chocolate and perfume..... and oreo chocolate cheesecake

certain places had certain effect on people. they brought back memories, happy, sad, joy and happiness, a feeling of loneliness, romanticness ( is there such words?). Venice, made me feel romantic, it's empty going to Venice(long long time ago ) without your loved ones. I am not going to talk about Venice, let's leave that place for the time being and talk about a place closer to home, Langkawi.Two words or two things I like about Langkawi ..

perfume , don't we ladies just love the smell of perfume, well... this mama especially, you name it.....Chloe, Chanel No.5, Dior Addict, Miss Dior, Romance, Loewe, Deep Red, Nina Ricci, 212, LouLou, Armani, Kenzo, and the list is endless........their bottles are nice too...... the other is: chocolate
Perfume and chocolate or chocolate and perfume in no particular order.If you were given a choice, which one would you choose between the two? I couldn't remember when or how I started my crave for chocolate, and I think I had written somewhere about my relationship with chocolate, in my drawer at the office ( then ), always have a stock of Kitkat or Kinder or Ritter Sport in the minifridge upstairs and a few downstairs and so the love for chocolate doesn't just stop there, chocolate cake, brownies, chocolate fudge mousse, chocolate eclair, and this one, oreo chocolate cheesecake( OCC ). Who ordered these OCC? .
CT who had just returned from her honeymoon in Langkawi ( that made me talk about Langkawi in the first place ) and I remembered my honeymoon in Langkawi too, errrr...15 years ago.....the small chalet, the beach, pantai Chenang, the..........

Anyway, the other OCC was for Yong, my Srikandi friend, who ordered it for their jamuan, a slight miscommunication with the sms and I only made one instead of two, because no mention of '2' in the sms, next time I need to clarify with my customers to avoid dissapointment on both parties.

thank yyou so much CT and Yong for your continuous support. appreciate it . Do enjoy the oreo chocolate cheesecake!

100 + 10 red, violet, peach and purple roses

they come in many colours, red, pink, yellow, white, etc..etc and they are such beautiful flowers with different colour having different meaning, which I wouldn't want to elaborate here for I am no flower expert, all I know is that they are beautiful to look at, nice to smell and it would melt my heart anytime . She requested a rose each for the cupcakes, 100 of them as gifts to their families and friends during her daughter's wedding.

beautiful bride with 'inai' drawn on her fingers when she came to collect the cuppies. I am sure she would look even prettier in her red sari and the bling bling ala Bollywood .

each cupcake was then placed in a cup with a dome lid and tied with a simple matching ribbon with s mall flower glued to the ribbon.

All I 'could say was "Thank You" Shanti , hope the ceremony was a joyous and beautiful one. wishing your daughter and her groom, happiness always.

colourful.....very colourful Power Puff Girls birthday cake

"Hai Zue! I ada hajat ni...."

it's my daughter's birthday today, but I want the cake for tomorrow. What can you do for a five year old girl. "
The easiest? the fastest? the least work to do for a less than 24 hour notice birthday cake?I had done PPG so many times before. Five year old? colourful !lots and lots of colours. Batrisyia had a PPG birthday cake for her fifth birthday last year.
Then she put her daughter on the line and came a sweet, angelic voice, " Hello Aunty!" For a five year old, she can talk, she asked me what I would make for her. (since Princess cake was out of the question). i suggested teddies for her and she agreed. then her mum took the phone back and asked me what I could do. that's when I suggested PPG and she agreed with me.
Edible image was out of the question. where would I get it in such a short notice. piping jelly colours on ganache? nope.....buttercream on top of the ganache, and then to draw on the buttercream? nope... then what?PPG figurines? Did I have the time? I didn't think so. the call came in just before 10 pm and it must be ready before 4.30 pm the next day.

five yellow stars for five year old gal

what other options did I have? I went ahead to bake the chocolate cake first while my head my flashing images of PPG or any other ideas that would come to mind.By midnite, the cake was ready, just let it cool and I would start on the deco the next morning.
Why didn't I just draw the girls, Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup on a piece of white fondant, just like the one I did with BEN 10, started drawing and colouring. Once that was done, I started on the teddies since I had promised the birthday gal that there would be teddies, so I made a teddy each for the girls.

but why were there bees and ladybirds? because I did say or suggested to the mum, perhaps I would just make a simple bday cake, sort of garden theme with the birds and the bees, that was before we decided on PPG, so I thot I'd just put everything in.

what's with the colourful m&m? well... colours....plenty of colours and those colours were not enough I cut out the alphabets with coloured fondant too!meriah sungguh kek ini....

