What do I do without baking?

What does the baker do when she doesn't bake?

I was on leave on Friday. Because I simply needed a break from work and it's about time I catch up with ex-colleagues. So a full day without baking or decorating, I went to my lunch at KL Pavilion - paid RM9 for parking! Had a great time gossiping with old time buddies. Geezz... I miss them a lot. After that went to do some survey at an equipment supply shop, looks like I can get everything I want for TeaRoom there. Ended my full day outing with visiting the bakery supply shop near my house.

Today I decided that I won't bake too - and tomorrow will be torturing - and leave everything till tomorrow. Oh well, I only have a birthday cake (chilled cheesecake, no need to bake) and one box of cupcake order. Should be okay lah. Oh, having tea at Mid Valley with my PiC (partner in crime) whom I've not seen nor partnered in gym for a long loooong time. So today after leaving my car at the service centre, I went to The Gardens with MC and BIL to have lunch, before that a dose of my daily caffeine at Starbucks. I think whenever I'm near to MC, I get her morning sickness and pregnant symptoms. Very sleepy, slight motion sickness and kept burping.

Meanwhile, heard from office that one of my new colleagues had resigned, left on the same day. The reason (so I heard) was she has problem working with us (I heard "us" includes everyone and I'm not surprise I am one of her big "problems") and she left without saying goodbye to anyone. Well, talk about having problem with us, perhaps it's us who had problem with her. Well, we DO have problem with her. End of story. I'm glad I get to tell her off before she resigned. Now, the witch is still there, she better behave herself, or else.... mwah hahaha...

Maybe I don't really have to express TeaRoom plan so much then.

I am trying to confirm an order for a wedding. If it is confirmed, there will be order for 360 pieces of mini cupcakes and a 3 tier wedding cake. Looking forward to that, hopefully it's a deal!

Also working on a proposal for cookie supply, what do you think of these:

Coffee and Cream: Coffee flavoured cookie with chocolate; and chocolate cookie flecked with chopped nuts. These two flavours are baked into one cookie - A perfect combination of two worlds.

Stuffed Date Cookies: A brown sugar-sour cream cookie encapsulates a pecan-stuffed date in each of these chewy cookies.

Chocolate Cherry Cookies: Bright red cherries buried in a chocolaty dough, topped with chocolate frosting.

Almond Bars: Almond-studded cookie sticks with a drizzle of almond icing.

Okay, lets do with four for now. The thing is, the client is looking for something which will be packaged into festive hampers, so can't be just a chocolate chip cookie. And too bad the client is not looking at biscotti, I've some new found recipes which sound soooo delicious, like chocolate-toffee biscotti, tea-scented breakfast biscotti, ginger cocoa biscotti, tiramisu biscotti, cherry rum, cranberry-orange, mocha-hazelnuts... wah... I'm very tempted to make all these myself. Too bad I don't really have so much time.

Also, I see the need of introducing a less sweet topping for the cupcakes, maybe butter cream instead of butter icing. But this will be very erm... buttery. Not sure if kids will like it though. As for my "signature" milk chocolate cake, it's too sweet for some customers, so considering introducing a dark chocolate cake also. Will see how.

Again, I wish I have more time to experiment!

I have been busy

Sorrieeee...

Have not updated blog, and neither have I read your blogs for a whole long week. I've not been sleeping more than 5 hours since Sunday. I am on leave tomorrow and I plan to sleep for at least the standard 8 hours.

I've got a last minute cupcake order, only confirmed on Sunday and to be delivered on Thursday. Yes, delivered today and big thanks to mum for delivering for me. It was a 200 over pieces of cupcakes ordered by a fashion designer for her show. Great advertisement, I hope. No feedback so far, finger crossed. She also introduced her colleague to me and I am in the final stage of confirming her colleague's wedding cake and wedding cupcake order. Finger crossed again.

On the note of my fund raising to attend classes, yes, thank you to all friends and customers, I've enrolled myself today for a 3D cartoon decorating class. I've booked myself for a baby shower cake class, and hopefully, if the funds are enough, the professional wedding cake decorating class to perfect the skills, and to get new ideas and techniques. Looking forward, and finger crossed that orders will come in again.


As a quick update on my office "war", I raised my dissatisfaction in a meeting till my big boss was inpatient as in why he needs to listen to those in project meetings. I told him because he was copied in all those email, and didn't he just questioned me the other day BIG TIME about what's happening? After the meeting, I personally told off 2 new colleagues that I feel that they are rude and unprofessional with their emails, and had requested for them to tone down, or just don't send such emails. Arghhh... I plan to talk to HR next week about all these grievance in the office lately.

