A Vintage Vixen Fair

The Vintage Vixen Fair has been and gone – Sunday, 27 May 2012 to be exact! Having had the experience of being a part of Unwrapped under my belt, I approached the Vintage Vixen Fair with care and caution. I set a realistic schedule and was adamant that I was sticking to it. The plan was  this:

·         Thursday – Shop for ingredients.

·         Friday morning – Make all the fondant toppers.

·         Friday evening – Make all the cake pops.

·         Saturday morning – Package all the cake pops.

·         Saturday evening to early hours of Sunday morning – Make cupcakes and if at all possible, squeeze in a few hours’ sleep.

Did I stick to my realistic schedule? No, I certainly did not. The only thing I stuck to was shopping for all the ingredients on Thursday. Sigh – will I ever learn? Doubtful.

So on Friday morning, I decided to go to the shops to pick up some last minute items to dress the stall. While at the shop, I received a telephone call from my partner in crime, also known as my business partner and sister-in-law, Adelyn, who thought it would be a great idea to dress our store with a candy buffet! What I thought was a great decorative idea, then turned into me making macarons and her shopping for all the decorative items required to make this vision a reality! So I madly rushed around the shops and picked up the ingredients needed to make macarons.

I got home and made all the fondant toppers. To fit in with the Vintage Vixen Fair theme, I made famous vintage Hollywood actors and actresses toppers, including: Bettie Page, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Elvis Presley and Audrey Hepburn.  I think I sat in the same spot for 10 hours straight making endless toppers. All up, I made over 700 toppers! Needless to say, it was somewhat EPIC.

By the time I put the toppers aside, it was 10PM. I decided I would make my cake for the cake pops. From memory, I made nine batches of my vanilla cupcake recipe. I put it in a gigantic baking tin and went for a little nap. Two hours later, I woke from my slumber and removed the cake tin from the oven. It appeared to be cook and by this stage, I was pretty proud of myself – I had slept and made my cake pop cake! The feeling of absolute bliss consumed me!

I then got stuck into my macarons. Surprising my macarons turned out perfectly! I will have to blog about this experience separately another time with some tips. Once I had made all the macarons, in my sleepless state I decided to individually wrap each macaron like little lollies. I thought it would fit nicely into our candy buffet display. In my head, I didn’t think it would take long but this genius idea cost me over 2 hours!

After I finished making and wrapping the macarons, I checked on the cake for the cake pops. And to my dismay, it was undercooked. I tried cutting the cake into quarters and baked them individually, but it work. I outside of the cake kept burning and the inside of the cake wouldn’t cook. Regrettably I had to throw out the cake slab. So let this be a lesson, always follow the recipe and do not try and cut corners by making a massive cake batter and trying to cook it into one tray at once. So yes peeps, I had to start again from scratch. The blissful feeling quickly faded and the feeling of devastation took its place.  

Before I knew it, it was day light again and Saturday morning was upon me! I frantically made 150 cake pops. And somewhere in between, I had the lovely Dayna and Adelyn over packaging the cake pops and poof just like that it was 8PM! At this stage, I had baked no cupcakes and the Vintage Vixen Fair was in 14 hours! One word comes to mind, YIKES!

So I did what any good baker would do in my situation, I baked the night through and iced cupcakes into the wee hours of the morning. When Adelyn came in the morning to pick me and my 700 cupcakes up, I was a little dazed and confused but my cupcakes looked great!

We set up our stall and had a relatively successful day at the fair. Check out the photos below. Our little stall reminds me of a little candy shop. Oh, how I wish I had a shop front!

Can you imagine having a cuppa and cupcake in a cupcakery decorated like this? One can only dream ...

She's got PERTHanality!

I get star struck very easily! In my opinion, there is nothing better than seeing a celebrity. This is probably the sole reason why I am on twitter, just so that I can get one step closer to celebrities! I know I sound like a creepy stalker, but I assure you, I am not. So take my word for it.

