Chocaholic birthday

Happy Wednesday everyone!!

Today's gonna be short and sweet.

And oh so scrumptious!

My cousin Gjon celebrated his sixteenth birthday a few weeks ago.  His only request for his birthday cake was that it had to be chocolaty and really muddy.  So, that's what I did :-)

Simple yet rich.  Enjoy!!

Handmade bunting with S-I-X-T-E-E-N scribed on each flag

These mini cake pops {without the sticks} were super yum!!

And here he is, with his birthday cake!  Happy 16th Gjon!!

I hope you enjoyed today's cake feature!  Have a wonderful Wednesday and see you back here again soon!

xo,
Jackie

An eggless 1st birthday!

A couple of weeks ago I received a request to make an eggless first birthday cake.  It was so cool hearing from Bharathi because I was the one who made her sister Deepana's wedding cake, which was my first ever wedding cake!  I was very excited to make this cake because I had the opportunity to be part of this wonderful family again.  They have been so lovely to me that the least I could do is deliver them THE CAKE they want!

Now, it wasn't easy for Bharathi to make this decision.  She was tossing between a Winnie the Pooh fondant decorated cake, or a larger plain chocolate cake for serving.  In the end, she had to make the tough call of sacrificing the idea of a pretty fondant decorated cake for a larger simple cake {12 square inches to be exact}.  This cake's purpose was simply for serving to her {100} guests, so she didn't want any decorations whatsoever, just a big simple but super delicious cake.  I actually just added the fun sprinkles and the number '1' on the cake to make it more festive...I just couldn't help myself :-P

So, here it is!  Enjoy xo

If you enjoyed today's cake feature, be sure to come back tomorrow for a double whammy!  I'll be sharing TWO BIG CAKES with you and I am sooo excited, I can't wait!!

Until then, keep smilin'!

xo,
Jackie

Happy Birthday Stanley!!

On Monday {April 1st} we celebrated my brother-in-law Stanley's birthday.  It was just something low-key that was put together that same day...kind of like the cake I made for him.  He enjoys my chocolate cakes very much, so it was a no-brainer that I had to make him that.  To make it extra special, I added some decadent ferrero rocher chocolates and sprinkled the top with golden cachous.  As much as I wanted to make him a Warriors cake, I know how much he enjoys a simple classic cake.  Here are some pics for you to enjoy...but I couldn't decide between two names...so there are two versions here.  You decide! :-P

The pic above was taken after I added a sprinkle of golden cachous...while the pic below was taken before...

And here is a close up of the delicious ferrero rocher chocolates sitting on top of a thick layer of chocolate buttercream...

The birthday boy thoroughly enjoyed the cake and so did the rest of the family so big thumbs up for that!!  You can never go wrong with a chocolate birthday cake I say!!  Unless it's dry...:-/

One of the coolest presents Stanley got was the Warriors win against the Cowboys {20-18}.  We were all sooo happy that they finally won, after so many consecutive losses.  We kept the faith and I'm glad we did :-)

Hope you enjoyed today's cake feature!  Can't wait to share a girly one with you next week!  Until then, keep smilin' and tell someone you love how awesome they are!!

xo,
Jackie

Happy birthday Gjon!!

This past Sunday was my cousin Gjon's 15th birthday.  We celebrated the first part at Ten Pin Bowling and the second part at his place.  Of course, a birthday is not complete without cake.  He loves rich chocolate cake, and thankfully he likes mine, so I made him a very special one for his birthday.  It is a dark chocolate cake with ganache and topped with truffles (aka cake balls) then drizzled with more ganache and melted white chocolate.  Such a fun and stress-less cake (notice I didn't say stress-free?  hehe) because I didn't have to worry about smoothing out the ganache to make it 'perfect'.  Instead, it involved dripping, drizzling and oozing!!  Yesss!!  It's nice to have a break from 'tidy' to get down with the 'messy' :-)

Now I can't take full credit for this cake.  My hubby stamped his name on it by creating the white chocolate abstract artwork on top of all the milk and dark chocolate goodness.  Looks a lot like Pollock's work, don't you think?  I happen to love it!!  :-)

{Source}

I also made banoffee pie to cater to hubby's cravings...except he didn't mean to make one in front of everyone at the party because that meant sharing!!  LOL.  Next time, be specific babe!!

Click 'Read More' to see the banoffee pie and Gjon with his cake!  :-P

Happy birthday Dave!!

On the weekend I had the pleasure of making a chocolate birthday cake for Dave.  His wife (my aunt), Tita Grace, asked me to make the cake 'chocolatey', so I decided to have a bit of fun with it.  I didn't use fondant on this cake, but instead melted some chocolate to create a 'fence' to wrap around the ganached chocolate cake.  I also embellished it with maltesers to add a bit of personality and crunch...nom nom nom.  I finished the cake off with a brown satin ribbon and kraft flags with 'HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAVE!' handwritten on.  It was such a delightful cake to make, definitely different from my usual birthday cake requests.

Enjoy this warmed with freshly whipped cream...ahhh.

 Hope you liked today's cake feature!!  Have a wonderful Wednesday!!

xo,
Jackie

Fathers' Day 2011

I know, finally!  The Fathers' Day post I'd been wanting to post since LAST WEEK!  Thank you Broadband for being kind to me today!

FATHERS' DAY PART ONE
...with Lui's side of the family, celebrated on Saturday 4/9/11
On the weekend Two weekends ago, we held a small get-together at my place to celebrate Fathers' Day with Lui's family, as well as his Aunty's birthday.  It was a lovely day!  All we did was eat, eat, oh and eat!  hehe.  So what did we have on the menu??  Let's see, shall we?

Read more after the jump...

This is dedicated to the one I love...

The title is from a song btw...  Anyway, to get our Wednesday started, here is a cute image I found on one of my favourite daily reads.  Since our subject today  has something to do with both Love and Chocolate, I thought this image is perfect!

Image source: Atypical Type A

Today I have something special to share with you all.  It's a cake I whipped up this morning for my dear husband, Lui.  Recently we've been witnessing blessings in our lives for which we are truly grateful for.  My hubby has been working very hard at his job, and sometimes it may go unnoticed by some, but his bosses and I know the amount of dedication he's been investing in his role that has and is making a huge impact in their company.  He's the go-to guy for anything - Lui this, Lui that.  Very similar to my current role as a stay-at-home-Mum - Mum this, Mum that...hehehe.  Lui very rarely wants a piece of my cakes, maybe because I make them too often it's lost its special factor about it, I don't know, but when he asked me on Monday if I could bake him a cake 'just 'cause' I thought 'wow, this is strange'.  So today I made a simple but rich-in-chocolate-and-deliciousness cake for him.  If he is reading my post today then there won't be a big surprise reveal when he gets home later, but that's okay, we can all still enjoy eating it as a family after dinner.  :-)

Of course, when I say simple, I meant about the decoration of the cake.  The frosting is not perfectly finished, but I think the handmade look gives it a nice touch.  I couldn't help my self from adding some embellishments to the finish, in this case making some frilly border to surround the bottom of the cake, and some Maltesers shaped in a heart to go on top.  I have to admit I couldn't resist eating a couple of those Maltesers in the process, lol.  But I didn't eat any until I saw what resembled a heart shape, hehe.

Before I reveal the cake, here's a scanned pic of something I found inside my (yummy) cereal box (Hubbard's Light & Right Berry Uplift).  I cut it out and placed it on our fridge, just as a reminder of how blessed we truly are.  Hopefully you can appreciate this, too.

Click below for the cake reveal...