Hanni Collection » wedding gift

Macarons: First Attempt

Hanni Collection — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 08:04:25 +0000

My first try at macaron~ing. Haa!

Macarons are currently the in-thing in Malaysia. If you step in ANY cafe or bakery around KL, you would definitely find them of the shelf or display rack. The bright and vibrant colours are their major attraction. The taste? I leave it to you to decide. If you have super-sweet tooth, you will like it. If you’re not one, then you would probably want to try it only once, or maybe twice .

Personally, I love macarons on my first bite. But sometimes, the too-sweet taste makes me feel light headed. Having said that, I could have a few in one go if the filling compliments and conceals the too-sweet taste. Not wanting to be left hand, I decided to try making them. Honestly, I’ve tried making them before and was very, truly disappointed. They turned out nothing like macarons, and the tttttoooo sweet taste was a major disaster. So, I decided that the experience didn’t count as a first try!

So, this is my OFFICIAL first try!

Not to bad isn’t it? Despite the ‘pimples’ and ‘crooked leg’, they are passable to be called macarons right?

I decided not to go with bright colours, afraid that people around me won’t feel ’safe’ to consume the macarons. So, pastel it is. As for the filling, normal and less experimental ones like peanut butter, chocolate ganache and vanilla are the best in my opinion. So, I came out with these

Wicked, aren’t they?

Coming soon, my second try!

Engagement Mini Cake

Hanni Collection — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 13:17:18 +0000

These miniature cakes are inspired from the garden theme cupcakes and the rolled ribbon roses mini cakes. They were for my cousins engagement. Truth is, he requested for the 3R mini cakes but I couldn’t find the time to roll the roses. The last two weeks (this week included) was the most crazy ever! With my older sister flying to Southampton for a few months, my youngest sister starting her new job, my mom hurting her back, and datelines for the orders queuing side by side, it was indeed very hectic weeks. Alhamdullilah, despite all that, I managed to get all things sorted out and make my clients happy

The theme for the engagement was … emm the wasn’t any theme actually. I was free to come out with any cake, any design that I have in mind. Having only a day and a half to complete the miniature cakes, I decided to do a simple decoration but still has that sweet look. Less is more, right?

Anyway, I couldn’t decide on the background. Does orange with white polka look better?

Or this one with white and small roses?

The mini cakes are fruit cakes with strawberry glaze, wrapped in vanilla flavoured fondant. Here are some close up views of the cakes.

And luckily, I managed to snap some photos of the cakes on the fully decorated ‘hantaran’ tray, seconds before they were transported to my aunt’s house.

…and yup, my favourite picture. The mini cakes with bite size hat cookies!

Double the taste, double the glam-ness! haha

I’ve got some nice and close-up pictures of the hat cookies..will be posting them soon, ya!

Happy viewing!

Of Royal Engagement…

Hanni Collection — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:21:20 +0000

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.