2014 - 4th Q orders

Merry Christmas! It's nearly the end of 2014 and Meg's Pastry Studio is officially closed for the year!

This has been a fulfilling year, never expected to receive a steady stream of cake orders throughout the year. Well, not really a lot, but at a comfortable pace that I can handle confidently.

Big thanks to all my customers and friends, some of them even ordered cakes repeatedly. Really appreciate the trust, given that I'm just a homebaker without any retail shopfront. Nevertheless, I make sure that the ingredients I used are of quality and no preservatives or additives are added.

For the final quarter of the year, besides the ever-popular rainbow cake and ombre cake, I had orders for chocolate cake as well. At the moment, I'm only baking the super rich, dense and heavy Valrhona Chocolate Cake. Hopefully I could explore more recipes next year and come up with a light, tender and moist chocolate cake; and also other types of cakes.

Looking forward to a brand new year ahead! Please continue to support Meg's Pastry Studio! For orders and enquiry, please drop me an email at megtan@singnet.com.sg.

The largest size (in terms of area) of cake that I'm able to bake, this was 5 layers (can go up to 7 layers or more). Rainbow-coloured vanilla sponge cake with chantilly frosting, sandwiched and topped with assorted fruits.

Sweet looking cake ordered by a loving mum for her daughter's birthday celebration. A 5-layer ombre vanilla shortcake, decorated with lots of marshmallows and ribbons.

Valrhona chocolate cake ordered by the same mum who ordered the marshmallow ribbon cake. This cake was for their private celebration and birthday girl requested chocolate cake. Did rosette piping to make the cake look prettier.

Ordered by a friend who requested for "Minecraft" theme cake. After researching on various versions of "Minecraft" cake, came up with this version. Basically put together with 3 layers of chocolate cake and white chocolate buttercream tinted green and brown.

Ordered by son's Childcare Centre Director for one of the teacher's wedding celebration. Made a chocolate cake with white chocolate buttercream and piped rosettes for a pure and romantic look.

For a friend's daughter one-year old birthday. The cake fitted just nicely with the party decorations put up by my friend.

Another birthday cake ordered by the same friend for her elder daughter's birthday. Proposed the chocolate cake with rosettes. This time the rosettes were tinted in 3 gradual shades.

Ever-popular rainbow lychee cake.

Rainbow fruit shortcake ordered by my Uni/hostel friend, for her housewarming cum christmas party. Decorated with some simple store-bought christmas decor.

My friend also ordered a Sticky Date and Toffee Bundt cake, which was very apt for Christmas.

My final 3 orders for the quarter, Christmas log cakes. Hadn't intended to bake but 2 of my customers asked if I could bake any Christmas cakes. So came up with something simple and elegant. Vanilla genoise sponge with chantilly cream frosting and decorated with some christmas decor.

Thank you to everyone for all the support given! See you next year :)

2014 - 3rd Q orders

Wow, I can't believe we are now into the 4th quarter of 2014 already! And as usual I think the last 3 months of the year would fly past so quickly that I wouldn't even have time to realise it.

For the months of July, August and September, once again I am blessed to take orders from friends, referrals and those who chanced upon my blog :) And I had a great time creating each and every of their cakes.

This is a 4" cake, the smallest cake that I sell, but with 5 layers it's relatively tall. Serves about 4-5 slices of cake. Made a cake bunting upon request from customer too.

 Another petite cake order, this time 4" with 4 layers.

 

Order from a Uni friend for her daughter who likes Doc McStuffin. Proposed this rainbow cake for her that's "un-frosted" at the sides because her daughter doesn't like cream frosting and got the topper separately. I love how the cake turned out, colourful and sweet.

 

Rainbow cake in vanilla flavour for a joint birthday. Left an empty space for a cake topper.  

Very excited to create this cake because it's the first time I made a heart-shape cake. Glad that the cake turned out well. Made a double-layer cake bunting as well.

Order from a friend for his company/colleagues' birthday celebration. This is the largest dimension that I can make (number of layers can be up to 7 layers) suitable for large group servings, up to 40 pax depending on size of the cake slice.

Upcoming this month, I have 3 orders, 2 of which are chocolate cakes which I seldom do. So, pretty excited about what's lined-up for me :) If you are interested to order any pastries, feel free to drop me an email at megtan@singnet.com.sg.

For the month of December, I'll be travelling quite a lot so probably the window for order is only a week or 2. For enquiry, please drop me an email as well :)

2014 - new namecards and 2Q orders

Before I realised it, it's also July, the second quarter of the year has gone by in a flash once again! So, it's timely to share some of my cake orders in the 2Q (April to June). Didn't take as many orders as I could and had to turn down a few requests as I was busy and travelling a fair bit in June.

Anyways, before I begin, here are my new name cards that I made in May and only started giving out during the more recent orders. Initially I thought of doing a simple design and mass print the name cards but on second thoughts, I wanted something more personalised. Therefore, each and every piece is handmade :)

Basically there are 3 components to the name card. I made crochet hearts and flowers so that the name card could be used as a bookmark. I have some yarn left over from my crochet projects, this is a good way to use them up.

On one side of the card is a photo of one of my bakes.

And on the other side is a hand-drawn logo with my website and email. So hopefully those who receive my name cards cum bookmark will keep and use it.