As for gym. Sigh... have been subsidizing the gym and only went to the gym today since last Monday. I changed my plan from coming home to rest, to yoga, to cardio to finally ended up in RPM. Okay, it was RPM challenge. Thanks to MFG that I decided I shouldn't give up gym today, and thanks to Steve that I was tempted to take up a tougher workout than the cardio wave machine.

Oh well, everything seems fine now except for lack of sleep. So, signing off now.

Relaxing weekend?

Finally!!!

Finally I got to sleep more than 6 hours. In fact, I've slept for 11 hours :).

This afternoon was spent at Dome Cafe The Curve, a very relaxing chit chat (aka gossip) session with my favorite people. Came back and leisurely baked a cheesecake for cousin's birthday tomorrow and I was just 5 minutes late in joining the Earth hour lights off. Needed to put my cake into the oven first. And yeah, lights was on for the oven though.

I didn't go to gym for a week, and only did yoga yesterday. Shoulder getting better and was planning to go to gym tomorrow until a confirmed order of 200 pieces of cupcakes. The little cuppies will be given out in a fashion event, so although the order came in short of a week's notice, I would still want to take it. Thank god tomorrow is Sunday, if not, I don't think I would be able to take the order because I've got dinner on Monday (so no gym), and with only Tuesday and Wednesday nights, I don't think I can deliver 200 cupcakes on Thursday. So I guess I'll catch up with gym, and more sleep later. Tomorrow will be a busy day.

KG, nice seeing today and thanks for ordering the chocolate cake. There are still a lot to update you. Let's talk again on Friday k.

Birthday Cake for A Pretty Mum

This is a mango cheesecake with oreo dark chocolate base. Surrounded with sponge finger and decorated with little pink hearts made from fondant. The special message was written on a specially made chocolate plaque.



The message is so cute right? Only creative customer would be able to send in such request :). But TTB nearly messed it up because her mind was else where when she wrote those wordings, and the first version read like this...

OMG! Totally different message. Luckily I checked my notes before packing up the cakes. Haha...

Thanks for ordering dear. I hope you and your mum liked the cake. And hope you've had a great celebration. :)

To auntie: May you live pretty forever! Happy Birthday!

Whoopss... it happened again.

There were a few variations for the shoulder track for this new pump release. One of them is balancing on the bar, besides using the bench or simply doing push up on the floor. Though I was using the bar, I was wondering whether it would be better to hold the bar over or under thumb. I actually tried both, but while experimenting between those two options, whoops... I slipped because the bar got unbalance due to my movements. So, crack, and ouch. Got an injured shoulder. But, I actually managed to finish the shoulder track despite the injury. I guess the pain only kicks in overnight.

Fortunately, I did not plan for a hardcore workout week, there are lots of orders to deliver. So, I'll take this excuse to nurse my injury and rest my arms. :p

Yup, so I went to pump last night. It was Carebear & Co. Great fun and what a way to "win" the chance of teaching the next track - scissors, stone and cloth was a good idea. Hehe... Is the new release tough? As per Carebear, and can't agree more, it's all up to the weights you get yourself to carry. I was really tired last night, so was really really pushing hard for me to get through the class. In fact, I was already suffering when I was in combat before that.

I will not comment on the new release until I do another one with me feeling okay. Wookie, KG, BO, LP and LGM were there, I'm sure they had reviewed the new release already ;)

Meanwhile, stay tuned to MasterChef, she'll be announcing some good news soon :)

Happy Birthday SSB!

Happy birthday and hope you've had a great celebration. It was such a delight that the cupcakes can make an appearance on your birthday and glad they've also accompanied you throughout the year.

May your year be eventful and colourful, always cheerful and successful!

Pudding for Gathering

I was invited to a house warming at a Zam's new condo. I have been really busy with orders last week so I only had time to bake on Saturday morning, just before the gathering. Since the bread pudding had been an all time favorite, and this was the quickest to make (and most importantly I can bring it over even after it came straight out from the oven).

The bread pudding is made with croissant, the usual pudding mix but with additional melted white chocolate to give a richer texture. This will definitely be very indulging if you are up to some rich, creamy and buttery kind of bread pudding.

Best eaten with a good scope of vanilla ice cream. If I've had more time, I would have made some vanilla sauce (white chocolate vanilla sauce most probably) to go with the pudding. And if it's for non Muslim friends, some brandy in the vanilla sauce will be so perfect!

Anyways, I think the gymfreaks miss the chocolate cake. So sorry dears, didn't have the time lately. Will make more effort and bring a cake for the next gathering.

I had a great time and I love the breeze which I think maybe you will only get at place at the 18th floor like Zam's. Enjoyed the food a lot too and it's really warm seeing old friends again. And yeah, I think I haven't met you guys for like a year :p