Much to my surprise, after dating Brendyn for a few months, I discovered that his sister, Ashleigh, was an Australian Hockeyroo player. Although I had never played or watched a game of hockey in my life (the extent of my hockey knowledge was the Mighty Ducks movie), I was very excited by the prospects of knowing a celebrity. But not just any celebrity, a Perth personality, a Perthanality! So yes, I have a celebrity for a sister-in-law. Haters, don’t be hating …

Last Saturday some of the Hockeyroo players organised a fundraising event to help them “Chase Gold” for the upcoming Olympics. Naturally, I saw this as the perfect opportunity to bake (and to also help out my sis-in-law of course)! So I volunteered to donate a batch of cupcakes to be auctioned off to raise funds to assist the girls chase gold.

I wanted to make something quite spectacular for my sister from another mister celebrity, and with that in mind, I decided to make personalised cupcakes of each Hockeyroo player. Each topper is made from fondant and is therefore 100% edible. As I didn’t have a cookie cutter shape mould of a sport jersey, I had to free style it and cut the jersey shapes out by hand. Originally, to save time, I had planned to draw on the girls’ number and skirt with a green edible marker. But the green edible marker left a horrible streak of colour and the colour was not consistent. So let this be a lesson for you all, edible markers are not designed for colouring in fondant! Being the perfectionist that I am, I decided to colour some fondant green with Wilton colour gel and individually cut the numbers and skirts out for each topper by hand. So as you can imagine, the toppers took a heck of a lot more time than I had planned.

Nevertheless, despite the minor hiccups, the cupcakes turned out looking pretty smick and the night was a great success. The cupcakes were auctioned off for approximately $220 (AUD). I also got a great plug from a VERY tall Perthanality, channel 10 news reader, Tim Gossage.  All in all, it was quite a successful baking adventure!

Odd birthday request …

Today is my colleague friend (not facebook friend), Sam’s 30th birthday. And of course to celebrate this grand momentous occasion I made cupcakes! Not sure why I even bothered making him cupcakes because it is not like we are even friends. Unless, you are facebook friends, you are not really friends! Just saying …

Last year, when I was running the “Guess who?” topper competition on my facebook page, where entrants were required to guess who I was making out of fondant, Sam kept guessing Liza Minnelli. It was clearly not Liza Minnelli, it was Nemo! I think it was Nemo’s googly eyes that confused him. Needless to say, Sam did not win the competition. Needless to say, Sam was less than impressed!

Anyway, ever since the competition he has been going on about me making him Liza Minnelli cupcakes for his 30th birthday. And the day has finally come. So …

Happy 30th birthday Sam!
Love, Liza.

Yes, I mimicked Liza Minnelli’s autograph! Because let’s face it, I have too much free time between working full time, baking part time, studying part time (as of yesterday) and being an all-rounder fabulous person all the time!

All you need is love …

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! I hope your loved ones spoil you rotten with affection, praise and an abundance of cupcakes.

Love is all you need.

Good Australian!

I may be a bad Asian, but I am most certainly not a bad Australian - and to prove it I made Australian themed cupcakes! Afterall, tomorrow is Australia Day (26th January) and what better way to celebrate than with Australian cupcakes!

So what is Australia most known for, other than kangaroos, koalas, vegemite and our great beaches? Well, lamingtons of course (vanilla sponge dipped in chocolate and coated in desiccated coconut)! Yes, you better believe it, I made lamington inspired cupcakes. How, you ask? Well you start by making a batch of vanilla cupcakes. You can find the recipe of my vanilla cupcakes here.

While the cupcakes are baking and then cooling, you can get started on the chocolate coating.

Chocolate and desiccated coconut coating

Ingredients
200 grams of dark chocolate
2 cups of thickened cream
2 teaspoon of vanilla bean paste
Generous amount of desiccated coconut

Method

1. Melt the chocolate in the microwave for 30 second intervals on high. At the end of each 30 second interval, stir the chocolate. Continue this process until the chocolate is completely melted.
2. Mix the thickened cream and vanilla bean paste in the melted chocolate. Stir the mixture thoroughly until all the ingredients are well combined. Set the chocolate mixture aside to cool.
3. Pour a generous amount of desiccated coconut into a large container and set aside.

