A Lastminute Cake for a Friend

A last minute surprise cake for a good friend who loves Jasmine. kept it simple. Hope you like it.....

 

Fancy a Piece

Festival of Lights : A Collaboration for Deepawali (Diwali)

I am back again......hopefully with a BANG..........

We are 37 cake artists from around the world, all from different countries and regions with different backgrounds, religions and ethnicities. We have come together to acknowledge a beautiful, special Hindu holiday which is celebrated in Spring of every year. It is called " Deepawali or Diwali", also known as "A Festival of Lights". It is India’s biggest and most important holiday of the year!The festival spiritually signifies the victory of light over darkness, knowledge over ignorance, good over evil, and hope over despair. During the festival, which is celebrated for five days, Hindus prepare by cleaning, decorating, shopping, gift giving and baking sweet treats for loved ones. Feasts are prepared and families come together. Prayers are offered to deities. Stories of ancient myths and legends are told to children. Children prepare for the celebration by painting rangoli chalk designs on walkways and on the night of Deepawali (Diwali) , fireworks are displayed. It is the happiest of all Hindu celebrations!

As cake artists we wanted to represent this beautiful holiday in cake form. Each of us designed our cakes based on the gorgeous colors, rich traditions and religious practices inspired by Deepawali. Please join us to celebrate Deepawali ! We hope you enjoy……Happy Deepawali !

We were lucky enough to be featured in two of  UKs reputed cake Magazines : 

Cake Masters (October Issue Festival of Lights) 

and  

Cake Geek (International Cake Collaboration: Festival of Lights (Part 1),
                   International Cake Collaboration: Festival of Lights (Part 2))

and a Special video on youtube done by Candace's lovely son

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=torlLWchPWs&list=UUv2c48vQZt88i89ruCwawuQ

My Inspiration..................

When I was initially asked to do a Deepawali (Diwali : Festival of Lights) inspired cake the memories of wearing new cloths and going to the Temple with my family was what first came to mind. Once I thought of a Temple ..... Kolam ( Rangoli: Patterns created on the floor ), Deepam (Diya : Earthen Lamp), flowers, hanging lamp and bell , a girl doing the Kolam, a black stone/granite Goddess for the temple, a girl praying ( my dear friend Candace suggested that) sort of trickled in one by one.

All these tied up beautifully with the feel of a temple during the festive season. I wasn't sure whether I will manage to do all of them but wanted to try and see where it leads me.....after lots of learning, Ups and Downs....I did spend a lot of time trying to work out the structure, the hanging lamp and bell, figurines and photography. Here is what I have finally realised in Sugar ... Hopefully you like it :-).

A few appreciations I believe  are in order too. 

First of all Thank you so much Candace for thinking of me and having faith in me to be part of such diverse and talented group of cake decorators world over . My Firstever Collabortion :-) . 

Thank you so much to the wonderful, talented supportive group that I got the opportunity to work with and all the lovely friends I have made along the way in the cake world.

I am also very grateful to CakeMasters and CakeGeek  for agreeing to publish us and finally

Thank you so much to my family for accommodating a grumpy old ME :-)

 

Wish you all a very Happy Deepawali ( Diwali) in advance.

 

Legends of Chima (Mount Cavora & Laval) for my Dear Son.

 

A small peep out of my semi retirement......trying to get my MOJO back after 6 months..... but my small peep I guess has ended up blowing out of proportion as usual ( I mean when I do something most of the time I end up going overboard and it is just not my cakes ) and maybe I have damaged my hands again......... So here is my SILLY SOB story.....I was not going to make a cake this time .....then I thought I will just call his class mates (he wanted to call everybody) , so Hungry Jacks it was, Got Ice cream cake....upto this point I was very well BEHAVED...THEN I started THINKING ( I should never THINK I tell you ......). 

A Birthday party and how can there be one without cakes, my poor son and poor little kids, then I thought I won't do much just some cupcakes...ended up doing 60 cupcakes and printing edible image of my son's favourite character for each ( half vegetarian and the other half not). 

The party was before his actual birthday , so I thought I might as well do a cake to cut for the actual birthday. Ended up getting a custom made edible image for that.

As if this was not enough had a party for the family.....so if we have a party we have to have a cake  RIGHT???  and I was initially going to cater the food but for some weird reason decided to cook. Thankfully I had done the figure earlier ( back of my mind I always had this in mind I think ;-)) baked the cake Thursday night left it to cool started early on Friday and finished Friday night NOT VERY happy with it..... did some touch up from Saturday morning till 1pm...still not happy but NO time now  ( Saturday was supposed to be for shopping and cleaning and getting stuff ready for Sunday's Cooking), took photos went shopping, came back marinated the meat which my dear hubby was kind enough to cut for me. Cut all the stuff for the Fried rice for the kids next day, did a little bit of cleaning , took panadol and went to bed. All my my body parts were aching and the  worst was my hands......THANK GOD for whoever invented PANADOL and deep heat ointment. Cooking was a breeze ( NOT actually, managed to get something burned and had to redo it) ) I tell U 'cos I was still cooking and cleaning when the guests came and they were kind enough to help me finish up. Thank you so much for all the help. 

The party didn't finish with ours...had to go out again for another of my son's classmates party, by the time we came back........I was just existing physically but not all there and so over tired  that I couldn't sleep.............................

Now that you have read my story.......NOT very deserving of any sympathy right?

Sorry... sorry .....sorry ... this blog is supposed to be for cakes but I just seem to be having a verbal D..... of all things NOT cake!!!!! As you might have guessed my son loves Legends of Chima an animation that comes on Cartoon Network based on Chima LEGO. What I have tried to re-create  is Mount Cavora...my version with Laval Standing on the rocks .....all edible,  all cake ............ My son is so in LOVE with this character and episodes and I WONDER WHY??????? I find it quite UGGGHHH!!!!! Maybe it is a girl-boy thing. He LOVES it so I did it!!!!!!!

With the Original Lego figure