Ib's Birthday and Hubby's Mengidam....

yes....my hubby is still mengidam...and I'm going to meletop earliest in 8 weeks time...this time it's vol au vent and meringue that were constantly in his mind!

Since I have been super busy, finishing work in the office, my editing (yes, already sent the final draft and waiting for another project to be done before I meletop) and baking which usually starts on Thursday....I told hubby he has to find his way with his mengidamness...ie dia kena buat sendirilah! Of course, I tolonglah...leter, ha ha....habis! He wants a short cut way....cannotlah when you are baking!!!

And Ib wants a birthday do......on top of all those.....mak bapak dia follow rentak budak athmatic ni, very sensitive, his last name is merajuk, so we decided to have a small do of makan-makan, to please Ib and hubby...and excuse for all of us to makannnnn!!

Since it was in the nick of time punya planning, we had very close friends whose average number of children (except for very very few) was 3 and maximum of 6, to come and join the party.....the house was full of children, even though there were not 15 couples, ha ha.....now, you know why we are also waiting for number 6!!

I made the cakes (of course!), profiteroles, chicken curry with roti jala (roti jala I ordered from Kak Jee), my brother Mus who works with KL Convention Centre's kitchen prepared tuna and egg sandwiches and did the filling for hubby's vol au vent, I also made bruschetta, baked macaroni...the fried mee hoon was from the kind help of SW's maid, my maid fried the nuggets, boiled the cocktail sausages, of course hubby prepared earlier his meringue using Nigella's Domestic Goddess recipe and the vol au vent casing......

All went well, special thanks to pak doktor Jab tolong buat pinata for the kids, he didn't sleep until 6 that day to finish his work...ah well, he's a nocturnal anyway!!And thanks to all who came to help to make the small do a merry day for all of us!!

Happy Birthday Anis Anati!

Anis' 10th birthday was on 17.5.2009...Anis is my younger sister's youngest girl and my sister has only two girls! The weekend before her birthday, she came over to my house and saw me preparing the golfer figurines and cupcakes for SW's husband....she said, "Mak Long, Anis pun nak cake yang ada patung-patung....." She requested for small teddies and fairies! I pulak was dying to try the new Americolor colours that husband got, when he stumbled into this baking-supply shop in Jalan Teluk Sisik, Kuantan after he finished his matter there! Apa lagi, I happily volunteered to do the cakes for Anis! And I loved the electric pink, electric purple and electric green by Americolor.....don't you?!

That 17.5.2009 weekend, we brought the cakes to Anis after Ib's and Umar's Lorna class, and we had a little family celebration....Anis was beaming ear to ear..."errr...Mak Long, next year Anis nak............."

Pink and yellow..

I have to learn to take better pictures by playing with the apertures and contrast, to get the shade and details of the embossed fondant covering the cake like I want them to be...

Think pink and yellow are such sweet combinations....I had an order from an ex-colleague, a gift for her lecturer and the cakes are to travel all the way from KL to Penang. So, I suggested to her to make vanilla cupcakes with chocolate buttercream topping with fondant, so that the icing wouldn't melt....since I was given a "free-hand" in terms of the choice of colours and flowers, I chose to repeat what I learnt from Wiz, except that, the fondant covering the cakes were embossed, and I also scattered a few pearlised sugar to embellish...

All boxed up to be delivered! Thank you Marina for the order!

I also received an order on the same day for mini cuppies for a doa selamat from my dear St Nick's friend.....she wanted something that can just plop into the mouth, so, I suggested these mini cuppies.....since I was still in the mood for yellow and pink, I repeated the same colours for her cakes except that I iced the cuppies with vanilla buttercream and played around with the cutters that I got from Wiz's class! As you can see I also loved the pearl-ised sugar beads...thank you Chut for this order!

Missing you people.....

Yes, I do....but I have so much to do, work, editing, sugar flowers, my bookshelves at home still in a mess, the material for swaddle blankets still in original form.......am into my 32nd week, "whale-ing" and waddling around, clumsy and bumping around into people in the lift, in the cafetaria.....ha ha...catch up with you soon...have loads of pics to upload, too!!!
Wouldn't admit that am ayu or selembut berbicara...I almost swallowed all the engineers I am working with yesterday....they didn't do their homework and couldn't provide the anwers to my questions......

Almost Whizzing...I Wish!!

