Happy 1st Birthday Emmy!

 

 

  

Happy 1st Birthday Emmy!!  I got the honor and pleasure of making dessert for Emmy's 1st birthday party!!!  I made a 3 tier cake where the bottom two tiers are fake.  The top tier is a "sugar-free" apple cake with raisins (the recipe called for chopped walnuts but I omitted them for baby allergy reasons) with a "sugar-free" cream cheese frosting!  I also made red velvet and french vanilla cupcakes, french vanilla cake pops, and individually wrapped party favor sugar cookies with a personalized tag!  I wish you Emmy a wonderful new year in your life, you are so special, sweet and greatly loved by everyone you meet!!  You are so cute and your personality is so precious!  You're a joy to be around and we all love your beautiful smile and awesome dance moves!!  I'm so happy I got to help make your birthday a little more sweet.  Here's to many many more birthdays to come!!  Photo credits goes to Nelly Chung at Modern Element Photography!!! Thank you for beautifully capturing this lovely celebration!!  Check out more photos from Emmy's party at Modern Element's Photography here!

Happy 1st Birthday Charlotte!

 Happy 1st birthday Charlotte!!!!  I had the honor and pleasure of making Charlotte's 1st birthday display cake for her big birthday bash this past weekend!  Her party theme was based on cute pretty hot air balloons, and so my friend Sarah (Charlotte's mom) asked me to make this designed cake for her!  It was really fun to make, and I was so honored that it got to be featured on their beautiful center display table!  Since this is a display cake, the inside of the cake are foam dummies, but the rest are all made of fondant.  The banner is held up by two toothpicks though and on one of the hot air balloons I used edible pearl candy for decorations. Sarah's flourist also put the cake stand on a patch of grass surrounded by a cute little white picket fence!  All of Sarah's hard work and creativity really paid off because this party was so beautifully decorated and was a lot of fun!  They even had a bubble show!!!  (All photos are courtesy of Mieng Saetia!  Thanks Mieng!)

I wish Charlotte a wonderful happy and healthy new birth year!  She's only started walking, but she's already running through our minds and filling up our hearts!  She is so cute and cuddly, I can play with her all day!  Her cheeky smile is too adorable!!  She has two wonderful parents who love her so much and take such great care of her as well!  Thank you Jack and Sarah for create such a beautiful girl, and for sharing her with us!  Here's to many many many more birthday celebrations to come!!!  Happy Birthday 1st Charlotte!  We love you!

Cute Winter Formal Proposal

My cousin, Leilani, had a super sweet idea to ask her friend, Johnny, to the Winter Formal at her school!  The lucky fellow plays basketball, just like her, so she came up with this super clever, cute, and sweet way to ask him to be her date at the dance!  She asked me to make her chocolate cupcakes with basketball decorations on top. You can sorta see in the photo that I added a bumpy texture to the basketball as well to add a subtle element of 3D!  Here's a picture of how she decorated his locker, so amazingly creative and cute!  Of course after being blown away by Leilani's sweet gesture, Johnny said yes!

I'm so proud and happy for you Leilani, have a great time at the winter formal!  Here's a picture of the sweet, cute, happy couple!!!

Introducing Twinkakes!

My sister, Jennifer, and I were going to bake Twinkies the other night just for the fun of it.  We didn't want to make the Twinkie molds out of foil though, so I suggested we just use regular cupcake pans.  We then decided to call these Twinkakes, a play on word with combining Twinkies and cupcakes!  We are very corny, and have really cheesey humor, and since we also happen to be (super awesome) twins, we felt these are our special little creations (or so we think no one else has made these before...).  So we are happy and excited to introduce to you, Twinkakes, made by twins!!!  Hehe!  These are nice little sweet treats that taste like twinkies, but in the shape of little cupcakes!  Enjoy these twintastic sweets!  For more information on how we made these, feel free to visit my sister's blog HERE!

Happy 30th Wedding Anniversary to my Parents!

