class on 23rd july 2011

eh! what is she doing there? where are they? One mummy of three kids, the other two, mum and daughter team, all three of them, but they are all so shy shy one......refused to be photographed and i respected their decisions and hence, Batrisyia's photo , here.

nice fondant bracelet

lunch for the day, but not home cooked, unfortunately.... or fortunately...:-)

ooops, patah dah bracelet tu....

aahhh, there it is, my signature dish, ayam masak minagkabau, pagi ni sempat masak satu lauk je because last night was pretty tight.

when Sue first asked for this date, july 23rd, my schedule was free, and so i agreed. I then got one order for six boxes of mini brownies with daisies to be collected early morning and I thought i could do them without jeopardising my class.

however, the previous nights i received a call from hubby's friend who is also my customer, requesting for a wedding cake, to be collected by noon on this particular day, I had to say 'yes' if not, the bride would have no cake on her akad nikah day. as I was making the cakes and brownies and trying to decorate the boxes for the six brownies, i received another call, my regular customer, requesting for a cake and a marble cheese brownies for birthdays. I just couldn't say 'no' but all these 'yes'es only allowed me two hours of sleep before my scheduled class the following day, and hence i only had time to cook one dish.

sue's

kak long's ( kak H's daughter )

Kak H's

However, despite the unexpectedly busy night with last minute orders, I managed to not fall asleep during the class, thanks to my lively and jovial students who made the class fun and entertaining. Alhamdulillah, the class went on smoothly, no ice breaking session needed , as we all know one another very well.

thank you Sue, Kak H and daughter for your willingness to share your Saturday with me in my little kitchen.

another srikandi in my kitchen

She voiced out her intention to me long time ago but time and date didn't allow us to be together. She's busy with her work in Penang and sometimes going back home in ipoh and me, the usual , busy with baking, decorating cakes, with children, family , this and that.When I received her sms that day asking for a slot on Sunday, the 3rd, I checked my schedule and it seemed that I was quite free except for the 5th and so I guess spend eight hours with her and started with the kodak film cake later We started minutes after 9.30 am, no ice breaking session needed since we knew each other way back in the 80s, during our secondary school days, she's my senior and her younger sister was my classmates for three years and school mates for five years . just gave her a few minutes to ease upa fter an hour's drive from Penang, talked to my cat Lili for a while ( she has a few cats back home in Penang too )
as usual, everything was hands on and we started with the weighing and mixing the mixture for the vanila cupcakes
time to break the eggs into the butter and sugar mixture kak eda!
one by one okay and don't forget to scrape the sides once in a while



now, time to put the mixture into the cups

cupcakes baked and cooled, hats made, mushrooms checked, handbag, checked, and hence it's time for the grass!

time for lunch, my stomach was growling as I didn't have breakfast this morning, woke up early to prepare the lunch for the day, just a simple home cooked lunch for today, masak lemak cili api ketam and sambal sotong ( which I cooked in the morning ) , sayur campur goreng, and ikan goreng which was prepared just before lunch time ( panas panas baru sedap )

Back to work! Kak Eda duk buat apa tu?

ooohhhh... duk susun cupcakes yang dah siap, time for photo session.
we finished rather early, about 4.30 pm, a really fast learner, I guess we owe it to our SRT class back in our secondary school.....:-)

kak Eda with her cupcakes, to bring back to Penang

thank you Kak Eda sebab sudi datang all the way to my little kitchen , hope you will be able to make the cakes that you plan to make soon.

wednesday with sugar and flour , butter and cream

and three lovely ladies in my kitchen, Afidah, zue and Dina.

sometimes people asked me for the dates for classes, however unfortunately most of the time I was not able to fix a date, unless like this case, on this particular day, was actually a public holiday and I had nothing planned , and this lady smsed me wondering if I could conduct a class on this day. I told her that If I could get at least two people per session, that, it could be arranged. I smsed two other ladies who perviously did enquire about classes , and to keep them informed, and I asked them if they were interested to join . And they did, and so there were three......

total strangers in the beginning but got along fine as we went along, really engrossed in whatever it iwas that they were doing.....no play play....

three hats done...plus one.....actually this session was for beginners, using buttercream, but I just ontroduced a couple of fondant toppers for them, just for the fun of it and let them have a taste or feel of what 'fondant' is like.

break for lunch, I managed to cook the chicken and beef dishes in the morning while waiting for them and the menu for the day:my signature dish, ayam masak minangkabau, sayur bayam, telur dadar, daging dendeng, sayur goreng and ikan masin ( of course)

perut pun dah kenyang, let's get down to business, decorating with buttercream, having baked the cupcakes, mixed the buttercream, now it's time to do the decorating. Afidah, making the grass..... aahh... the grass, some people feel that ..".kacang lah buat tu", that's what my hubby said and I asked him to do it, and okay, he did, he could do it at first attempt, beginner's luck lah tu........ ( mode jealous...haha....) but for some people it could be a really daunting experience, the grass would either be too long , macam tak kena mesin banyak hari or too short.......practise makes perfect, that's what I said to them, everytime, not just woth the grass but with other designs too.......

it's Zue's turn now while Dina is trying the other design with the red buttercream

almost finished, this was the easiest part, no squeezing piping bags to make sure the sweet pea came out of a 104 nozzle, or McD swirl coming out of the big star nozzle, just sprinkle...........

sprinkling time, tabur je manik manik koran tu atas cupcakes

Finally, after almost eight hours ( with break in between for lunch and Solat Zohor ), with lots of giggling and laughing, baking, mixing, squeezing, sprinkling and moulding, 12 cupcakes plus two were decorated by each lady

Afidah's

Zue's

and Dina's

Each with their own style and creativity

thank you ladies for a wonderful Wednesday, sambil2 gelak gelak tu tangan bergerak juga

hope it was as fun for you as it was for me.

kelas on sunday

ini student mana pulak ni......eh.. kek tiga segi?