The day that I had been waiting for....yes a tutorial on how to do sugar flowers with Wiz had come! I have been surfing her blog for a couple of months, and when I missed the sugar flower class that she conducted at sugarflours http://www.sugarflours.com/ , I was devastated.

After that, one thing led to another, and I was emailing to and fro with Wiz http://inawhiz.blogspot.com/ , and she has kindly agreed to have a class for me and a few of my close friends....Razlyn who will be my administrator and financial person when we buka cafe, ehem...bila entahlah! Stella, who is a business person in her own right who has been making sugar cookies and Lina, who is married to husband's cousin who had also jumped into this cakery business like moi!

The class started at 10.30, and of course the first module ie the first bunga that we attempted seemed a real uphill battle, macam panjat Mount Kinabalu...what more with the keras tangan of ours...Wiz kata, pegang sikit-sikit, picit sikit-sikit, gigit macam you gigit anak you...yelah tu Wiz! Up until lunch that was around 12.45 we only managed to do 2 flowers! Hai! Nampaknya we'll be there the whole day!

And Wiz being Wiz, so sweet, so slim (unlike your pengantin perempuan teddy bear image that I dreamt of you, the week before, ha ha), so pemurah, so kind, so patient...prepared roast chicken, salad and rolls for our lunch..ayo where to get such treatment from cikgu huh! We savoured and melantak the roast chicken, do our solat and continued, do the kneading (now I understand your Kneaded Me post Wiz), mix the colours, tampal-tampal, lekat-lekat...but it was really all worth more than the price that we paid.....her fondant is really easy to mix, sedap to makan, I had mine in blueberry and peach flavours...they tasted like Mentos, and for one who doesn't like Mentos, I love this fondant taste! Also, her fondant does not need any preservatives like tragacanth gum or gum-tex, and the effect is just like the ones that I wanted!!

At the end of the class, we realise that making sugar flowers is just like main masak-masak and play dough, everything seemed so simple and they are simple, and Wiz taught us to use cutters and stuffs that are easily within reach and cheap...mind you this cutter and tools business to do sugar flowers can fetch hundred of dollars...and now when I look at the online tutorials by Louise of CakeJournal, http://www.cakejournal.com/ , I can do the rose petals that I have been dreaming of doing all this while! Yes, we were penat, but all went back beaming ear to ear!

Thank you so much Wiz and thank you Razlyn, Stella, and Lina for accompanying me and making the session really lively and fun, we'll do figurine after this ok!

P/s I now open orders for miniature cakes and hantaran cakes using sugar flowers! You are welcome to email me at haqyani@gmail.com for further enquiries...hope to hear from you soon!

The set up of the class...

I love this one!
Need to perfect my daisies...
Love this one too!
Pandang tak jemu!
Ni kelam kabut punya kerja, it was almost 4.30 and we haven't finished! But the balls will definitely look nicer with lustre dust!
Ribbon roses, first attempt!
I like this assemble the best!
Frangipani and glitter flower!
My creations for the day!
The yummy mummy roast chicken, salad and rolls.....Wiz of Wiz!!

Happy Birthday Sha...

Last week-end was extremely busy for me, preparing and delivering orders, so much so there weren't any celebration to mark my birthday and mom's day......dah tua tua ni it really doesn't matter much....I'd rather put the smile on others than mine....I'll be happier!

One of the orders came from this young lady, sweet and very hip hop (I think), who had made the arrangement about a month ago, for me to prepare beryani udang for initially 25 pax, but later became 40 pax...nasib baik I bought extra udang on Saturday and 50 profiteroles for her birthday. Sha, who you can check out her blog at here http://bacaaje.blogspot.com/, said that the food was for lunch makan-makan with her family. I pun obliged-lah, tak sampai hati nak turn down......

So, on Sunday, I woke up early at 5.30 to start preparing the dish (the profiteroles I dah prepare the night before), as I had to attend my tutorials with the much awaited Wiz! Everything was settled...beres by 7.30, I showered, went to Kak Jee's to get breakfast for my kids before I left for Wiz's at around 9.00.

Little did I know, rupanya, the dishes were for Sha's special birthday do at a fellow blogger's studio, Itudiastudio http://sueannajoe.blogspot.com/. I would have freaked out had I known this earlier, but bagus jugak I tak tau, so there was no pressure in me preparing the dishes.