There you go, a colourful Power Puff Girls with teddies and yellow stars with m&m for top border , green and ellow buttercream grass for the base border with bees and ladybirds crawling all over, five of each too.

Here's wishing Nut Alyssya Sabrina, nice name, a Happy 5th Birthday, may you always be a joy and an angel to your mum and dad and sisters. thank you Miza for trusting me with your daughter's birthday cake.

layan dulu......

Hello and welcome! for those who had just clicked on my blog be it, accidentally or not, or stumbled upon it by chance or based on recommendation from friends, just to let uol know that all these are available at Zue's Oven, from cupcakes :-vanila and chocolate cuppies with buttercream and ganache topping,(we do have carrot walnut and banana too, with cream cheese topping,)

to chocolate moist birthday cake with fondant figurines and fondant cartoon drawing,

to a single pink rose in a beautifully decorated casing with little flowers and ribbons,

to to biskut batik or cake batik

to plain bake cheesecake with wordings for a special person for a special occasion,

to.....errrr..... these ones are not in the menu, they are not edible....."Batrisyia's Oven"

to, last but not least, the one and only, none other than the oreo chocolate cheesecake......

wait, there's more..... brownies:- marble cheese brownies( MCB ), luxury brownies, brownies with walnut, double chocolate brownies,, fruit cake, carrot walnut cake, eggless orange cake, plain traditional butter cake, pies:- apple pie, pineapple pie, chicken pie, tarts:- blueberry cheesetarts(BCT) ,chocolate mousse with cream, what else? what did I miss out? still in the process of making trifle, Tiramisu, etc, etc......eclairs? I love eclairs, must try to do them one fine day....

these are just a few of what's cooking and baking at Zue's Oven, feel free to ask for what's not mentioned here. I might have missed out a few things. Pasta! yes! I do macaroni au gratin too, spaghetti bolognese, spaghetti goreng, spaghetti ala Dome, and yesterday I made lasagne for the kids for our lunch, what about pudding? somebody did ask me if I made them. I did. puding marble, pudding cermin, caramel, puding jagung, for makan2 only, wait till I have perfectted them, then I'd add them to the list. what else? I made scones, serabai barat aka pancake, waffles, doughnuts, bingkang gandum, cekmek molek.....so many things and dishes and desserts that I'd like to try. when they are ready, they will be included too.I forgot about cookies! choc chip cookies, semolina cookies, ice cream green tea, just to name a few.okay, okay, I want to add another one...hampers :- hampers for all occasions!

so, feast your eyes on the cakes and cuppies.....have a nice day!

Stay tuned.....for Nur Alyssya Sabrina's PPG besday cake

rather last minute, so no time to place an order for edible image, so I hand drew the three girls free hand, well... almost the same as the picture.

teddies for Buttercup, Blossom and Bubble

"Queen of our Hearts"

They left it to me for the wordings, not that they didn't know what to say but they have so many beautiful words to describe their mum and their feelings for her, it's undescribable, beyond words, so many vocabularies and adjectives to be used.

Therefore, I placed myself in their shoes, three pairs of shoes to be exact.....hehe, three beautiful girls, most probably my size wouldn't fit them, me with a size 3 or 35, but doesn't matter, my umi started came to mind, she's wonderful umi and I expressed on the cakes how I would have felt for my mum.
She's the GREATEST MAMA IN THE WWW.......... Whole Wide World!