Once the cupcakes are cooled, remove the cupcake bases from the cupcake wrappers. Dip the cupcakes into the chocolate mixture and then cover the chocolate dipped cupcake with desiccated coconut. Make sure the cupcakes are completely covered with the desiccated coconut. Once you have coated all the cupcakes, leave them aside to set.

A cupcake is not a cupcake without some form of icing or frosting. So while the cupcakes are setting beat some thickened cream until it is nice and firm. This can take some time, so while this happening place a blob of strawberry jam on top of the lamington cupcake base. Once the cream has thickened, pipe the cream on top of the blob of jam on the lamington cupcakes. And voila, there you have it, lamington cupcakes with jam and cream. I assure you, it does not get better than this!

To complement the Australian lamington cupcake, I made an Australian flag topper and fondant cupcake topper of the map of Australia. As you can see, I replaced Tasmania with a good old Aussie AFL (Australian Football League) footy. How Australian!

After all,

I am, you are, we are Australian! 

Old MacDonald ain't got nothing on me!

Old MacDonald may have had a farm, but I bet his farm didn’t taste half as good as mine! After all, my farm is made of cupcakes and cake pops!

Yesterday was the baby shower of a good friend of mine, Ebonee. The theme of the baby shower was farm animals as Ebonee is a lover of all things nature, in particular farm animals! To help her celebrate this wonderful occasion, I made a farm animal themed cupcake arrangement and cake pops.

As you can see from the photos above, sitting at the top of the cupcake arrangement is a two tier fondant covered chocolate cake. It was an absolute nightmare covering the cake! I was rushing to get the cake done as I was running late for dinner with Brendyn’s friends. I wasn’t paying attention and accidently rolled the fondant out too thin and when I went to cover the cake, the fondant kept tearing and cracks were appearing everywhere! The more cracks that appeared, the more frustrated I got! It got to the point where I just stormed out of the kitchen in a huff and went to dinner. I nearly did a Lonely Island and “threw it on ground”. When I got home, I decided not to start the cake from scratch, but instead covered the dodgy fondant work with decorations such as the red barn, grass and trees. And it turned out ok – life is not that bad after all! I have definitely learnt my lesson though. Firstly, do not be stingy with the fondant and secondly, not to rush the process!

The cupcakes were my usual vanilla cupcake recipe with buttercream frosting and chocolate frosting – nothing too exciting. I decorated the cupcakes with six types of farm animal fondant toppers: cow, dog, horse, pig, rooster and sheep. As you can see, I also cut out little brown fences to decorate the cupcake stand and cake pop holder. As you know, I am a lover of themes and when someone gives me a theme, I just have to do everything in my power to adhere to the theme as strictly as possible. After all, consistency is cool!

Overall, despite the cake hiccup, I am pretty happy with this baking adventure! Ee-i-ee-i-oh!

The only way is Downton!

My recent obsession is Downton Abbey. I just can’t seem to get enough of it (as with the rest of the world)! I am an absolute sucker for romance and the relationship dynamics of Lady Mary Crawley and Matthew Crawley is to die for! I watch every episode with bated breath wondering “will they or won’t they”. I am currently experiencing massive Downton Abbey withdrawals and season three is not due to air until September of this year (depending where in the world you are). What on earth will I do between now and September?! I guess I could rewatch season one and two for a fourth time …

Not surprisingly, I wanted to make a cupcake in the honour of Downton Abbey! Since Downton Abbey season one and two is based in the early 1900s (more specifically 1900-1918), I did some internet research to see what types of desserts were served in that era, so that I could replicate it in a form of a cupcake. From my extensive research, I discovered that sponge cake and butter cream frosting was already well invented by the 1900s (please keep in mind this was an American source based on the American food timeline not the English). So this made my cupcaking adventure quite easy … or that was at least what I had thought!

My cupcaking adventure yesterday was a disaster! My foolproof chocolate recipe proved not to be so foolproof afterall. I don’t know what went wrong. I measured all the ingredients out and followed the recipe with the utmost precision but got bland tasting, non-rising, below average cupcakes. The only thing I can think of which may have attributed to this is perhaps one of the ingredients passed its use by date. Nevertheless, as you can imagine this left me feeling quite devastated. So I reverted to my vanilla foolproof recipe (touch wood) and made chocolate butter cream frosting! And of course I topped the cupcake with my Downton Abbey cupcake toppers! Nothing new here, once again I just sketched the Downton Abbey imagery onto a piece of fondant. I also made a cheeky “The only way is Downton” topper at the expense of ‘The only way is Essex”.