Happy 30th Wedding Anniversary Mommy and Daddy!!  My mom doesn't like to eat cake, so I decided to make a fake cake so they can still at least have something to take pictures with to commemorate this special celebration!  The 30th Wedding Anniversary is the Pearl anniversary, so I make pearls that bordered the tiers of the cake.  I lined the top tier with a smaller string of pearls to make it look more delicate than having the larger size pearls.  I made flowers and leaves out of fondant and painted the leaves and pearls in the middle of the larger flowers with pearl luster dust.  I used a floral impression mat to make the texture of the cake as well.  For the lace, I was really excited to use an icing called Sugar Veil.  It allows me to make flexible icing decorations!  I used a lace impression mat for the lace designs as well.  I figured this would make a very elegant and fancy cake that my mom would enjoy, without all the calories! =P  My dad will appreciate the work I put into this as well, so I hope this will wow them!

For the real cake, I made them a flan since its one of my mom's favorite dessert.  I made the flan from scratch and sliced up peaches, kiwi, strawberries, and placed black berries on top in a decorative manor.  I made a test flan last week just to make sure that I was able to make this for the main event, and I was very pleased on how it came out!!  I think the hardest part is melting the sugar to make the caramel.  I think you just have to let the sugar melt on it's own and not stir too much.  Then make sure the caramel is completely cooled before pouring the egg mixture into the dish.  This way the caramel won't crack, and if the caramel isn't spread out evening on the pan, no worries, it will even out when it bakes!  It's like magic!! This flan is quite yummy, special thanks to my friend Katherine's mom for giving me this amazing recipe!

I want to take this time to wish my parents a wonderful happy anniversary!  Without them, I wouldn't be where I am today.  It's a cliché but it's true!  I'm thankful that they raised me the way I am, and that they taught me to always put family first.  I'm so grateful for everything they've done for me, all the sacrifices they've made and all the hard work they've done to make sure Jennifer and I are happy and well.  Happy Anniversary Mommy and Daddy, I wish you another 30+ years of love and happiness!

Christmas Macarons!

 

Merry Christmas Everyone!  I saw these snowman and penguin macarons online and just had to make them myself for our yearly cousin Secret Santa Exchange!  I was thinking about what other shapes I can make and so I also made gingerbread men macarons as well!  I was a little worried that the gingerbread men wouldn't turn out right because the macaron batter tends to settle a little bit after you pipe them, but once they bake and rose, they turned out quite nicely!  The snowmen and penguins are basic vanilla macarons with swiss meringue filling and the gingerbread men are chocolate macarons with swiss meringue filling.  I used edible ink markers to draw on all the designs, and I had a special crew of helpers for my gingerbread designs (thank you Jennifer, Andrew, and Khoa!).  This time of year is my favorite time because of all the holidays.  The greatest part about the holidays though is having all your friends come together and spend quality time with one another, and just be happy and enjoy each other's company, friendship, and love.  Making cute little tasty treats are also fun as well =).  I wish everyone a wonderful happy holiday, and here's to a fabulously sweet new year!

Congratulations Mr. & Mrs. Andrzejewski!

Congratulations to Alvina and Will on there beautiful wedding on September 22, 2012! Not only did I have the special privilege of making their cupcake tower, cupcakes and cake, but I got to the Matron of Honor for my best friend's wedding!  Alvina and I have been friends since the 3rd grade, that's pretty much 20 years of our life, and we're only 28 years old!  I cannot be more happy for Alvina and for finding her true love, and now starting her new life with him.
I made red velvet cupcakes with whipped cream cheese filling and basic buttercream frosting.  All the seashell decorations on the cupcakes are made of white chocolate and the cake is topped with fresh real flowers and seashells.  The cake is covered in fondant with fondant decorations on the sides.
I am so proud, excited, and happy for my best friend and her new journey in life!  Will makes Alvina a better person, and together they can conquer the world!  Alvina, you are a beautiful, wonderful, smart, and crazy person, but that's why we all love you!!  You deserve all the happiness in the world, and I'm so glad Will will be by you side each day, as you make new memories together.  Here's a recipe just for you!  Congratulations Alvina and Will!!!!