This message came from three cute pinky bears to wish their MAMA BEAR, a very Happy birthday, just to show how much their love and affection for her

for she is " The Queen of their Hearts"

loving

caring,
are just two out of endless list of words to describe a mum and this mum was no exception.

We Love U Mama....

this package of chocolate cake in a transparent box, with ganache on top and in between , with fondant deco , complete with pink and red ribbon plus a white mother butterfly and her three pink little ones was delivered to mum's office, as a surprise birthday cake for her and it was the girls' wishes , for their mum to share the cake with her officemates.I arrived in front of her office building at exactly 10.04 am as per the parking receipt and lady luck, or rather Allah MAha Besar which made my work easy or me, was smiling on me this morning for there was a vacant parking spot right, well almost infront of the office building, making it asier for me to carry the cake inside..

went up to the first floor where she was located. i wasn't ready for her reaction. She was overwhelmed by her daughters' gesture, maybe it was the least expected, or she was't expecting it and it took her by surprise.

tears welled in her eyes as she couldn't contain her emotions any longer and so i gave her a hug,they were not tears of sadness but more of joy , of unexpectedness and I hear myself saying " you have great kids and they all love you very much". I know that she loves her daughters as much, maybe more, and they are blessed to have each other in happiness and sorrow. Will my kids do the same for me? then again, who would bake and deco the cake?hmmmmmmmm........:-)

Areena, Adila and Ain, thank you for trusting Aunty Zue to make this birthday cake , a birthday cake 'to show the love of the daughters for their mother' as they put it in their sms and surprise your mama.I am blessed to have this three wonderful girls and their equally wonderful mum as my neighbour. Areena gave her approval look when she came to have a peek at the half decorated cake this morning."Aunty!.....comelnyer......." I could consider that as a compliment too:-)

Kak Bahyah, many happy returns of the day. Age, just like the candles on the cake, no matter how many or how few they are, they are just numbers. It's up to us to make the most of our lives, live life to the fullest, live beautifully, healthily and sincerely, insyaAllah, we'll be blessed.Semoga panjang umur dimurahkan rezeki.

hanya untuk menghilangkan rasa rindu........

batrisyia's version of mini burgers, using plasticine.

batrisyia and her cousin, making bracelet, ring and etc with plastisin during our one day and one night trip back to my hometown. yes, one day only but that was enough for me , just to see how my Abah and Umi were doing. and I got to eat sotong rebus jam packed with telur, sepadat-padatnya.....sedap......my favourite since small and umi always try to get them for me and Umi also cooked kari kepala ikan merah, for breakfast, as usual Umi would buy pulut pagi and roti goreng for me and at Kak's place, we would definitely request for nasi kak wok and not forgetting kak's famous nescafe susu, a must have every time I visited her house.

From Saudi to Alor staq- birds and bees....

We were schoolmates, not classmates but dormmates, Dorm Charlie, C2-6, third floor, the middle dorm in between C2-3 and C2-8? at the Mahsuri ( Block C ) or (Yellow house) building.The dorm that managed to get the title " the Cleanest dorm"' a few times, Mum, Idah, yati, Lolo, Nozie, Kristina, Ekay, Ma, Jua, Bee, oh there were so many of them, I wonder where they all are now.

We went separate ways after SPM and many, many years later, we met up ,via Facebook. that's the beauty of facebook, you get to meet your old friends, your long lost buddies, universities mates, college mates, school mates and I wish I could meet my primary school mates too. My classmates when I was in Standard Six at Sekolah Kebangsaan Pulai chondong, Salina, Azizah, Harlina, Norashikin, Norhidayati, Zahalina, so many names which I had not met for quite a while now, after our Standard Six, some even way back in the 70s, late seventies.....you see... I am old, very old....... i am one of those Hail amir Uji Rashid era, I even sang one of Uji Rashid's song during our last days of school when I was in Standard Three I think. It went something like this;

Setelah kau pergi, kuselalu gelisah, tak pernah tenteram dijiwa....... or was it " semakin hari kukenang, jiwaku rasa tak tenang, semakin hari kupandang, semakin sayang... semakin sayang........