Thank you so much Sha for the order, glad that all your guests loved the nasi and profiteroles...yes you can order again in future, inshaallah, I'll gladly do for you...you know young people like you really amazes me, I dulu-dulu blog ka apa ka, semua tak tau!! I'm waiting for you to post pictures of your do! Ni gambarq profiteroles yang I made for Sha, gambarq beryani udang tak dan ambik, tengah kalut, siap anak-anak before I ciow to Bandar Mahkota Cheras for my class!

Chocolate Cherry for A Special, Very Dedicated Surgeon.

This is a request for 75 cuppies for a very dear and dedicated surgeon's birthday by his wife and children. I recommended chocolate cherry cuppies with chocolate buttercream icing instead of the ordinary chocolate or vanilla flavours. They also requested for golfer toppers, and I recommended that his children wrote a birthday note on the fondant for their father....
So, here is a scene at a golf green as requested. Thank you SW for this order!

Old Flame, New Love, All Time Love....

My new love...Kmix mixer from of course...Kenwood.....hubby's gift to me....yup am 41 today and am at work, simply because I had forgotten all about today, hence, have not applied for a day off!! Alhamdulillah, panjang lagi my umur I!

Hmm, those days, I would have drooled over a handbag or a pair of shoes...am not a bling bling person, even though I have a wish list of some goodies from Chopard and Tiffany and a few watches. But now, my head is constantly thinking about baking stuff...mind you they might not be those branded ones, but they are expensive...so I thought for my birthday, I'd give myself the gifts of attending baking classes, making sugar flowers that I so lurve so much and buying baking books and utensils....think when baking cakes or cupcakes, I prefer to offer different varieties of flavours, like lemon with cream cheese topping, or spiced apple with passion fruit curd topping, or vanilla with white chocolate cake.....etc rather than the usual vanilla and chocolate cuppies......hence, I need all the knowledge and skills to do these...

I think having reached this far, I have more or less achieved what I wanted in terms of health and happiness, what I really strive for these days are the achievements by my children....you come to an age that the happiness of others matters more than yours, and of course to be closer to God.....I can't ask for more when it comes to relatives and friends around me, you are like the flowers in my garden...hmmm my real garden at home tak dak bunga except for frangipani and my kitchen, bunga kantan.....

My old flame....Jenome, hubby got this for me together with a pleater machine, for me to make smock dresses for Khadijah...which I did and have been doing, but I still have many unfinished projects....I still love making smocked dresses, but since my eyesight is giving way, it is really strenuous to sew, esp at night...

Me and hubby on my call-to-the-bar day, entah bila.....the only moment that I was proud to call myself a lawyer, otherwise, I would prefer to be know as ME!!

My all time love....always giving me courage and hope to try something new...actually it was more like paksaan than passion...but I gradually fell in love with smocking and baking, he he!!!

Makan Angin In Ayer Baloi, Pontian.

Looks like semenjak this rumah pusaka in Ayer Baloi had been restored, we have been by-passing Muar (where MIL and FIL now lives)...Umar wants us to move to this beautiful house...Beautiful is his term for a house that has a huge compound where he can main basikal and play badminton with his brothers, and the next door boys...

So, last weekend, we decided to go back to Ayer Baloi, since it was a long weekend, and hubby and me declared Monday cuti for us and the kids also...hmm don't know when I'll be going back, because Khadijah and Yusof will be busy with their revision classes after this and I'll be heavy...waiting to meletop! Also there was cukur jambul at Pak Ngah's in JB on Friday and MIL decided to have a khenduri doa selamat on Sunday.......makan nasi ambeng!!! Sorrylah, I still haven't manage to put up the recipes for the lauks...there are so many of them!

Since pictures speak louder tahn words...enjoy these pictures.... FIL and Pak Ngah, his only brother, with Arisha, BIL's daughter with No.2.
Yeop, Azura, MIL and me.....HAABIS makan nasi ambeng...when I first got married, I couldn't savour the dish in the huge tray, I would quietly take a dinner plate and eat all by myself.....and not sharing or more appropriately described as berebut with the rest, ha ha!

Khadijah and Hajar, my two darling girls..

Hajar and Umar, my two babies, including Muhammad in my tummy...

Nasi ambeng...

The doa selamat and Yaasin...

Preparing the makan in the kitchen...Master Chef, Uda, Utih and Busu.

Hajar....
Hajar, sucking thum, just like Yusof when he was a baby.....