Recipe For A Happy Marriage Poem

4 cups of Love
2 cups of Loyalty
Dash of Faith
3 cups of Kindness
4 cups of Understanding
1 cup of Friendship
5 spoonfuls of Hope
1 barrel of Laughter

Pinch of Forgiveness (no substitutions)
Dash of Thoughtfulness (not optional)

Take love and loyalty and mix thoroughly with faith.
Blend in kindness and understanding, add friendship and hope.
Sprinkle abundantly with laughter. Garnish with forgiveness and thoughtfulness.
Bake with sunshine.
Serve daily with generous helpings.

Happy 1 Month Nathan!

Happy 1 month birthday celebration Nathan!!  This is the baby boy version of my dragon cake I made earlier this year for our baby shower! This is a mixed berry cake from Givral, with yellow piping, and I used gold luster dust to paint the piping to make it look like gold.  There's real ivory and mini yellow roses on the cake and a light blue ribbon border as well.  The dragon is egg shell is made out of fondant!  I painted a little bit of gold luster dust on the egg shell and dragon to make it look more magical!  A baby's 1 month celebration in the Vietnamese culture is so special and important, and I'm glad I was able to help make the celebration that much more special!  Happy 1 month birthday Nathan!

Peppermint Truffle Brownies

'Tis the season for yummy sweets! I saw this recipe online, and I just had to try it! I never made brownies before, but these are one step better than brownies, they're Peppermint Truffle Brownies!! These are brownies that are made from scratch, and I used melted chocolate and butter instead of cocoa powder, and it has a layer of chocolate ganache onto top with crushed peppermint candy on top! These are really rich and dense and tastes super yummy!  It'll satisfy any sweet tooth out there!  My husband, Khoa, doesn't even like sweets and he couldn't get enough of these!  1 batch makes quite a lot so these are great to hand out as special homemade treats for all your loved ones!  Happy Holidays everyone!

Apple Pie Pops!

My friend, Sarah, introduced to these cute little desserts called Pie Pops, and when I first heard about them, I was like "Wait, it's pie on a stick???...That's GENUIS!!!" I wish I thought of it, but in the spirit of Thanksgiving, I'm so thankful for whoever did come up with this brilliant concept! Once I heard about this, I just knew I had to try it! Since it's Thanksgiving time, I thought about doing pumpkin pie pops, but I wanted to do Apple Pie since that's my favorite! I never made a pie before, so I gather a couple recipes and put together the recipe I used for these, and I must say it tastes rather tasty!

I read some notes from people who's made pie pops in the past and they said that the pie crust to pie filling ratio was off and that there was too much crust. So I rolled out the pie crust thinner instead of cutting out the shapes from the existing pre-made pie crust, and tried to stuff my pops more, and came up with a perfect ratio! I decided to dress these up a bit too by adding little hearts in the middle of them as well. Cute right? Anyways, I hope everyone had a pie-tastic Thanksgiving holiday! I know I have soooo much to be thankful for this year.  I am thankful for all those creative people out there who inspire me and allow me to continuously go on new baking and decorating adventures.  I am also thankful for my hardworking, wonderful, caring and loving husband, loving and supportive friends and family, and most of all, my beautiful precious happy baby girl, Lily!!! Happy thanksgiving everyone!!

Happy Halloween 2012

Happy Halloween! I decided to Make some festive Halloween cake pops because I got inspired with all the cool fun images online. Cake pops have always been difficult to make for me in the sense that it's hard for me to control their outcome. So I figured it's always good to practice!! These are ginger pumpkin cake pops (usually I'd go with a plain flavor cake but I wanted to try out a new recipe). The monster eyes and ears, Frankenstien's hair, bolts, and eyebrows, the witch's hat and hair, and the pumpkin stump are made of fondant. The spider body is an m&m's and the legs are chocolate sprinkles. I find it easier to use black food coloring and paint on the designs instead of using an edible marker because the waxy texture of the chocolate seems to not allow the marker to write on smoothly. These cake pops were a lot of fun to make and they sure are spookily tasty! I hope everyone has a safe and Happy Halloween!

Halloween Humor:
- What do skeletons always order at a restaurant? Spare ribs!
- What do skeletons say before they begin dining? Bone appetite!
- What did the vampire say to the Invisible Man? 'Long time, no see!'
- Why is Dracula so unpopular? Because he's a pain in the neck!
- What do the birds sing on Halloween? Twick or tweet.
- What do you call a witch at the beach? A sandwich.