Cakey Affair - Bakes and Orders

I can't remember when was the first time I started baking a cake all by myself without the assistance from my mom or sis or aunt or grandmother, but I remembered once during a school holiday during my teens, I bought a chocolate cake mix with my cousin with hopes of  having our fresh from the oven cake. The cake mix only requires to add oil and egg, place it in a greased cake pan and bake it in the oven. The.cake.did.not.rise. I halted from baking after that, as I was in a boarding school for 2 years. 

Long story short, I still can't remember the starting point of my baking. I did bake blueberry muffins once in a while using Martha Stewarts' recipe somewhere in 2006 or 2007, but it all started at one point after my former housemate, Moodey brought her mom's oven to the house we used to live in Cyberjaya during our undergraduate student years. Thanks Moodey for the inspiration! I will always remember that. ^_^ 

This year has been the most baking work I've ever done in my entire life. I made some of the recipes for numerous number of times with lots of trials and errors (well that is what we have to do in order to get the best result aye?).... and I've started taking orders! 

Red Velvet Cupcake/Cake

Bakes

I was introduced with this cake by my sister earlier this year. At that moment, my sister was pregnant, she recently got back after a good 3 years of working in London, and was unemployed since no companies would want to hire a pregnant lady :p. She said she made the best red velvet cupcakes ever, and her cupcakes were a hit back in London when she had this charity sales or something. 

Our first trial was a disaster. I guess it was due to the ingredients. Previously, all of our ingredients especially those baking ingredients would somehow pass the due date. I was a seasonal baker, and there would always be leftovers of the ingredients which will be kept for months before the next baking project. The ingredients we used for the first trial have yet to reach the expiry date, but since it was kept in the refrigerator so long, the stuff kinda absorbed the smell of the fridge, or as we call it "bau peti sejuk". We used icing sugar which was kept for 2 months or so, and our cream cheese frosting tasted "peti sejuk"!  

All of that were history. Hehe. After cupcakes, I tried making a whole cake, and it was a success. I've altered the original recipe by reducing the sugar amount and adding a very secret ingredient. Haha. I am still in the quest of searching for the best cream cheese frosting which will be easy to pipe and won't melt easily and most importantly, not too sweet. Most recipes will just ask to add more sugar to make it stiffer. 

Orders

These are some of the orders I've made so far.. My very first customer was my former schoolmate, Amin who requested 2 cakes for his sister's engagement.

And a few other orders, which basically are from my family and some close friends who've tried it during my Open House last Syawal.

And thanks to my friend, Mawaddah who have yet to try my red velvet, but she promoted me to her  officemate for  graduation themed cupcakes. This was my first time working with fondant though. It was a hard work!! 

I also  made a few extras for a friend who's leaving on a jet plane...

and a dear friend's graduation.

Rainbow Cake

Bakes

My first encounter of Rainbow Cake would be during a friend's wedding weeks before Ramadhan. I really like the idea of Rainbow Cake, it was colourful and would cheer anybody's day. I wasn't really interested of making one, not until my sister BBMed me another rainbow cake made by her friend's sister whilst she was having breakfast at her friend's place. I just realized that making rainbow cake is not that difficult, I just need to find a good pound cake recipe, or butter cake recipe, or any vanilla cake recipe and add colours to them. The only hassle is the need of baking it layer by layer. I tried my first Rainbow Cake during Open House last Syawal as well.. 

Orders

A friend's friend saw the above photo and decided to order one from me as well. I'm not sure if she liked the cake or not, but hopefully she liked it. :-S. The white frosting is cream cheese frosting! 

The Best Chocolate Cake You've Ever Ate

Bakes

I remembered the first time I made this cake somewhere in early 2010 for a friend's birthday, I followed the exact same recipe as the one here. The recipe was supposed for a 9x13 inch pan but I made it in a 8 inch round pan. It should be good on it's own, but I decided to cut the cake to half so that I can add the chocolate frosting in between. The cake was a very dense cake, hence upon cutting it in between it collapsed. I managed to save it by adding frosting in between and tried to put the cake to it's place and make it back to a rounded shape and add frosting on top of it. My friends actually liked the cake and they can't believe I actually baked it myself. :p

It was long after that I tried making the recipe again around this year, but this time around I changed the method, instead of using melted butter, I creamed the butter with reduced sugar. It was a hit! I made it for my nephew's Akikah, and most of the guests loved it! It was in bite sizes hence the love affair by the guests. The cake was very soft after baking though, so I had to make it to bite sizes and had to present it as the above picture so that it'll look presentable. It would very difficult to make the cake in one piece, because as I turned it over it would break! :-S. I prefer to bake this during big events as it can cater for quite a number of guests.

Ah, I guess that's all for my cakey affair.. I have yet to try more recipes, but for now I guess I'll stick to these few.. My next trial project would be Lemon Poppy Seed Cupcakes. Can't wait!!