JY and Food Photography

Without fail, JY would always take a photo of her fondant creations. She wants to take her phototgraphy skills a notch higher by enrolling in a food photography course.
This means acquiring a better camera?

From her Squire's Kithen Diploma Course, she found out that she could improve on her cake deco by going for flower arranging courses, food photo courses and clay classes.

Note to self. Points to remember when selling cupcakes at Rotary events

1. At Rotary District Assemblies, there will be very few children around. So reduce the number of cupcakes to 100 pieces.

2. During District Conferences, spouses and children will be around, however I feel that the number of cupcakes should be 100 pieces as it was really difficult getting people to buy the cupcakes, thus the cupcakes would be more of a showcase of Jianyi's talents. Speaking of which, Jianyi would have to do the icing and make the sugarcraft models on-site. As it was attention grabbing and pulled in a crowd.

3. Need to search for vegetarian cakes and diabetic cakes.

4. Display a dummy 3-tiered wedding cake.

5. The butter cake slices sold really well. Samples of the chocolate cake helped to boost the sales of the cake significantly. In all we made 4 10inch butter cakes and 2 10inch chocolate cakes. Next event we will double the volumes for both the types of cakes.

6.We need more posters and flyers. Perhaps a nice banner.

7. I had great fun experimenting with the carrot cake. It feels good working with a new recipe and having to rectify the cake and try to turn it into a presentable cake. I am glad it was well-received.

8. We need to issue receipts as proof of payment. The lady that ran away with someone else's cake was a bad experience for the girls.

9. Cake that are reserved should be paid for in full and bagged and tagged with the name and handphone numbers of the purchaser.

10. We will need to ensure that the vendors get to be FED! The girls were practically starving and the walk from the Sunway hotel to the shopping mall is no joke!

Wilton@ICCA

Before we enrolled Jianyi in her Wilton course, she took a few cake decorating classes in Cake Connection, located in Jaya One. They were a good introduction for her but after going for the Wilton classes in ICCA she noticed that the tutors conducting the Wilton course are more informative and disclose more trade secrets.

So if you want to get into cake decorating you should consider their classes. Fees are a bit steep though...so are their merchandise.

Lost in TTDI Monday 8 March 2010

I have been invited to this park a couple of times. It is a popular meeting place; where kids can wade in the stream, scoop up a few fishes while the parents get to do some socializing. So when Wai Leng invited me to a gathering in TTDI Park, I just had to go.
Here was the plan:
Step 1 get the boys to sleep early on Sunday.

Step 2: Get the boys to wake up early on Monday. Preferably by 730am.This was because Kent had a full schedule planned for the day and since he is the one with the car. We would have to fit ourselves into his schedule.

Well, Step 1 failed as the boys were still bouncing off the bedroom walls at 10.30pm. However i did manage to get them to settle down by 10.45 and they were asleep not long after.
Step 2 failed as well, as they were still asleep at 7.30am BUT they did manage to wake up by 8.15. However by that time Kent was long gone :(

Luck was on our side that day. (or so I thought) Kent called to say that he could drop us at TTDI.

Problem : Which park in TTDI?

Solution: ASK

So I asked WL. She seemed unsure.
So I asked S. She was very clear. (or so I thought)

We came to a guard house. We saw a road leading up a hill. We thought the park must be just after the bend.
Bend after bend after bend.

We passed a man training for a marathon (he had on a shirt with 'marathon' printed on it) .

We were ambushed by macaques. 3 females with their babies clinging to them. They stared blankly at me and started advancing towards us when I said "Shoo! Shoo!" I was a little scared. Then Han roared "RUUUUURRRRR!!!!" Wolverine-style. That scared them off. Phew!
Han was proud of himself for saving us.

A nice couple smiled and said this hill has a lot of monkeys, you might want to try the park with a nice stream"

Me: This doesn't lead to the park with the stream???

Couple: No. This is the jogging track. It loops back here. (we were at the peak!) To get to the other park. Go back to Trellises.......

Walking down the hill, we promised ourselves BR icecream as a reward. The gradient was steep. We didn't realise this on the way up. My kids were great sports. The boys didn't complain. JY wished she stayed home but she kept on going good-naturedly. Ean slept in my arms.

I called S up and told her we were lost when we reached the guardhouse at the base of the hill. KV came to our rescue.
He drove us to the right park.

There were 3 mothers' group assemled there. USJ homeschool group, IBU and Japanese Mothers.

