Happy Bridal Shower Sonia!

 Happy Bridal Shower to our beautiful Bride to Be Sonia!  I get the honor and privilege of being one of Sonia's bridesmaid for her upcoming big special day next month!  I also got to baked some yummy goods for her bridal shower this past weekend!  I baked chocolate cake with american buttercream filled with strawberries and gum paste flowers, and chocolate macarons in the shape of cute little pineapples!  Can you tell what her favorite flavor sweets are?  Haha!  We had a Hawaiian theme shower since the wedding will be in Hawaii and she is from Hawaii!  She definitely embodies the aloha spirit and she literally lights up any room she walks into with her warm smile and happy heart!  Sonia is seriously one of the sweetest and happy loving people you'll ever meet!  I'm so happy and excited for this next chapter in her life, and she truly deserves all the love and happiness life can offer.  Congratulations again Sonia, can't wait for you and Eric to get hitched!!

Happy Baby Shower to Phong and Chi!!

Congratulations to Phong and Cristie for their baby shower for their soon to be son Austin!!  I had the privilege and honor of making their desserts for their celebration!  I decorated a mixed berry cake with fondant white clouds, and used some light blue Swiss Meringue and scraped the outside here and there add a light blue sky to the sides of the cake.  I then made a fondant cute little cloud for the cake topper!  I made French Vanilla cupcakes with Swiss Meringue frosting and Cristie made the cute little cloud toppers!  I also made some vanilla French Macarons as well to complete the dessert table!  I can't wait to meet precious baby Austin, he is already so loved by his parents and sweet big sister Kaylie!!  Congratulations again Phong and Chi!  I'm so excited for your guys' newest addition to your beautiful family!

Happy 5th Birthday Lily!

Back in June my sweet amazing Lily pad turned 5 years old!!  Happy 5th Birthday to my princess Lily, Happy 2nd birthday to my sweet amazing Leo too!!!  I threw her (and Leo) a birthday party at home and made it a unicorn theme since she loves unicorns and rainbows right now. I went all out for her milestone celebration and got a bounce house, balloon twister/face painter, and a photobooth! She had such a blast and gave all the guests a big hug when they showed up and a big hug good bye! She saw me working on the cake for a few days, and she was so excited and really wanted to eat it! She was majorly bummed when I told her she couldn’t and that it’s not real…She didn’t quite understand but she eventually got over it haha.  I also made chocolate cupcakes and fruity pebble macarons in the shape of unicorns!  I’m so grateful and humbled by the person she’s becoming and my heart is overflowed with love for her. She is very generous, thoughtful, silly, funny, and oh so happy! She is also very clumsy and tends to fall and hurt herself (and others by accident) a lot, but I’m afraid that’s my quality that got passed down to her…haha. She’s just so excited about everything that she can’t contain it in her tiny little body haha. I’m so happy to have such a beautiful little girl both inside and out as my daughter. I love you so much my Lily pad, happy 5th birthday!!! Can’t wait for more adventures and memories to come! (PS: Thanks Phong for some of these dessert photos!)

Happy Baby Shower Alvina!

Congratulations to my dearest friend Alvina and her husband Will on their coming arrival of their sweet baby girl Chloe!  This shower took place out of state, so it was a bit challenging trying to plan the party but I think I pulled it off pretty well, if I do say so myself.  I made green tea and vanilla macarons, and got all the other desserts from catering from Buca de Beppo.  I also bought a cake and did a makeover, a "cakeover" and removed the piping and added a gold trim and fresh beautiful flowers to fit the theme of the baby shower!  I created all the decorations and even recycled Leo's Prince diaper cake castle and transformed it into a Princess castle!  I was going to shop for some pretty flowers at a local flower shop but decided to check out the inventory at the supermarket since I was there to buy other supplies too, and luckily they had a nice variety, and best part is that it's much more affordable too!!  Overall, Alvina had an amazing time and felt very loved and pampered, mission accomplished!!  I'm so excited for you Alvina to embark on this new amazing journey as a mom, I know you will love Chloe with all your heart and show her the world!  Congratulations to Alvina and Will, I can't wait to meet Chloe!!

