Australian String Work

Surprisingly, the cake made it home in a complete piece!!!! no breakages whatsoever....

The strings & flower pattern were piped by royal icing.

Click on the pic for a better view.

Sewing Cookies

Yes, I know. I have been focusing on and simply obessed with cookies lately because I got a lot of new designs / cutters that I wanted to try, but trust me, I will make something else next week. Actually I have been undertaking a BIG project, but I just haven't showed you guys the pics yet....

I was trying to create vintage feel here, can you see / feel it?

Chandelier Cookies

All of a sudden, chandelier becomes the popular image on wedding scene recently.

These cookies are drawn by hand. It was difficult at first, but once I was familiar with the pattern, it did not take long to draw anymore. The cookies are not perfect, but not too bad for the first time....right???

Thomas the Tank Engine Cookies

Using a regular train cookie cutter but with some modifications.

I spent a lot of time to get Thomas' face right. His face (cheeks, nose and lips) are kind of puffy with his eyes going inward....

Crawling Babies

Swan Lake & Ballet Dancers

Swan Lake - my version..... :D



Ballet Dancers

Gum Paste Flowers - Part II

This post is the continuation of Gum Paste Part I from a few weeks ago. A lot of these flowers are my first-time. Making gum paste flowers has been my latest obession (besides cookies!!!!!).

1st Pic: Rose Bouquet - left is Carnation with filler flowers, middle is roses, and on the right, we have Daisy, Calla Lilies with filler flowers.



2nd Pic: Top view of Calla Lilies, Daisy and Carnation with filler flowers.



3rd Pic: Cattleya Orchid (TOTALLY didn't know what I was doing, so I will have to practice on it more!!!!)

Gum Paste Rose Corsage

Originally I wanted to make the talisman roses (closed roses with less ruffled petals) just like this chocolate rose I made last year. I guess it's because the textures are different (chocolate vs gum paste), they turned out to be more ruffled than I expected. I was disappointed at first, however, after dusting them, they looked so much prettier than I thought.....I am loving them!!

Jorja's 2nd Birthday Treats 3 - Birthday Cake

Jorja loves monkeys, so I decided to do Curious George / Jorja cake. I don't know why, but I immediately thought of Curious George but not others like Boots at the Dora's Explorer. Anyway, the cake is a vanilla sponge cake with strawberry filling & buttercream. I am very happy with the flavour - not too sweet but very creamy. I know Jorja & her family will love it!



I went with a simple design.

Jorja's 2nd Birthday Treats 2 - Animals Cookies

These animals cookies are for Jorja's play group friends.

Jorja's 2nd Birthday Treats 1 - Portrait Cookies

These portrait cookies were mostly drawn by royal icing.

For a better view, please click on the picture itself.

Hand-Painted Goldfish, Carps & Lotus Cookies

When I wanted to make some cookies for the celebration of Chinese New year, I thought of lotus, goldfish & carps (not sure why...hahaa). I found these images online. For sure, it is much more and more difficult to use royal icing to draw these images than just by hand.

To take a clear look of the paintings, you may click on the pic itself.



I wish everyone healthy & strong as tigers & Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Tiger Paw Cookies

2010 is the year of the tiger.

Heart Box Chocolate Cookies

Finally, I found a creative way to use my double-hearted cookie cutter. I was lazy & also forgot to decorate the chocolates in the boxes!! :(

Chinese Accents

To further personalize my blog more, I will be designing some graphics and adding Chinese texts on my blog. My husband is so creative that he gave this Chinese name "精點時光" for my blog. "精點" (delicated desserts) has a pun to "經典" (elegant / classy). I like these double meanings!! "時光" means moment.

Gum Paste Flowers - Part 1

Gum paste dries so quick! I had to take a few attempts to make the flowers look nicer. In part two, I will show you the flowers after wiring and dusting.

On this pic, you will see calla lilies (top left), roses (top right) and sweet peas (bottom).



On the 2nd pic, there are some apple blossoms,stephenosis, carnation, and rose buds.

Oriental String Work

It was both exciting and frustrating to learn the oriental string work. Exciting - because i have never done it before; frustrating - because the strings are very easy to break (even just a light touch!) and hard to get them even. At the end, I just wanted to get it done more than making it look nice.

As you can see from the pic, some of the strings were broken....

Valentine's Day Cookies

These cookies were soooo fun to make. They are funny and cute. I found some free vintage clip arts online and followed the designs & patterns. I had a blast making them although they were time-consuming!

Birthday Cake

Birthday cake made for a friend whose birthday is today!! It is a vanilla bean mousse cake with peach gelatin in the middle. Surrounding the cake is white chocolate.