I met up with a few lovely mommies. Ann, Liani, Sabrina, Latifah, WL and S.

Fai and Han had a blast with Arian. The stream was shallow. Great for little ones.

The playground was within sight. The park was clean and well-maintained. Landscaping was done well.

JY hung around with the mommies.

Fai is 6

Fai with his Transformer Mega Sword. One sword with lights and goes Ka-Ching. I expected lots of grabbing and tears of defeat. However I was pleasantly surprised that Fai gave in to Han and let him play with his sword every now and then. And he wisely use it as a bargaining chip.

Fai's negotiaion with Han this evening after dinner went like this , " I will let you play with my sword, if you let me help mummy wash the dishes " So Han ran off happily with the sword and Fai got to wash dishes by my side.
Yes, helping mummy wash the dishes is not a chore in my house. My boys like nothing better than to assist me in the kitchen cutting, washing, cooking.... Perhaps it is the only time they get me to themselves.

Jianyi doing the finishing touches on Fai's Transformer Cake. Autobots for the teatime guests and Decepticons for the Dinner guests.
Decepticon logo on cake2

Fai cut the cake and scrapped off the icing upon request.

Fai's grandmothers had the task of removing the wires that secured Optimus and Jetfire to the box.

Fai was impatient and tried to help Pohpoh.

Mama hard at work. The 2 toys still firmly in place.

Fai is exceptionally creative. He used the wires that came with the toy and masking tape to make a jellyfish.

Jianyi and her cousin, Caryn in the foam pool.

Passion is....

At 11pm. After a long day. Jianyi starts on her 1st 'serious' cake

Edible dusts from CakeConnection at Jaya1 and wires from Ikano (with lots of help from Shannon who shuttled us around. Thanks Shannon) Jianyi was ready to start on her sugarpaste flowers. Finally!

It was late by the time we got back home but Jianyi was eager to get started on her first 'classic' cake. I guess that's what passion is....

When time no longer matters

Putting your heart into it

When perfection is non-negotiable

Finding joy in what you do

When marks and grades matters not

Impatience when held back (we scouted for days for the materials)

Flawless

Pride in her art work

Satisfaction while working

Happiness all the time

This is the end result......... a beautifully decorated cake for Jianyi's greatgrandmother's 87th birthday.
Kent and Jianyi took turns carrying the cake that weighed at least 10kg all the way from 1Utama carpark to Shogun....up the escalators and dodging the weekend/CNY shopping madness.

Jianyi with Tai-Mak, Pohpoh, Aunty Meng, Aunty Ann and Aunty Julie

Jianyi and uncle Weng Hwa.

Thank you for believing in Jianyi and encouraging her (and the oven too :)

Jianyi's pie obsession

Jianyi is into baking pies now. They are absolutely delicious.

Her Buttery crumble crust is perfect.

I have been having one for breakfast everyday.

Aren't I the luckiest??!

Tomorrow she will be baking apple pie. Can't wait for that.

A Creative Week for Jianyi

On Tuesday, JY baked a beautiful butter cake, iced it with buttercream and decorated it with cute little flowers and her signature ladybug for Swathy's surprise UPSR Party. The kids had fun showering her with confetti.


Shannon bought her a yellow(Swathy's favourite colour) t-shirt and made a banner.

Thanks Shannon for the party idea.


It is important to celebrate life's little victories.

Shannon dropped us off at Ikano after the party and JY headed straight for her clay project after a meal at Ikea. She planned to complete her orchids in time for her grandparents' wedding anniversary.


And she did it!


Simply gorgeous!!





JY's pohpoh and kongkong proudly posing with their anniversary gift.





Thank you for coming all the way from Karak and preparing our all-time favourite Bak Kut Teh.




On Friday, JY wanted to bake a "I-am-Back" cake.


She took a 1 year leave from aikido and surprised me one day by saying that she has decided to continue with aikido.


Thanks to Facebook she has been in contact with Patrick sinsei and Colleen and they have asked her to visit them one friday during class as they miss her terribly. And that made her reconsider joining aikido all over again.



Here is a close up of the aikido bear. Her fingers are so nimble, it took her less than 10 minutes to complete it.


It has a blue belt just like its creator.







Now JY has got her Mama into helping her with her second clay project.
A behemoth of a project! 28 Joachim orchids!
She has taught her grandmother to roll on the clay onto a floral wire and prick it with the clay apparatus. Mama seems to enjoy it. I am glad.


Miss Joachim