Hanni Collection

Last week, I received an order from my mom’s friend. It was a very brief and unplanned meeting at a local supermarket; we exchanged numbers, email and wed address; and the next thing I knew, she has placed an order for her sister’s wedding. How cool is that? I wish I could get more orders like this!

The client did not specify any details for the cupcakes, as she said she trusted my taste and anything that looked sweet would be fine..see, very simple, right?? again, how i wish i get more orders like this!! hahha

So, i came out with a garden theme and chose burgandy and ivory as the theme colours. Very sweet and classy combination. But one MAJOR problem! My camera couldnt capture the colours! How lame is that?? No matter how hard I tried, the flowers came out purple and not burgandy!!! At the moment, I will hv to be satisfied with this purple looking garden cuppies and have to wait patiently (veerryy patienly) for my brother to upload the ‘real burgandy cuppies’. He’s using Canon 5D Mark II, so you’ll definitely see the differences later..

OK, back to the order. It was quite a large order, considering that I have less than a week to come out with the design and find the right packaging.  The order was placed on a Tuesday evening and the items must be delivered after Friday prayers. Nasib laa baik I’m famous for being a ‘procrastinator’ back in the college, so I get to adjust myself to last minute order. Luckily, I get to choose my own design, my own colour combination and my own way of doing it. So, I wasn’t that pressured and was actually enjoying the process!! Imagine I had to do more than 1,200pcs of mini flowersss in less than a day!! I HAVE TO ENJOY THE WHOLE PROCESS!!! hahah

Ok, these are the cuppies fresh from the oven. The smell was sssoooo good that I couldnt resist taking a bite. Ok! two bites! ok ok ok! the whole cup! I ate the whole cup!! hahhaha

Anyway, this is the closest to the actual colour that my camera managed to capture. This was before I decorated them with green leaves.

Now, the cupcakes after the final touch aka make-up!

I know, I know.. you think the ones without make up/leaves, look better kan?? I really wish you could see the actual cuppies with the leaves..they’re much nicer from the picture! wah!! terlebih angkat bakul ssuuddaahh!! hahhaha.. and sorry about the isn’t so good quality picture. I had to do lots of editing, tuning the lights n shadows, glowing them here and there, softening the edges laa ape laa…Kan best if i can just blink my eyes to capture the pictures and when they’re uploaded, the pictures will look exactly the way I see them! hahah..my sister is an optometrist, I would definitely suggest this idea to her. Any intrested sponsors?? hehe

These are the cupcakes in individual boxes. A few leaves were harmed in the packaging process! (I hate it when they look PURPLE!)

And finally into the delivery box.

Alright! that’s all for this time. Will be updating soon for more. Insyallah. Many thanks for reading!

p/s: Pn Hamsiah, thanks very much for the order and trust!! It was a pleasure working with you!

p/ss: Comment from Pn. Hamsiah- Everyone loved them. tak berenti2 komen positively. penat i menjawab. thank you very very much. mana tau we’ll meet again in our business dealings.kah2.

It’s a flower pot!! No, it’s a fruit cake!!  No, no, it’s both!!!

And believe me, they are edible..every bit and pieces of the pot!

Alhamdulilah! Introducing my new creation, fruit cake in a flower pot! That’s quite a mouthful isn’t it? Wait til you see the process!! This design was inspired by Ms. PP, my favourite cake artist. Her version was a lot different than mine.. i didn’t have as many skills as her, so i had to do some (a lot actually!) improvisation. Plus, i had to do last minute changes as usual..

Initially, i’ve another design in mind and have already done some shopping to suit the design. But, God knows better. While I shopped for the ingredients the morning before my mom baked the cake, I found a set of molds that would look great for a pot. I suddenly remembered the design by Ms. PP and my mind went ‘TING!’.. All cakes need to be fresh and can only be prepared no more than 3 days in advance. Since I havent tried doing this design, I couldnt take the risk. So, I prepared cakes for both designs, the initial stripes design and the pot..Because what ever happens, I can still use them for practice.

Later that night, when all the baking and covering were done,  just when i thought everything would go fine with the intial design, i received a phone call from the wedding planner. There’s a last minute change to the colour. The bride wanted something blue and something different. And do you know what happen to last minute changes? I changed the whole thing!

The initial cakes i’ve finished covering with fondant minutes before I decided to change to the pot. Very fickle, i know!

So I started everything all over again, with reference to Ms. PP’s book, I improvised here and there and my mom came up with a brilliant idea of how the pot should look like! since we didnt have the luxury of time to do this, we chose to make simpler flowers and leaves. 13-15 flowers per pot! Not that simple i guess..

So, another night staying up, which means a few more intake of caffeine and tidbits, which means another weight gained! hahhaha.. Luckily, my mom and sister were there to help though it was only until 5 in the evening…As usual, I was so engrossed in doing the pot and sssooo excited to see the result that I forgot to snap more pictures of the process..So, the next thing I knew, I had these gorgeous flower pots ready on the table!!! YEAY!!! And yes, the bottom part is the fruit cake. I was really happy to see these pots and didnt have the heart to cut them to show you the cake. I wish I had taken a picture of the bottom part before it was covered. But whatever it is, YEEAAAYYY!! I’ve done it!!

I can’t believe my own eyes!! My very own fruit cakes in flower pots!!

This is a perfect gift for your loved one, mother, teacher or sister; especially if they love gardening! And of course, perfect for weddings too!!

I cant wait to make another set. One with english country theme perhaps??

Let me know what u think of this one, ya..

I received an order of 500 decorated cookies for wedding gifts. It was, as Posh Beckham puts it, major; and a much-awaited offer, since I was somewhat free that week and needed some extra money. It started as a thing to pass the weekend and then came an offer I wouldn’t dream to refuse. I came up with a sample, showed to a very dear friend who showed it to the client. She immediately fell in love with the design. And the rest is history.