So I am going to admit something that is going to make me look a little stalkerish! But I assure you, it sounds worse than it really is. So, Dan Stevens the amazing actor who portrays Matthew Crawley is very active on twitter. He constantly replies to fans’ tweets, to the extent where he is wishing specific fans “good luck” for their upcoming exams. And this made me like him so much more! I can’t believe he takes the time to reply to his fans – very swoon worthy! After discovering how active Dan Stevens is on twitter, I may or may not have joined the world of twitter to follow him (@topthecupcake). Awkward …

I will end this post with my favourite scene from season 2 - enjoy! 

'Like' one, 'like' all

My lack of blogging can be attributed to the fact that I have been hard at work on my new cupcake topper collection which I launched on the Top the Cupcake facebook page last Sunday. Here is a little sample of my favourite toppers:

So what better way to celebrate this momentous occasion than to host a little competition?!

So hop on to the Top the Cupcake facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/pages/Top-the-Cupcake/210765192305368) and tell me what cupcake toppers you like by liking the photo in the album titled ‘Cupcake toppers’ and go into the running to win a dozen of your favourite toppers. You can like more than one photo, but your name will only go into the running once. The competition will end Sunday, 15 January at 12PM (WST). The prize winner will be drawn at random. This is an international competition - everyone and anyone can enter! So get liking ...

Making the circus sexy!

Last weekend I had a bake order of 100 cupcakes for a 30th birthday party. Like every good party, this party was themed, more specifically the theme was 'Burlesque Circus'' Initially I was a little concerned about how the heck I was going to decorate the cupcakes to theme because tet's be honest, it is not the easiest theme to make into cupcakes.

However, after extensive internet research and talking to the client, things started to come together. Everything had to be black, white and red and the cupcakes were no exception! Chocolate, vanilla and red velvet cupcakes were made for the occasion.

A few weeks ago I had to travel to Singapore for work (work-work, as in my real full time work), so while I was there I visited a baking supply store. I brought a pack of cute mini Noah's Ark animal cookie cutters which was mighty handy for this bake job! I used the lion, elephant and pony cutters as these animals are particularly circus relevant. To dress up the animal toppers because they looked pretty boring at this stage, I added little fondant props to them. I had the lions balance on a little stepper, elephants dressed in a black and gold cloaks and balancing on a ball, and ponies with cloaks and head pieces.

Since I had the circus toppers covered, I had to make some toppers to cater for the burlesque theme. Naturally, the first things that came to mind was corsets, shoes, fans and boobs! I thought that boob toppers would be some what controversial, and being the bland person that I am, I decided to be a little less controversial and a little more main stream, so I decided to make sexy legs instead. That is, I used the cupcake frosting to make a skirt like effect and had the sexy legs come out of the cupcake (I saw this idea on The Cupcake Blog a few months ago and instantly fell in love and knew I had to make it).

On the day the cupcake order was due, I still was not entirely happy with the cupcake plans I had drawn up. I thought the cupcake display was missing something. Then WHAM BAM THANK YOU MAM it hit me - make a large cupcake circus tent to sit at the top of the cupcake tower. So I got to work early that morning to bake and put the cupcake circus tent together. I used fondant to decorate the tent with red and white strips. Even after it was decorated I still was not satisfied. I used the remaining coloured fondant to cut out letters stating 'Burlesque Circus' and used glitter to jazz it up. And still I was not satisfied, which is some what unusual because shiny glittery things usually makes everything better (which Brendyn has come to learn in recent times)! Still not 100% satisfied, I had to put my thinking cap on, after much thinking, I came accross this thought: I should make a sexy silhouette of a lady doing acrobats from the circus tent top to fill in the space. And that is exactly what I did.