After a few mintes of ice breaking session, we made our way into my little kitchen to start on today's class. That day was Sunday not the usual Friday since both of them were only avai lable on Sunday. Any day is good for me cos I am at home 24/7

A little intoduction to fondant in this class to make it more fun, rather than just using buttercream as the deco

break for a short home cooked lunch, as usual simple simple dish only

Atira, trying her hands on the hat

and this is our mystrious Puan S who requested to remain anonymous

Atiera with her lovely creations, after a grueling eight hours more or less of baking, beating, mixing, piping , she managed to complete all the deco .

Atiera's creations

Puan S's creations

Thank you both for making the time to come and acquire some knowledge from me on how to decorate these little cakes. Jangan serik ya.

day 2 and 3

Day 2- Tuesday, we started earlier, 9.30 am, after sending both Tsara' and Batriysia to school, I was back at home and getting ready for the second day. Actually I had never conducted these classes before except for the basic cupcake deco for beginners ( using buttercream and a lttle bit of fondant ) but since my friend requested for between 20 to 32 hours of baking and cake decorating time ( for her daughter ) , I had to prepare and arrange modules for her to learn. she did tell me that she likes baking and that was why she chose to do this for her elective subject. I didn't really plan to teach much of baking, I am more into cake decorating than baking but in this case, I had to think of something and so I decided to show her how to bake a fruit cake ( which later I would use it for the next module and that was to frost the cake with buttercream and buttercream roses.

the next thing , while the fruit cake was in the oven , I showed her how to make carrot walnut cupcakes, which would be used for the next session, ie deco with fondant. Okay, some baking was done and now I could concentrate on the decorating part.

Lin and her fruit cake

For a beginner and for someone who is new to the nozzle and piping bags, she's doing quite well with the roses ( she did mention something about making these roses in her FB)I know that it was not easy making the roses, dear, for a first timer, you are doing well

time to deco the cake

taraah.... the result, one 9" cake covered with white buttercream and decorated with purple and white buttercream roses and some big and small silver dregees.

That concluded the lessons on the second day.

Day 3- Wednesday , decorating nine L size carrot walnut cupcakes with fondant, Lin, creatively designing her handbag,

Lin, with her mother,

Lin's work.

Three straight days of baking and cake decorating. It's always a joy, sharing and spending the time with someone who shares the same passion. Hope that these three days had been fun to Lin as much as it was for me. Thank you Kak Ani, Lin's mum for trusting me to share what little knowledge of baking and cake decorating that I have with your daughter who , insyaAllah will become a Pharmacist once she graduated from her Uni.

Thnak you Lin for being a wonderful student.

day 1

Sweet Lin, the apple of her mak's eye, anak bongsu from tiga adik beradik, with her buttercream deco vanila cupcakes after the day one session.

Her mum called just one week before I was supposed to go to KL. A special request from a friend, her daughter is taking elective subjects during the term break and she needed plus minus 32 hours of classes, and since she had always loved baking, she decided to take a few lessons from me. My schedule was quite tight, not that I had so many orders but December was an extremely busy month for me, with my brother's ( the last in the family to get married ) akad nikah and reception in KL, followed by the kenduri in Kelantan and the preparations for my three school going children, with Batrisyia, starting her Standard one in her new school, Tsara' just got her PMR result, my son's birthday at the end of the year and a visit from my sister who's living in Ireland, plus an unplanned family trip.Lin, my student, was leaving to start her new term as early as the second week of January 2011. The only time that I was available was to squeeze in on the first week of January, and I had to schedule her on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. all jammed packed.

First day started a bit late, 10.30am because it was Batrisyia's official first day at school. We registered on Dec 30th 2010 but officially school started on 3rd January 2011. I waited until her recess time and knowing that she would be fine at her school, I decided not to wait till school finished and went back to get ready for the classes with Lin.

For this class, there's a slight difference to the usual 'basic cupcake deco for beginners' because this module only involved buttercream deco, no fondant deco. after weighing and creaming the butter and sugar, time to add the eggs into the mixture,everything was hands on.

weighing the batter into the individual cups

vanila cupcakes rising in the oven. Don't, never ever open an oven door when the cakes are rising

While waiting for the cupcakes to cool. we started mixing the colours for the buttercream

practised doing the leaves

put the buttercream into the piping bag

12 plus plus cupcakes to bring home

one for mak, one for me, one for ayah, two for me,one for abang, three for me, one for kawan, four for me......hee.....