All the love in the world.

I like doing this heart-shape thingy. Because I can do it while watching tv without feeling guilty in front of my parents. I mean, it made you look busy with your hands working, shaping and all but you were never that busy actually? If you know what I mean, yeah.

Another kind of love…for the VIPs.

So, tell me, what cookie are you?

A plain cookie?

A smart Cookie?

A two-faced Cookie?

A c0mPLicAt3D c0ok1e?

Whatever your choice is, it is the differences that make things more interesting and beautiful.

Because eventually, all will end up in the same place.

… THE BOX …

heheh .

Anyway, thanks Nat for the orders. It is such a great pleasure to serve you and for the record, you’re one of the most pleasant clients to work with!

THANK YOU!

P/S: Mi, thanks! I owe you! hehe

I was offered the chance to bake and decorate 100pcs of fondant cuppies for an engagement party of a very famous royal family. The young lady is engaged to a young man from a well known business family in Malaysia. So, basically, it’s something BIG! VVVIPS and some big names will be there. I must be crazy if I said no.

OK, fine, they finalized their orders just 4 days before the engagement date.

OK, fine, they wanted a complete package of scrumptious butter cream frosting and beautiful decorations in just that 4 days.

OK, fine, they changed their mind and wanted a more elegant looking cuppies and asked for fondant instead.

OK, fine, they came up with a new design a day before the delivery date and wanted a monogram + heart shape theme cuppies or a Christian Dior-looking cuppy.

OK, fine, I did everything back from scratch, came up with a new design, ignored the Dior part, pushed aside the initial gum paste flowers that I had just finished doing, and came up with a monogram + heart shape + sweet and young + 3D effect cuppy at 12am.

OK, fine, I had less than 17 hours to decorate and pack and deliver all the 100 cuppies to the wedding planner.

OK, fine, I am crazy for saying yes. Hahhaha

So, this is the first thing I did after I’ve covered the cake with white fondant. Since the base is white, I added this little detail to make it bare-less. It’s very simple but veeerrry leceh.

Then, I added the heart shaped monogram. That’s the only alphabet cutter I had in my hands. Don’t really like it. I wish I had done cursive letters or something classier. Don’t ask me how I made them stand, because they just did. You can only imagine how hard I prayed so that they’ll stay that way until the event ended. Hehehe.

Then, this little rascal (K. Uda’s first son) came and we had to take a short break. Naseb baik laa hang tomei, Haekal ooii. Oh, before that we had another ‘interval’ by five more rascals (K tini’s sons). Hahha.

After that, I added a few mini gum paste flowers and leaves. The theme is pink and white. But I added some purple just to bring out the colour. The initial and approved design after the change was nothing near this. But, what the heck? We need to try something different once in while right? 

We came out with a dummy of this at approximately 12 mid-nite. At 4 am, all the gum paste is history. I didn’t have any staff to help me with this. It was only my older sister and me. My youngest sister and mother were long ago in dreamland. We couldn’t do it earlier because we were occupied in the morning and afternoon. All the cuppies were freshly baked on that evening. It was in the late evening that we started all the work. And the delivery must be done mid afternoon the next day. Luckily, my mother has prepared the gum paste dough the morning before. Yes, the gum paste is home-made too!

We stayed up that whole night and only had 1 ½ hour sleep. OK laa, better than no sleep at all, kan? And the next thing I knew, I got three assistants (my mother n sisters) and I was taking pictures of these.

And this,

Alhamdulilah, we completed everything just in time. The wedding planner was very satisfied and the clients were extremely happy and pleased with the cuppies that they decided to place the cuppies on the gift table instead of in goodies bags.

Another selection of new cookies for the year 2009. Many of these are inspired from our business trips around the world. My mom has spend most of her time browsing pages of cooking books, mixing and revising recipes, and trying different methods just to come out with new, flavoursome, unique and delectable cookies. Do you notice how many verbs and adjectives does the above sentence have? If you do, then you’ll realise how much effort my mom has put in her passion for cooking and baking .

At the moment, we have more than 100 types of cookies. However, the most produced are only about 30 types. And now we are adding to the collection…

Polka-dot cookies. A combination of rich dark cocoa and crusty white chocolate chip.

Sagu Keju. Soft and sweet sagu flavoured cookies with tangy cheesy sensation. Melt in your mouth. We’ve sold approximately 20,000 pcs this eid.

Cashew rocher. Very limited. Crunchy cashew nuts coated in chocolate, drizzled with white chocolate.

Sagu coklat. A revised version of mocha log cookies. Soft and sweet chocolate flavoured cookies.

Almond cheese cookies. Almond and cheese mixed cookies with butter flavour.

Royale Chocolate cookies. This rich, 2 layers chocolate cookies is perfect for chocolate lovers.

Putri Salju. Brings back your memory with this revised version of biskut makmur and biskut arab.

Choco orange cookies. The name says it all. Perfect combination of orange, chocolate, nestum cereal and crushed cornflakes.

Macadamia choc chip cookies. Chocolate chip cookies can never be better than this! My sister’s favourite.

Tart in Basket. Fresh homemade pineapple jams in pastry cups.

Pine-Berry Tart. A combination of tangy pineapple jams and sweet blueberry jams in pastry cup, topped with bread crump.

Pumpkin seeds cookies. Crunchy and crispy chocolate cookies, with pumpkin seeds on top.

Not really our new cookies. Just a few that I’m ‘playing’ with. Hehe. They dont even have a name yet. Any good suggestion?

Tell me what you think about these cookies, ya. If you have tried any of this, let me know what you think : )