Leo's Baptism & 1 Month Celebration

Congratulations to my precious Prince Leo on his Baptism and 1 month celebration! I made all the decorations myself, and bought flowers from our local flower shop at Visser’s Florist. I also made all the desserts myself minus the cake which we got from our usual bakery, Givral. I decorated the cake though, and made panna cotta with fresh strawberries, kiwi and blueberries, mini chocolate cupcakes with swiss meringue frosting, vanilla macarons, orange blossom macarons, matcha green tea macarons, and strawberries filled with whipped cream cheese frosting. I also had Leo’s announcements printed out for everyone to take during the party!

My little prince Leo, I am so in love with you and so proud of you. You are so amazing in your strength and you are such an inspiration to watch. You’re such an incredible baby and I can’t wait to watch you grow even stronger, smarter, more brave, and healthier! I know you will grow up to be an amazing man, but until then, I will enjoy you being my precious little baby. I love you so much my wonderful baby Leo, congratulations on your baptism and everything you’ve accomplished so far!

Published in ACD Magazine!

I'm so excited to share with you all that my sweet daughter Lily's 1st birthday party and smash cake session got published in the January-February 2014 issue of the American Cake Decorating Magazine: The Art & Business of Sugar! It showcases the grand display cake that I made for her party, as well as all the other desserts I made for her special celebration!  Right when you open the first page, you see a thumbnail of Lily's cake smash photo, and then when you flip to page 12 and 13, you see the showcase for her party!  How amazing it is to be published in a real life magazine!  The editor who wrote this showcase just happened to stumble upon my blog and fell in love with Lily's birthday theme and party.  She contacted me and asked to do a feature on it and I was more than excited to say yes!  She shipped me a few magazines of this issue right after they were done printing!  I will definitely frame this.  Thank you to D. Park Photography for photographing her party, and for Mieng Saetia for photographing her cake smash session!  Also, special thank you to my husband Khoa for helping me with all her party plannings and for always supporting and believing in me.

You can see more on Lily's 1st Birthday party by clicking here!

Happy 1st Birthday Lily!

Happy 1st birthday to our sweet and precious Lily!!!  I cannot believe it's already been 1 year since our little dragon baby was born!  For her birthday, I wanted to be extra special so I made sure I made almost everything myself!  I made French Vanilla Mini Cupcakes with Swiss Meringue Frosting, Oreo Truffles (thanks Natalia for dipping them!!), Cheesecake Brownies, and 6 types of Macarons (rose, mango, lemon, macha green tea, vanilla, and raspberry)!  Since her party was held at the pavilion in front of our house, I made her a display cake instead of a real cake because I didn't want it to melt in the heat.  The display cake is decorated with royal icing piped along the outside so that when it dries, it hardens.  The rest of the decorations are made of fondant.  We ordered a mixed berry cake from Givral, that wasn't decorated since we were just going to cut it up and serve it!  

Lily had a special Smash Cake session a few days before her birthday so we can capture her first time eating cake!  Also, this is convenient because not only do we get super nice photos from it, but it allows Lily to get all frosted up and covered with cake goodness, and then we can hose her down and not worry about time or keeping her party guests waiting while we do so!   I made her cake myself, it's French Vanilla with swiss meringue frosting.  The inside of the cake is 6 layers, with each layer being one color of the rainbow!  I embellished her cupcake cake with some fondant flowers and a butterfly on top.  I added gold trimming to the flowers and butterfly for some added elegance!  We actually did a second smash cake session because we wanted a more white and brighter background, so her second cake that I made her had normal buttercream frosting since it was softer by nature and we hope it'll stick to her face better =P. When we first put her in front of the cake, she literally just ignored it and kept crawling right past it and towards us!  haha.  It's so funny but it made sense since she has NO idea what sweet deliciousness sat right in front of her!  So we had to help her along and took and frosting and put it in her mouth.  She loved it!  However, she didn't "smash" the cake or grab it herself.  She's quite a diva and we ended up having to break apart the cake ourselves and then feed it to her haha.  A few times she did seem quite excited and waved her arms in the air and rubbed the cake all over her arms...Overall, it was a lot of fun memories to watch her enjoy her first birthday cake!!  Thank you SO MUCH to our photographers Drexelle at D. Park Photography, Janet from Purely Capitvating Photography and to Mieng Saetia for taking these beautiful cake smash photos!!!  The turnaround on these photos were amazingly fast and we appreciate all the hard work and accommodations you've made just for our Lily pad!!!  Thank you!!!

