Gong Xi Fa Chai - Take 3

The same friend that ordered the 2 dozen CNY cupcakes earlier ordered another dozen for one of her group meetings. So here they are....chocolate cupcakes with buttercream frosting.

I was feeling a bit off today, and didn't see the block of butter that I used for the frosting. I was like auto-pilot and proceeded to whip the butter with the icing sugar....and as usual, I took a taste. And thought that it was kinda salty. I thought my tastebuds have gone awol with my not-too-feeling-well. Then I walked to my bin to pick up the butter wrapper. Yup. You guessed right. It was SALTED BUTTER. No wonder. Unfortunately, I had run out of butter, and could't make another batch of buttercream frosting. And didn't have the car as well.
I asked my No.1 fan for Chocolate Cupcakes, i.e. S2 to come and have a taste test. He said "It taste like normal. I love it!". Hopefully, my friend would agree as well. I told her that I would give her money back if she is not satisfied with the product....

Soccer Mad??

My younger son, S2 is turning 10 tomorrow. And to celebrate his turning 10 in the year 2010, we had a party at home yesterday. I had bought a Pinata in the shape of a soccer ball earlier in the week ....sorta by chance. And since he had soccer game both yesterday and today (YUP! Games on both Saturday and Sunday!) , I thought I would just stick to SOCCER for his birthday cakes as well. As my S2 prefers chocolate flavour, naturally all the cupcakes here are chocolate ones...

Mini Cupcakes for yesterday's Birthday Party
(Can you see that it is in the figure 10? And S2's Jersey number is indeed 15....which is also used as "is" here. You can't see it here, but his football boots actually have the WHITE swish Nike sign)

His actual birthday is tomorrow,......and I had to bake more cupcakes for his classmates.

Mini Cupcakes for S2's Class

(It's in a plastic container for easy transport)

A Standard-sized Cupcake with Flowers for S2's Teacher

Extra Cupcakes...which I gave to S2's Friend's Family

Gong Xi Fa Chai - Take 2!

If you don't already know..., Chinese New Year is celebrated for a total of 15 days. Today is actually Day 8. For many Hokkiens, tonight at midnight is the BIG prayers to "Thi Kong".

These 24 chocolate cupcakes were ordered by my friend, CL for her Vietnamese friend. Vietnamese celebrate their new year in accordance to the lunar calendar too. And they call it "Tet" for short.

Cupcakes all-lined up....

16 cupcakes ready to go into the box....

And two more boxes of 4s....

40th Birthday Cupcakes

It's a friend's fortieth birthday tomorrow and she had a small gathering today. I offered to make her birthday cake as I didn't know what else to give her. At first, I was planning to make the Valrhona chocolate cake as I know she loves that. But last night, her hubby texted me and said that there would be 30 people altogether. No way was the 9-inch cake gonna be enough. So I decided to make cupcakes. It was quite rushed as I decided to do the letterings, flowers and butterflies using fondant. I made banana cupcakes AND chocolate cupcakes. On top of that, my chocolate buttercream was NOT enough and I had to make another batch. Sigh. Needless to say, we were late, late, late for the party. But I'm happy to say that they were very well-received and the birthday girl loved them.

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

I know I'm a few days late in posting this but it was the holidays and I was lazy, etc, etc. I was also comtemplating whether to post it or not. I had an order last Friday for 80 chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting and I was to pack them in boxes of 2. I planned to take a picture of the packed boxes but of course, after packing the 40 boxes, I forgot. I just can't help it, I'm old and have the memory of a goldfish. And to prove that, I actually forgot to put in my business cards! Talk about duh!


I made some extra and tried to colour the frosting orange. This is my very sad and pathetic attempt of a tiger. Well, tigers ARE cats! :P

Wishing everyone a happy, healthy and prosperous Year of the Tiger!

GONG XI FA CAI!

Happy Birthday, Sister Number 3!

True to my word this time - I made these never-tried-before cupcakes in time to honour sister number 3's birthday. I chose this recipe because I think she would really enjoy these! Oh yeah, each time I will endeavour to choose a recipe that I think birthday-sister would enjoy!

Black-bottom cupcakes

i.e. dense chocolate cupcake with a dollop of cheesecake
topped with cream-cheese frosting - yummy yum yum!

Picture shown also includes unfrosted cupcakes - to show how they look underneath. To be honest, I really wasn't sure how it would turn out as I was baking them. The chocolate cake batter looked more like cookie dough prior to baking, and my cheesecake batter wouldn't become smooth and fluffy, like how the recipe said.

But turns out, husband loved, loved them!

Happy Birthday, Sister number 3! Hope you're having such a wonderful time, which explains why I haven't been able to get ahold of you all day!!!!

Busy Busy Day!

I had two sets of order today. One was for 15 chocolate cupcakes with vanilla buttercream frosting and 15 carrot cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. And the other was for a dozen chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting and a dozen strawberry shortcake cupcakes. So I had three different kinds of cupcakes and four different frostings to do today. Phew!

The first order was for a little boy's birthday. So, naturally, it would be blue. His mother wanted them plain and simple, so that was what she got.


The other order was for a reunion dinner, so that one was simple too. Nevertheless, still a busy day!

Happy Birthday, Sister No. 3!

It is Sister No.3's birthday today and so I dedicate these to her. I know the flowers are not very pretty but I tried my best. Somehow, I just can't do the drop flowers properly. Even the leaves look kinda cacat (erm, spastic?). Ah, well! Practice makes perfect! So I will just have to practise more!

Happy Birthday, Sister No. 3! I hope you are having a wonderful day!

Lavender Cupcakes

They actually tasted really nice! Both icing and sponge were lavender-infused, though it's more obvious in the icing. You can't quite see it in the photo, but it actually had a lovely lavender/lilac colour (sister no. 2's favourite colour) to it!

Happy belated birthday, Sister no. 2!

Some Like It Hot....

Some like it cold, some like it in the pot, nine days old! Hahaha.....I thought this makes a good analogy for 'different people, different tastes'. I had an order a couple of days ago for a dozen vanilla cupcakes with vanilla buttercream frosting and a dozen chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting. The feedback was that some people found it too sweet. Well, one thing I've learned is that I can't please everybody, so I shouldn't beat myself up about it. Correct?

Really a Long Time Indeed!

Realised that I haven't baked for ages! My last post here was before my boys' Xmas Holidays...

Anyway, my friend ordered 40 cupcakes to be given to her friend's little girl. Have packed them separately - 24 for school plus 16 in another box.

Here are the photos... NOPE. They are not taken with my new DLSR. This is with my old point-and-shoot under BAD light conditions. Too lazy to move cupcakes to the windows for the natural lighting.

25 Cupcakes in a Plastic Container - For easy transport to school

The remaining 16 cupcakes