Since I wasted so much time on getting the giant cupcake circus tent right, I had to bake the 100 cupcakes against the clock. Flour, sugar and eggs was flying everywhere. Once all the cupcakes were baked, they were all packed into the car to be delivered and set up at the party venue. I left the kitchen in what can only be described as an absolute freaking cupcaking mess! I got to the venue on time for set up and put together the finishing touches. It all came together quite nicely.



To celebrate my first real BIG cupcake order, Brendyn and I went out for dinner after delivering the cupcakes and I ordered myself a mean lychee cocktail. Being an Asian I get tipsy somewhat quickly and easily, so after the one cocktail I was red in the face and feeling somewhat "relaxed". This made coming home to the cupcake explosion that occurred in the kitchen some what easier. I happily cleaned the kitchen in my tipsy state and spent the rest of the evening on the couch watching Saturday Night reruns with the Batman.

Not too sure whether I personally made circus sexy, but my cupcakes sure did!!

Babies, babies and more babies!

There must be something in the water because everyone I know has either had a baby or is pregnant! It is out of control. Does this make my clucky? Umm, how do I put this nicely, hells no! Everyone goes on about how pregnancy is one of the most natural processes of life, I on the other hand have a completely different prospective on the matter. Although I would love to have kids one day, I am waiting for the day when man creates a machine where you can teleport the baby out of a woman’s stomach. Here’s hoping this machine is invented sooner rather than later!

Anyway, this blog post isn’t about my fear of giving birth but it sure is about all things babies! Last week, I was contracted to make mini cupcakes for a pregnant lady. So naturally they had to baby themed. So basically, baby sized cupcakes that are baby themed! Since the mother-to-be does not know the gender of the baby, I made both girl and boy baby fondant toppers. The girl babies had a little pink bow on its head and the boy babies had little blue beanies. They turned out super cute!

Also, I made some cupcakes to spell out ‘Girl or Boy’.

Congratulations again to all my wonderful friends who have given birth or currently pregnant! You are all truly amazing women and most importantly amazing mothers!  I hope that one day I will muster up the courage to tackle child birth! Until then, I am just going to reproduce cupcakes.

Putting the cupcakes in Rock N’ Roll

I love it when people request themed cupcakes as it gives me the opportunity to make cupcakes that I wouldn’t usually make. For instance, this weekend I had a cupcake order for a 29th birthday. The birthday boy’s (or man I should say) lovely mum placed an order of 30 cupcakes. She told me that he liked guitars, so naturally I had to make guitar themed cupcakes! I also made cupcakes spelling out ‘Happy 29th Birthday Neil’.

Like always I miss calculated how many guitar toppers I actually needed and ended up with 10 spare! And to think, maths was actually my strongest subject growing up. I even went to Math Camps and everything in High School!

Last week before taking Zachy to school, he noticed some fondant toppers drying on my kitchen table – flower and cat toppers more specifically. He said to me, ‘Aunty Tina why don’t you combine the two toppers. Place the flower on the cat, that way the cat will look like a girl cat. She will look so cute!’ And that is exactly what I did. So when I saw the left over guitar toppers, I thought ‘What would Zachy do?!’ So I thought, why not make some boy penguins and make them play the guitar. And so, I did.

And that is how I put the cupcakes in Rock N’ Roll!

"Happy Lion King!"

My goodness, it has been a crazy busy week. I am exhausted. But given my lack of blogging, I knew I just had to blog tonight. So why has my week been so crazy? Just the usual work stuff got in the way and, oh yeah, it was BIRTHDAY!

As it was my birthday, I had to bring in something to share with my colleagues. My natural inclination was to bring in cupcakes of course. Given that it was the night before my birthday, Brendyn did offer to make the cupcakes for me. Although this may be a nice gesture to some, I was mortified by the offer. Did he realise what he was suggesting? My colleagues eat my cupcakes on a regular basis and they have now come to expect a certain cupcake standard. And if Brendyn made my birthday cupcakes, PEOPLE WOULD THINK I ACTUALLY MADE THEM! I am sure that Brendyn’s cupcakes would be nice, I just doubt it would be as nice as mine. Sorry darling!

