Elim Chew's 50 Birthday Cake

We recently had the honour of making Elim Chew's 50th birthday cake! This cake was designed by her friend Angela and her team who wanted to incorporate her love of family, fishing and finally the launch of her biography, The Elim Chew Story: Driven by Purpose, Destined for Change into the design. 

The cake featured handcut and individually painted fondant sea life elements. We love how this cake came to life from the cake sketch and we are really happy to hear Elim thought the cake looked great! 

A big thank you to Angela for letting us be part of her special day! <3 

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3D Nemo Cake

We baked this 3D Nemo Cake for our niece's 3rd birthday:

FINDING & MAKING NEMO

To make Nemo, we baked 3 large 11" square cakes and stacked them on top of each other and put a layer of vanilla buttercream in between each layer. After that, we carved the cake such that it would resemble Nemo's body as much as possible (using a reference picture really helps!)

After that, we covered Nemo with orange fondant (the colouring we used was Red Man Orange Colour Paste & we're pretty happy with the orange, very Nemo-y) and placed white strips of fondant for Nemo's markings. We mixed black food colouring with a little bit of Vodka (the Vodka will evaporate once the food colouring dries) and painted on the black details. To enhance Nemo's chubbbby cheeks, we created a slight impression on the areas where Nemo's eyes would be. 

MAKING THE FINS 

We made a total of 5 fins and used gumpaste for the main orange parts and added white fondant to the edges. You can use gumpaste for the whole fin if you like, it's just that we had extra white fondant (Also, we found that it is easier to stick fondant to gumpaste, rather than to stick gumpaste together). 

Tip: When we were placing the large tail on Nemo, we waited till the gumpaste had hardened a little (but not too hard, otherwise it will be difficult to shape the tail) and once we were satisfied with how it looked, we supported both sides with cans & cups to help the tail stay upright while it hardened. 

MAKING NEMO'S EYES

We made Nemo's eyes by placing a piece of round black fondant (that we went over with a layer of black food colouring x Vodka) on top of a slightly larger piece of round orange fondant. Dalia then drew out the larger white shape on a piece of paper and used that as a template to cut the eyes out. Finish the eyes off with a little white spot at the corner of each eye.

To make the water, we used clear piping jelly and coloured it with Red Man Sky Blue Concentrated Creme (we prefer this over the liquid colouring) to get a nice deep blue. 

We added colourful corals and seaweeds and cut Alex's name such that it looked like the Finding Nemo logo. It's the little details that really make the cake!

Tip: We placed two dowel rods (one close to the head, and the other towards the back) to ensure that the cakes didn't slide.

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A fishy cake

We recently just finished baking a fish themed cake- more specifically, a Discus inspired cake.

For those who don't know what a Discus fish looks like (we didn't exactly know what it was either), it looks like this:

MAKING THE DISCUS

We made the fish out of gumpaste that Dalia coloured a nice pale orange. Using a balling tool (or your fingers if you don't have one), flatten the sides of the fish so that the fins look thinner than the rest of the fish's body. For the fins, we used a small knife to make the marks and used the tip of a straw to make the scales of the fish.

Using an edible food marker, draw lines/ spots (depending on what kind of Discus you want to make) to create the markings on the fish. Just let your creativity flow!

To finish it off, paint the whole fish with a mixture of yellow food colouring and vodka (don't worry, as the paint dries, the Vodka will evaporate). Of course, don't forget the little fishy's eye! Just use black fondant and place it on top of a slightly larger piece of orange fondant that we outlined with a little brown food colouring to make the eyes pop!

DECORATING THE CAKE

For the sides of the cake, we used a cookie cutter to cut out the fondant circles and placed a starfish on each coloured circle. As for the sand, we crumbled the cake scraps we had over the top. (Brushing the cake with a little water helps secure the crumbs.) We then added some colourful pebbles made of out fondant. As a final touch, we glazed the name on the cake board with some edible gold glitter. 

And that's all to it!

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