How did I manage to do that? Singing in public?.... when I am a very stage fright person. I had done public speaking, ceramah ugama, Std 5, story telling not sure, std 5 or 6, , being in a drama when I was in Std Six,so on and so on, even now, when I was called on stage to do a dance like thingy, my legs were wobbly, they were like jellies underneath the batik silk sarung that I was wearing during that Company dinner!
How did I do that? I keep asking myself. Being an MCs several times, even during my uni days when we had to perfom several dances , several as in, joget, inang, zapin, lilin, boria, endang, during our Malaysian Nite, all in one night, just to perform the malay dances in front of the British and Briton, and other foreign students and introducing part or some of our cultures to them, I did all that but with heartbeat thumping as loud as you could hear. I love singing but only can sing in showers or behind closed doors, even I couldn't sing in a karaoke session!I'd love to be in school choir but my fear of singing in public let me down. I would sing my heart out in the shower behind the steel door during my boarding school days and the minute I came out, the voice trembled....I guess, there's a reason for everything that happened.

Why am I rambling, walking down memory lanes, that's because I met my old dormates, my schoolmates who came back from Saudi for a short holiday to see her family and in-laws. We had been communicating via facebook and blog and she did say that when she came back, she might want to order some cakes from me and she did. My friend and her daughters love one of my creations wih the cake and several cupcakes around it with the birds and bees theme and she wanted me to make something like that. She wanted carrot walnut cupcakes with cream cheese topping with full fondant deco, with all the bees and birds and I added some ladybirds and butterflies too!

I made all the figurines the nite before and planned to make and bake BCT or oreo for my friend when I saw the sms the next morning saying that she wouold pick up the cupcakes earlier, say 12 to 1 noon instead of after Asar! Oh no! there goes my plan, think, think think, I had to think fast what could I make in such a short period of time, in between baking the carrot cupcakes and of course decorating them, Why didn't I think of that before..... MCB of course, quick and declicious too, except for the cooling time which could be a while, but still, while waiting for her it would cool off nicely.

Finally she got to taste my MCB after having seen them so many times on my blog. Well, she did tell me that once in a while she and her daughters would drop by my blog and look at my cakes. Thank Ti and kids for taking the the time to drop by my blog and this time to finally drop by at my house . It was really a good moment having somebody over at your house after having not met them for a long time, so much to say, so much to talk about but she only managed to stay a while because she and her huby had a few things to attend to and few relatives' houses to visit.

birds

and bees......

Thank you Ti for making this order, it brightens up my kids faces everytime they looked at the cuppies, before you took them away and I do hope that your kids feel the same way too. Have a safe flight back to Saudi and by the way, thanks for the kurma and kacang. It was safe and sound where you left them that day.till we meet again...insyaAllah....

Tahniah Kakwi Strawberries cheesecake

she loves oreo..... , her sister does. She wanted the base with oreo but asked me if I could use the baked cheesecake on top since chilled oreo cheesecake version is a bit out of the question since she would be travelling by bus to SP. I was afraid that should there be any delays, the chilled oreo chocolate cheesecake wouldn't survive the journey, so I tried a new version here, plain bake with oreo base

A sister wanted to cleberate with her family her youngers sister's excellent result in the SPM, so she ordered this cheesecake, with chocolate topping and strawberries, an additionl message, please glaze with more chocolate on top of the strawberries. Speaking of strawberries, it's just her luck cos when I went to G*ant, it was the last box of strawberries. I had to take it cos it's a bit time consuming if I were to check out at the other stores. I had to settle with that last box.

i do hope the cheesecake turned out alright because I had never done this version before. Perhaps I should check out other recipes and versions too. so that I would have more choices and options.

in the middle, just cut out pink fondant and chocolate fondant and lastly a piece of white fondant with the SPM results, plus a scroll and a graduation hat just to symbolise that she had completed her secondary school and would be going to further her studies as university students and different lifestyle of studying , where school uniforms don't apply anymore.

Haziqah, thank you for trustingme with this cheesecake and the lovely comments which I received via sms.