Words cannot describe how I feel about our little angel being 1 years old.  She is the joy of our lives and she deserves the very best in everything.  All our hard work, late nights, exhaustion, and stress is all worth it to see our baby have a great time and have a huge smile on her face the whole time!  She also already watched her first Disney movie, only 1/3 of it, and it's The Little Mermaid.  She loves to sit on my lap with and watch while chomping away at cheerios from her snack catcher!  I just watch her in amazing at how she's slowly becoming a little toddler, and I just can't get enough of how cute she does every little thing!  I love that her forehead crinkles every time she takes a bite of her cheerios, more like stuff her mouth with 3-4 cheerios, and how she gives me sweet kisses on the cheek, and how she knows to say "mom" every time she wants something!!  This first year has flown by and so much has happened with so many memories.  She's even has a career as a baby model and has made a good amount towards her college fund already!  We can't wait to see what other adventures Lily has in store for us.  Each day is a blessing with her and we cannot ask for a better life than this!  Happy 1st Birthday our sweet baby Lily!  We love you to pieces, forever and a half times double infinity!!!

UPDATE:  Thank you to D. Park Photography for capturing Lily's 1st Birthday, our party got featured on Hostess with the Mostess, check out the article HERE!

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!

Rose Macarons, Ispahan and Hello Kitty!

Rose macarons, my favorite!! I'm so happy that these came out great, if I do say so myself! The shells came out without a hitch! And then I I started making the rose filling and boy that was a challenge. After searching countless supermarkets of all kind, I finally found rose water (a very KEY ingredient to Rose Macarons) at the Indian supermarket (thanks chi hai!) called Garden Patch in Irvine! I mistakenly bought Rose Syrup and that is NOT the same...and ruined a batch of filling because of that. Alas though, I got my rose water, and I cannot be more excited!
This batch of macarons was for fun, but also to see if my last batch of macarons wasn't just a fluke and so I wanted to see if I truly can get the knack of baking macarons! So to my excitement, these came out great! I decide to take this to the next level and make some Hello Kitty macarons for my cousin Bao (Chi Tu) since she loves Hello Kitty! These were unfortunately not my creative idea, but I'm glad I can be inspired by the many talented people out there to make these for my loved ones! I also made an Ispahan for her as well! It's pretty much a giant macaron stuffed with raspberries and a lychee in the middle! Usually they put a rose petal on top for garnish, but I do not have any so I use a raspberry! This is my absolute favorite dessert of all time so I'm so happy I'm able to make a pretty decent Ispahan! =)
Also, taking my adventures to ANOTHER level, I decided to try my hand at shipping these bad boys...to Virginia! I wanted to surprise my cousin Van (Chi Ba) with some homemade macarons to satisfy some of her sweet tooth cravings, and to learn what's the best way to ship these delicate treats. It's all about trial and error, so Chi Ba please let me know how it goes! I had a lot of fun finding the right box and thinking of ways to nicely package it all up for her! Enjoy Chi Ba!!

So, I learned a whole bunch with this second successful batch of macarons, it's always a great feeling when I get to accomplish things like this and be able to share it with my lovely family and friends!

Green Tea Macarons

Success at last! Third time truly is a charm! I had two prior attempts, both epic fails...but FINALLY, the light at the end of the tunnel!! Just look at those feets!! (If you know macarons, you'll know what I'm talking about, the frilly stuff at the bottom of the macaron shells). I successfully made Green Tea Macarons! =) I wanted to make rose macarons but I have to chill the filling 24 hours ahead of time, so I was impatient and decided to go with green tea inside. So I will try rose next time! The biggest thing that help me succeed was my super awesome macaron book and my super nifty new food scale! Since macarons are French desserts, all the measurements are in grams. The last two attempts I tried to convert it to cups and tbsp, that was not a good idea. But, every thing I do is a learning process! So everybody throw your pillow cushions on the floor and jump for joy with me and lets celebrate my success!!! Now that I have all these yummy macarons, it's time to gobble them up! Sweet Dreams could possibly have a new edge =) Bon apetite!!! YAY!!!!