Happy new year everyone!!

I'm now back in Sydney trying to climatize myself to the time difference and weather. For all of you who don't know, i was away for the last month in Singapore, Malaysia and Japan. It was one word A-W-E-S-O-M-E!

i really should do this more often . :)

Several months ago, i was asked by a dear friend to make her wedding cake. Today was the day.

I am so happy to be able to share this day with her and also be making her wedding cake!

This is my first time that i've actually made a wedding cake and attended the reception as well. I must say that i am proud and thankful to hear all the lovely comments of the cakes and cookies.

This makes me feel like floating on cloud 9 :)

Their theme was sunshine yellow and white and the bride instantly fell in love with one of my previous display cakes from this post spring/summer. They also chose some vanilla sugar cookies as their placement cards on the dining tables. It was a lovely idea and it totally matched the theme.

The Bride

The Groom

Placement cookie for the bridal table

Placement cookie for guest

Here's a placement cookie for unexpected guest

The table view of the placement cookies

My very own placement cookie!

The cake and cupcake tier

The bride and groom cutting the mini cake

Here are more cupcakes in boxes ready to be taken home by each guest

I love how each boxes has a little window for a peek look of what's inside.

Yes! I am participating in this year's RSPCA CUPCAKE DAY! YAY!

About 3 weeks ago or so, i was contacted by Kye, Corporate Partnerships Manager of RSPCA NSW, to see if i was interested in making cupcakes for their VIP RSPCA event. It was so bizarre because before receiving Kye's email i was meant to contact RSPCA to see if i could offer some help but that email ended up in my gmail draft unfinished. Somehow Kye managed to grab hold of my contact somewhere online and contacted me for this. I'm sooooooooooo excited yet still surprised on how coincident the whole email thingie is.........

The VIP's i mentioned is referring to the media in SYDNEY (eg: Yahoo7, NineMSN etc etc) and  hopefully the media will make a little coverage about My Sweethearts Bakery. 

This time i'm not alone! I will be joining with Sharon Wee Creations to help in this event :)

Before all the email incident with RSPCA, i actually contacted Sharon to ask if she would like to join with me in this RSPCA cupcake day. She was very interested and we both thought two pair or hands are better than one pair.

That's what brought us two together and we started chatting and found out that we both had similar pathways in this baking industry. I must say that i'm happy to find myself a baking buddy and the best thing is she lives not far from me and in SYDNEY!! We now share our trade secrets and also the juicy gossips about the latest baking tips :p

Can't wait to work with her in this RSPCA event and i will be posting the pictures once the cupcakes are done! so stay tune and keep and eye out for my cupcakes! and help us support RSPCA cupcake day~

Some picture of the pups that will be on the cupcakes 

Heard about tiramisu cupcakes??? 

me: nope........... *long pause* maybe i should try them out since i've got mascarpone spare in the fridge. :)

I must say i need some practice in working with mascarpone and espresso. I think i either mistook a step or did too much beating on my icing. It was a little runny but it still was yummy-licious. *thumbs up*

I've decided to share the recipe with all my readers and do let me know how you go if you are giving this recipe a try! Good Luck!

Tiramisu Cupcakes (adapted from 'Baking: from my home to yours' Dorie Greenspan)

Ingredients 

For cupcakes:-

2 cups of cake flour

2tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

10 tbsp unsalted butter

1 cup sugar

3 eggs

1 large egg yolk

1 tsp vanilla essence

3/4 cup of buttermilk

For espresso extract

2 tbsp espresso powder

2 tbsp boiling water

For expresso syrup

1/2 water

1/3 cup sugar

1 tbsp kahlua

For frosting

 230 gm of mascarpone (1 tub from for the grocer)

1/2 cup icing sugar (powder)

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tbsp  Kahlua

1 cup cold cream

Instructions:-

(To make cuppies)

 Preheat oven to 350F. Line cupcake liners

Sift cake flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside

In mixer, beat butter until creamy, then add sugar and mix. Add eggs one at a time (beat about 1 minute after each addition) Then add vanilla.

Gradually add flour and buttermilk (alternate!!!) starting and ending with flour mixture. 

Fill cupcake liners and baker for 17-20 mins.

(To make espresso extract)

In small bowl, blend espresso powder and boiling water. Mix and set aside

(To make espresso syrup)

In small saucepan, heat water and sugar until sugar dissolves. Pour syrup into a bowl and stir in Kahlua. Set aside.

(To make frosting)

Combine mascarpone, sugar, vanilla and Kahlua in large bowl and whisk till smooth. Then in stand mixer, use whisk attachment, whip the cream until it hold stiff peaks.

Then use spatula to stir in 1/4 of whipped cream into the mascarpone mixture. Fold in  the rest of the whipped cream with a soft touch. Lastly add espresso syrup to frosting to taste.

Lastly spread your frosting on the cupcakes and yummo-licious!

Last week, i had a fun baking session with Sunnie at my place. We went out and had our lunch before starting the baking session.

At first, we didn't have any idea about what we were going to make. We had the idea of almond cupcakes but realised that we had no almond. We also had the idea of pistachio cupcakes (sound yum huh?) but also realised that i had NO pistachio!! Instantly we felt really stupid for not checking the pantry before heading to lunch before. All we had at home was chocolate, oranges, lemons and bananas. Finally, after all the thinking and deciding, orange won our hearts.

hmmmmmmmmmm......ORANGE CUPCAKES :)

We use orange peel in the cupcakes and it tasted really really good and fruity. It was a good decision after all.

Done with cupcakes, now with decorations. Again, we had no idea what to decorations to settle with so we both made things that we felt like. First was the butterflies, then Sunnie went on to beach theme, space theme and lastly roses. (See what i said about random?)

I know i know, orange cupcakes didn't exactly go with the butterflies, roses, beach and etc but that was like our "no plan" session. Should have made something fruity as the deco but oh well!

We didn't finish decorating until like 9 at night and continued after dinner till like about 2am. Crazy huh? Started at 2pm and ended at 12am. Almost 10 hours of serious baking and decorating! (excluding dinner)
Overall, i enjoyed it cause we took our own sweet time with Sunnie's ipod music in the background and Chico lazing just beside me. It was a lazy Sunday with a little productivity in it :P

ps: Here are the ones that i made. Sunnie took hers home so i didn't manage to snap some pictures of it. But believe me, when i said we had a random creation day

enjoy!

I made this cupcakes specially for Zen (my techy friend)'s birthday.

"Happy birthday Zen~!"

*ps :sorry for the late post :p

More pictures of the cupcakes!

The half  lot (3o cupcakes in each box)

Freshly baked Orange Cuppies

Decorated Orange cuppies

Alphabet Plaque

Special Thanks to my 3 helpers for this event!

Jan, Yoong and Chico (my little vacuum cleaner)! you guys are the best!! *hugs*

Remember my previous post on CCNSW BMT event?

Yes, it's finally here this week!!! 

Although i cannot host a morning tea myself but this year i've decided to donate some of my cupcakes (free of course!) to others who are holding the event at their business, community and etc. I wish them all good luck for the event! :)

I'm making a massive 350 cupcakes!! My very great helper Jan Nee (the one who inpires me to bake and does heaps of baking herself) and I are going to work all night Tuesday and all day Wednesday

To those of you that i couldn't help out, perhaps next year, if i get more helpers, i would be able to provide more free cupcakes for the event! 

From this

To this!

The cupcake toppers (i made like 350 of these! that's how busy i was)

Baby teapot with chocolate cuppie

Vanilla and rose water frosting cuppie with my attempt of daffodils

Vanilla and rose water cuppie with yummie little marshmallow tops