I don't know how it tastes, but I hope she likes it!

Snow White Cookies

A colleague is going away to Disneyland in Florida, and I also wanted to make these Snow White cookies for a while. These are the reasons why. The most difficult parts are drawing the eyes & mouths!!! Actually, I think some of them look like Queen Elizabeth II when she was young!!!! :P

I will be making some very interseting Chinese New Year and Valentine's Day cookies these few days & possibly weeks!! I am so excited for it!!! Stay tuned.

Valentine / Chinese Wedding Cookies

I continued to come up more cookie designs for my brother's wedding favour. I actually learned how to tie chinese knots BUT using fondant. It was very difficult because when I pulled the fondant thread too much, it broke on me....

I know some of the designs are hard to see on the pic; they are just hearts painted by hands.....not too impressive....

I found some of the designs are quite suitable for the upcoming Valentine's Day, too (AND also Chinese New Year...haahaa). Don't you know Valentine's Day and Chinese New Year are on the same day this year?

Balenciaga Purse Cookie

This brand has very stylish and interesting designs on purses. I started liking this brand after making this cookie. I followed this purse called "Holiday First." Yeah, the colour is a bit off... :( I may actually get a Balenciage purse later.... :)

Moduoge (摩多格) - Chocolate, Raspberry, Vanilla and Pistachio Mousse Cake

I don't know what Moduoge / 摩多格 means, but I guess it implies a lot of layers? The bottom of this cake is made of melted chocolate, hazelnut paste & almonds. The original recipe calls for vanilla cream and almond cake layer, but I forgo them (too much work, u know!). I am quite happy with the cake(s) - the cream & mousse turned out very smooth, soft & tasteful.

Just one note - the chocolate-hazelnut-almond layer should be made into a thin layer; otherwise you will have a hard time to cut it.

I haven't decided if I should put the recipe up yet. I will see how many people want them because it will take a bit of time writing it!. Please leave me a message if you do.

Moduoge decorated with French macarons, but I didn't do a smooth job on the raspberry mousse layer :(



Different layers.



Mini Moduoge.

Mille Feuille Sponge Cake

This cake has been on my to-do list for over a year, so I am happy to take it off finally!

Eating this cake is very interesting - Just one bit, my mouth was stuffed with very crisp and easy-to-crack layers, very soft sponge cake layers and strawberry layers. Imagine this, and how do you feel now? mmmmm...

Actually I felt it was so difficult for me to make even a sponge cake now. It seems everything could go wrong so easily. I guess it's because I haven't made cakes for months? With that said, the next few posts should be about cakes made by me...haahaa...

Anyhow, here is the recipe for Mille Feuille. It's actually quite easy to make. Just bear in mind not to roll the pastry too thin or you will break the layers and the butter will come out everywhere......

Chinese Wedding Cookies

I made some yummy semi-sweet chocolate cookies last night and couldn't wait to decorate them today!

These samples are for my brother's wedding favour. They are in Chinese style, but somehow the designs are still not simple enough. Since I will be making hundreds of them, I really can't make the designs so complicated although I want them to look elegant.

These are the trials only. I am sure I will have more new ideas along the way.

Fondant Fancies

Followed Peggy Porschen's Fondant Fancies' recipe. The cake is a vanilla cake. The fancies look very pretty except my fondant icing was made a bit runny.

Luxury Purse Cookies

I will need to practise more on cookie painting for sure!!! I am quite happy with the Chanel handbag......especially like the chain and the quilted texture.....

Pure White Chocolate Rose

Never thought I would have an order for a white chocolate rose. It was totally a pleasant surprise! It smells very aromatic...

Cookies Painting

I also enjoy painting on cookies very much. Here are some of my products:

Top: Judy Abbott from Daddy Long Legs, bottom left: The Little Prince and the bottom right: The Snowman

This is the Mother Goose and Peter Rabbit from the Tale of Peter Rabbit. I had so much fun making them! and the cookies tasted very good, too! My only advice is to get a very fine brush as it will save you a lot of time!!!!!

Christmas Baking

This is my first post, which shows my first christmas baking. I made these snacks for my colleague, Sue, who has been a loyal supporter of my sugar goodies since the very beginning!

At the bottom of the stand are santa and tin soldier cookies, middle are little pound cakes covered with fondant icing (didn't cover the whole cakes), and on the top are custard and almond tarts.

Recently i have been addicited to cookies making and decorating. I think I'll need to get back to making more cakes soon!

I am pretty happy with how the tin soldier cookies turned out. It was actually easier than what I expected. It didn't take me a lot of time. Isn't it cute?

Polar bear is getting festive, too.....

At last, Merry Christmas!