The night ended with me making over 100 cupcakes – cumquat, coffee and strawberry flavoured cupcakes. I didn’t end up taking a photo of all the cupcakes because I didn’t think they look special enough. Having said that, I do regret it slightly. Personally, I wasn’t a fan of the cumquat cupcakes as they were somewhat dense. But everyone else seemed to have enjoyed them, so I guess that is the main thing.

Given the hectic work week, we had my birthday celebration today! Both sides of the family got together for a spectacular day of eating. A few weeks ago, Ameila said she wanted to throw me a surprise Lion King party, where she could wish me a “Happy Lion King”. Not wanting to let her down, I made a Simba cupcake topper. I had intended on making all the Lion King characters, but time did not permit.

All in all, I had a fabulous birthday. Having said that, my gosh, I am glad this week is over!

You can leave your top on!

Actually, I strongly encourage you to put a top-top-topper on. Cupcakes that are simply decorated with icing with no topper or sprinkles just look sad. It pains me to see. I am sure if cupcakes had feelings, they would feel sad too! Having said that if the icing is piped or spread beautifully to form an image or a bouquet of cupcake flowers or something of a similar nature, then I guess I could turn a blind eye. I guess.

Yes, I am obsessed with toppers! But it's not a bad way to be, if you ask me. For me, half the fun of my baking adventures is the time taken to make the fondant decoration. I love seeing the lump of white fondant transform into all things cute. I have said it before and I will say it again, anything is possible in the wonderful world that fondant.

I can honestly spend hours on end in my own little fondant world. A few weekends ago, Brendyn spent the Saturday playing golf, so I had the whole house to myself (and Abby dog of course). And it was WONDERFUL! I spent the day in my jam jams and made fondant toppers all day long.

What did I have to show for my lazy day in? A 100 plus toppers - yikles! But in all seriousness, it was out of this world crazy fun times! Some one call the police because I am out of control. BAM!

I found Nemo!

I completed my first topper order today! Hooray for me! Hooray for Top the cupcake! Hooray for toppers! What an exciting occasion. Although the job was for my friend, Jade, it was still a job never the less. And most importantly, I had so much fun making them.

Jade’s little niece, who loves Nemo (you might remember him from movies such as Finding Nemo), is turning one. To celebrate such a wonderful occasion, the family has organised a beautiful birthday party for her tomorrow. Jade asked me to make 40 Nemo toppers to place on the mini cupcakes she is making for her gorgeous niece’s birthday party. And of course I had to say yes. Not because Jade was my friend, but because this gave me an opportunity to make NEMO toppers! Oh, and the fact that I could help out a friend was kind of nice too – I guess, whatever, minor details.

On to more important matters, I would like to take this opportunity to wish a very big:

happy first birthday to Candance and happy 5AM baking to Aunty Jade!

So here you have it. I found Nemo … all 40 of him!

If you haven’t already guessed, the Guess Who? competition I was running on my facebook page, i.e. guess who I am making out of fondant, was Nemo himself.   

If one cannot sleep, one should bake ...

If one has already baked and still cannot sleep, then one should organise a baking related competition for one’s blog. It is currently 2AM and I am wide eye awake! When the clock struck 12 tonight, in my head I knew it was time for bed but as I laid in bed telling myself to go sleep, I realised I was wasting my time and that time was better spent baking. So got up went to the kitchen and baked 48 vanilla cupcakes. But this is a blog post in itself for another day.

Anyway, I decided that a month long competition is simply too long. So to keep me going to the end of the month, I have decided to run a shorter competition concurrently. This time entrants go into the running to win a set of cute animal cookie/fondant/sushi cutters (please see image below)! To enter, entrants must first like my ‘Top the Cupcake’ facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/pa​ges/Top-the-Cupcake/210765​192305368) and then participate in my ‘Guess Who?’ game.

Basically, you are required to guess who I am making out of fondant. Each night for the remainder of this working week (so basically, Wednesday and Thursday night) I will be adding more fondant to the above topper until it is completely decorated. Each day you have the opportunity to guess who the topper is. To register your guess, simply add a comment (underneath the photo) as to who you think the fondant topper is. All correct answers registered by Friday, 12 August 2011 (Western Australian time) will go into the draw to win the cookie/fondant/sushi cutter set. One winner will be announced on this page on Saturday, 13 August. The winner will be determined by a random mixing bowl draw.

