Flowers for my mom

My mom's birthday is on the 5th December. But we decided to bring forward the celebration today as she is going for surgery next weekend(27 October). She wanted to enjoy good food now or she will not be able to eat many things after the surgery.

We took her out for a chinese restaurant for dinner. My sis ordered a 3D fancy cake for her. Its shaped as a Hamburger. Its very cute.

I baked a Dried Cherries Yogurt Sponge cake today. And covered it with fondant. I hand crafted each flower and leaves in sugar paste and decorated the cake like a gift box that was covered with flowers, vines and leaves. And had it bow-tied with a pretty purple ribbon.

my mom was surprised with the special cake. She said it was very pretty and could not bear to slice it up. So we ate the hamburger cake instead.

She will save it for tomorrow..hopefully to have it with her younger sister,(my aunt Aileen).

here's the flower cake I made. My mom will be 73 years old this Dec 2007. Here's to many more years to come..ma!







Here's the 3D Hamburger cake my sister ordered for her



Mom blowing out the candles


My dad and my mom..

back to School!

I've been extremely busy lately. I was commissioned to teach Baking in a secondary school for 4 days. I had to wake up at 6am, prepared and leave the house by 6:30am. And to reach the school by 7:15am each day. My class starts at 7:45am and ends at 1:45pm.

It was tiring, but it was fun. Although there are planned topics that I need to cover in 4 days, I approach my class with a different style of teaching. I gave my students alot of freedom to try out recipes by giving them some ideas. And to make use of the limited baking tools they had in the school.

The classes are DIY or Do-It-Yourself. My students are between 15 to 16 years old. Some of them have never bake before. While a few had. I was told and pre-warned that I will have some naughty ones in my class. But in 4 days, they proved to me that people can change overnight!

This was what I taught for 4 days:
Day 1 : Cookies and Brownies
Day 2 : Fruit Tarts and Sausage Rolls, with a Field trip to Breadtalk to see how bakery works and to Phoon Huat which was a retail shop for baking equipment and ingredients.
Day 3 : Victoria Cream Cake, Peach Gateau cake, Swiss Roll, Vanilla sponge cake
Day 4 : American Apple Pie, Apple Crumble Pie and English Cherry Pie

here are some photos which my 'assistant' took for me on the first day.

dear me, I need to get rid of my extra pounds!




This is Matthew..one of my 'monkeys' in the class. He is hyperactive, noisy just like a monkey. But he became my best student.


Now you can see his face. Cheeky sometimes. But a sweet boy. He was so proud of himself when I told him that his Peach Cream Gateau cupcake is very pretty for someone who has never baked before. Then he got too cheeky and stuck a chocolate stick into the centre of the cupcake!


Here's another girl trying to pipe cookies. They are taught 3 types of cookies : piped cookies, cookie cut outs and hand-rolled cookies.


some of the cookies they baked.


Fruit tarts they baked.


This is Andrew. Sweet young man. Full of life, passion. He loves to bake, wants to know everything. And wants to learn the old fashioned way before machines and appliances became popular. He would whip up all the cream, eggs, etc, etc. He was always seen in his pose...


Peach Cream Gateau cupcakes my "monkeys" made.


My 'boys' ...


I will be doing another class at another school at the end of October.
Overall, it was an enjoyable for me too. I made many new friends in this class.