On to my bakes. Yes, mostly sponge, ombre or rainbow cakes :)

This was an order from a dear friend, C, who has been ever so supportive of my cakes. Looked simple and elegant on the outside, but inside were 5-layers of rainbow :)

This was an order from a friend I got to know from my yoga class. The cake was celebrating her daughter's birthday.

This was an order from hubby's former classmate. She wanted something simple for her son's birthday. So I made a 3-layer sponge cake and helped her get a batman topper which his son likes.

Made this for my yoga teacher's birthday. A slightly different design with 2 orange-pink ombre sponge layers and sandwiched with chantilly cream and strawberries, decorated with blueberries.

This was quite a large cake for a lady's 21st birthday. The theme for her birthday was blue so she requested for blue ombre shades for the cake. I also made a cake bunting for her. Usually I'm very reluctant to do blue shades because the cake batter doesn't take blue colouring very well. In fact, I re-did 2 layers because the colours didn't come out well.

Another lychee ombre cake order. I like the top view of this cake, the piped frosting looked like lace scallop here.

This was an order for a lady celebrating her son's birthday. I made a cake bunting for her as well. As the Korea strawberry season was long over, I could only get USA strawberries which were big and not so pretty. These few were the nicer of the lot. I should have gotten Japanese strawberries or raspberries instead.

A big thank you to all my friends and customers who placed their orders with me and trusted me :)

2014 - 1st Q orders

The first quarter of 2014 has already gone by, so I thought I'd do an update on some of my cake orders. Forgot to take photos for some, whereas some photos turned out bad due to poor lighting or I was in a rush.

Rainbow and ombre cakes continue to be my main and most popular orders. My focus is still quality over quantity. As far as possible, I would avoid taking more than two orders per delivery date. On one occasion, I even rejected a second order as I wished to concentrate on the first one.

Indeed each and every cake was painstakingly crafted (with quality ingredients) and there were times when I discarded completed layers of cake or even full cakes (yes, once) because they were not up to standard. Interestingly, most people who approached me preferred cakes with less sugar, moist sponge-based cake (instead of pound cake/butter cake texture) and chantilly cream (instead of buttercream). These factors were challenges to me initially. Sugar is a key ingredient and helps to create tender cakes. Moist sponge-based cake - I don't use sponge-gel or emulsifiers to create the very fluffy and tender sponge cake like those sold commercially. So I had to work on the method and bake the cake layer by layer. Chantilly cream - melts easily in our humid weather, had to work quickly.

I guess this is the direction I'm heading and that's why I don't do fondant cakes in the first place. With each cake, I gained more experience and I'm truly grateful to everyone who placed their orders with me.

This was my biggest cake to-date. A 9" by 9" square sponge with 7 rainbow layers! Decorated with marshmallows, ribbons and a customised banner. The marshmallow and ribbon concept was requested by the birthday girl and this was what I proposed and designed eventually.

What a great contrast right? The exterior of the cake looked simple but rainbow layers were hidden inside. Ordered by a sweet wife specially for her husband who loves lychee.

Created for my yoga class, with logo of the school.

First order that requested for cream cheese frosting instead of buttercream or chantilly cream. Glad that it turned out ok, but still lots of room for improvement.

 

Created for friend's daughter who's same age as my son. In fact, this is the same design as my son's birthday cake. They saw it and liked it. I like this cake too, love how the rainbow layers were "exposed" and also fruits were sandwiched between layers of cake to create a different texture.

Ordered by an ex-neighbour cum schoolmate. We found each other through FB. Created for her mum, we used to go each other's house many years back. It was good to see her parents again after so many years!

Love the ombre shades which flowed from yellow to dark pink. Lychee seemed to be a very popular choice of flavour? Anyway, I need more practice on writing characters and wordings on top of cake.

My smallest cake to-date, 4.5" round, suitable for 2 to 4 persons. I love creating small cakes, they look so cute and sweet!

Noticed there is no chocolate cake? Haha. Coz I'm not exactly a big fan of chocolate or chocolate cake. But I know many people do, so I guess it's time for me to explore more flavours :p In fact, I have so many recipes for test bakes like patterned roll cakes, decorated chiffon cakes etc etc. Well, just have to take things one step at a time!

That's all for now. Mother's Day upcoming in May and certainly look forward to more cake orders :) I do hope more people will place cupcake orders leh, coz I have so many pretty cupcake cases!

Rainbow Fruit Shortcake

New cake open for order - Rainbow Fruit Shortcake

This was the cake I baked for my son's 4th birthday recently :)

A very cheery looking four-layer rainbow cake made using sponge cake that's moist, tender and light (same as the strawberry shortcake, baked using Japanese flour and sugar), sandwiched and topped with chantilly cream and strawberry, peach and kiwi. Sides of the cake are deliberately "exposed" to reveal the colours and create this "wow" factor.

A cake that looks so happy and tastes yummy too!

 ** Dora the explorer cake topper is something extra/optional (chargeable). The blank top could be used for cake topper or wordings.

Please drop me an email at megtan@singnet.com.sg if you are interested to order this cake!

Japanese-style Ombre Strawberry Shortcake

New cake open for order - Japanese style Ombre Strawberry Shortcake!

A feminine and sweet looking tri-colour sponge cake that's moist, tender and light, with chantilly cream and lots of juicy Korean strawberries that's in season now. (Sponge cake is baked using Japanese flour and sugar to create the tender and light texture).

Perfect birthday cake for that special someone or a Valentine Day surprise for your sweet heart!