Ah, how I love competitions. There is only one thing I love more than competitions, and that is WINNING competitions. I did tell you that I am little tiny bit competitive right?!

How would you renovate your life with $150K?

My favourite radio station, Nova 937, is currently running a competition. Basically if you get on air or enter the competition online, you go into the running to win $150K - HELLO! 

Like many people, I could use an extra $150K. No surprise as to what I would do with it, but if I were to win, I would open my very own cupcakery (for those uninitiated few, cupcakery is the cupcake fanatic’s answer to a bakery). I have a vision of how it would look exactly in my head and to see it come to life would be amazing. Think French chic meets modern house wife. Ah, an Asian's Australian dream. 

I thought it would be a great idea to make a set of Nova cupcakes. My reasoning behind this was that by doing so might (fingers crossed) increase my chances of winning and secondly, increase the publicity of ‘Top the Cupcake’. So before I went to bed Wednesday night, I made Nova fondant toppers. I decided to spell out 'I heart Nova' and make the iconic Nova mascot. I woke up early the next day on Thursday morning and made a fresh batch of cupcakes. I had planned to wake up at 5AM and had set my alarm and everything! But I was like a little kid, I was so excited about this baking adventure that I woke up at 4AM and couldn't get back to sleep! 

I am pretty happy with the final product. But more importantly, did I win $150K? Sadly, I don't think so. I am pretty sure the competition has come to a close. Oh well, I guess this little Asian baker will just have to continue to hold on to her Australian dream.

Hot or not?!

I wish there was a webpage where people could rate whether your cupcakes are hot or not. If such a site existed, it would save me from countless hours of internal debate with myself. If there is a site rating people, why not cupcakes?!

As you know, I am an avid supporter of edible cupcake toppers. I usually make fondant toppers, but this can take up quite a bit of time as you not only have to colour the fondant, but you also have to mould it into the desired shape. So I always get a little bit excited to top my cupcake with edible things other than fondant toppers. Is this cheating? I don't know. I don't think so. I mean you are still decorating your cupcakes yourself, but with things that are already pre-made. I think it makes you efficient, not necessarily a cheater. 

Alas, I have digressed. Anyway, a number of weeks ago I went to a cute little cafe called Hoopla in South Perth. I naturally gravitated towards the cupcakes they had on display. The cupcakes were cute and were decorated with Licorice All Sorts. When I first saw the cupcakes, I wasn't entirely sure whether I liked it or not. Was it hot or not?!

This week after dropping by my in laws place with a batch of cupcakes, I noticed a packet of opened Licorice All Sorts (a staple in the house). So to settle this internal debate once and for all, I decided to mimic the Hoopla Licorice All Sorts cupcake design.

So, is it hot or not?! The verdict is out and it's got my vote - definitely HOT to TROT!

Go fish!

I went shopping with Zachy over the weekend at Spotlight. When we passed the baking aisle, he saw a packet of fish sprinkles (well actually, the fish were a little bigger than sprinkle size but too small to be topper size). Anyway, despite the fish sprinkles/toppers (to be confirm) unusual size, Zach loved them and wanted me to buy them to make fish cupcakes. After looking at the fish sprinkles/toppers price, I decided not to purchase the sprinkles/toppers but instead make my own. I promise Zach that I would make him fishing cupcakes and the next day, I did.

My first idea was to make a fondant person hold a fishing rod and have a fish hang on the end of the rod. Although the idea was good in theory, it looked a little dodgy! If you are not over the age of 18, please scroll down and do not look at the photo below.

Wanting to keep my blog fairly G rated or at least PG rated, I decided to make a censored batch. So instead, I scrapped the idea of a fondant person and instead only made little rods with a fish hanging on the end. I then stuck those fishing rods in the cupcake directly.

They were so simple to make and Zach was quite impressed with my fishing efforts. So all in all, a fairly successful baking adventure.