it will burn. If you keep re-melting it over and over again, it will get chunky. Chocolate is something that you have to pay close attention to when using it. This lesson can never be learned enough. 

Happy Graduation Party Rhea!