April 16 marks my little sister's birthday. Now with my mum being a cake designer, it is pretty obvious that a cake (made by her no less) would be present on the day. And there were, 2 cakes in fact. Which were eaten before and after the actual birthday. Ironic isn't it? But we only used the cakes as a form of celebration to tell the whole world: "Hey guys! Its my birthday!!" and "My mum MADE it" and "The cake reflects how loved I am!" and "Its a reminder. Where are my presents?" (or so I think its what went through Celine's head.)
I don't think many people out there know how much time and effort is needed to make the cake look normal. Not like it was just a cake that unfortunately had some fondant shoved on it with gaudy looking colours. Just some cake. But to make it look pretty, you need a lot of patience. Also optimism.
"AAAGH! The cake is crumbling and breaking out!"
"Just keep moving. Just keep moving."
"The flowers disintegrated!"
"Just keep moving. Just keep moving."
"I'm out of gum paste!!"
"Smile! :) "
Anyway, my mum panicked a bit because it rained. Fondant is fussy and it refuses to cope when it rains. So mum wrestled with it to put it on the cake. Finally she just made it as good as possible (hence some, uhum, tucking in of the fondant in peculiar angles). Plus, the towers of the castle cake didn't oblige to our command of staying vertical. It seemed to get pure joy when it fell down. I on the other hand had some difficulties cutting out alphabets from fondant.
Hours, minutes, seconds, milliseconds passed and the cake was complete! Yay!
Cake no.1 is the castle cake. Very girly I know.
On the actual day, interestingly enough we had no cake. Well, apart from the brownie and chocolate. But hey, no one's complaining.
Cake no.2 was made on Sunday, to celebrate her 9th birthday in church. Mum was up till late the day before and up early to work on her cake. It was about the same kinda theme: girl with 2 pet unicorns sitting innocently amidst some tiered cake. If you look at both cakes, you can see that both unicorns and girl with her delicate basket of roses pop up on both cake designs. But in the second cake, the unicorns drink some water with fish that flip their tails in unison (idea and made by moi!)
Nevertheless, both cakes were a success and had has gartered some attention. Celine was quite happy and kind of obssessed over the unicorns, but hey, they were cute. If you think it looks effortless, well, we sure do want you guys to think that but to be honest, it doesn't. But that doesn't mean it isn't fun!
Love,
helper, co-designer and consultant
Claudia :) x
