I love reading blogs. Blogs can be so intimate, so vulnerable, reading someone's inner thoughts that they've put out there in the world wide web, but not professionally edited or premeditated. I love reading about another person's passion, and seeing the photos that accompany the post. I've always wanted to start my own blog but keep putting it off as I don't know whether anyone would be interested in hearing what I've got to say. So I'll give this a try and see how it goes!
I thought it would be most fitting to start my very first Cake Me! blog entry about a cake we created for my mum's sixtieth birthday. Mum has always been a low-fuss, low-key, simple, yet classy woman. She has always put her family ahead of herself and has made uncountable sacrifices for us. So it was quite a surprise for us when she announced that she was having a big dinner celebration for her sixtieth birthday.
From the very beginning, Mum has been a huge supporter of our cakes, so we knew she would like pretty much anything we created for her. We thought her cake would be easy - something classic, classy, pink with roses. I had the perfect design in mind.
Then my dad came into the scene.
No, he's not a baker or cake decorator. He knows very little about cake aesthetics. But for the cake to be "perfect" he said it needed something "extra special, symbolic and traditional". He said that cake should have a symbolic cake topper of the Goddess of Longevity. For those of you who are South East Asian may know that this Goddess has huge ear lobes, carries around a peach in one hand and a walking cane in the other. For luck and prosperity, she is usually dressed in bright red with gold accents. I had no idea what she looked like so I went to ask google for help. Google came up with the male version:
*JAWDROP*... without offending anyone's culture or beliefs, I wasn't sure if this character/God was one I wanted on top of my mum's "simple, classy, classic" cake.
Firstly, everyone knows that red does not go well with pink. Secondly, my mum is a very young sixty year old (still can't believe she's 60!). She is vibrant, beautiful, fun and happy. She doesn't look or feel a day over 40, so we were beginning to wonder if this was part of my dad's quirky sense of humour? Joke or not aside, the question is, how do we incorporate THAT with our cake?!
Anyhow, a "client's" request is a client's request. And a VIP one at that. So off I began sugar sculpting a female version of the images I found on Google, with a mumsy-twist.
My brother was horrified. He was the first to object to the walking cane and said it was "not our mum at all". He didn't mind the topper as she was quite cute, so as a compromise, we swapped out the walking cane for my mum's most prized possession.. her iPad! So... the result? A semi-old Goddess of Longevity with huge ear lobes, holding a peach in one hand and an iPad in the other. Pink flowers surrounding the base of the topper with the red and gold-accented costume, to help her blend back into the pink cake.
So what's the verdict? What do you think of the final cake? Which cake do you like better?
PHEW! There, my first blog entry done. Thanks for reading! xx
P.S. If you are enjoying these blogs, please let us know, we'd love to hear from you. Please leave a message in the box below or on our facebook page www.facebook.com/cakeme. You may also subscribe to our blog and will receive emails when we have posted a new blog.