no.109 130817 Thank you for my life

Happy Birthday my little sis!

The surprise was, well not so much of a surprise because my dad kind of gave it away. When she walked in, she saw all the colourful fondants I have made and thought they were soaps that I brought back from Mexico (so random!). Still, my sister was surprised when she saw it. Now I can share everything on my blog - I made my sister a birthday cake. Not just any cake, but a fondant cake! It was difficult for sure as it was my first time working with fondant. I made everything from scratch. I baked two 9" chocolate cake, bought fresh pint of raspberries and pureed it to make some raspberry buttercream, and also made fondant from scratch. I did a quick research on homemade fondants, and found out that you can make fondant with marshmallows. The process was pretty simple, yet messy. All you gotta do is melt a bag of marshmallows, add a little bit of water and some shortening. Then, you add icing sugar. Lots and lots of icing sugar. Finally, you just knead everything together in a standing mixer until it becomes a dough. And you add food colouring - I had four colours so I mixed them to get the desiring colours.

Bake, make, decorate and eat!

My original plan was to make the movie "Up" cake with the balloon house because it would be super cute! But as I was working with the fondant, I realize it would be too challenging for me, especially since it is my first time. I googled fondant cakes for some inspiration and came across a design I really liked. It was something similar to my finished cake, but more pretty and had elaborate design. I copied the quilted pattern and replaced small flowers with beads. The ribbon on top had more complicated design but my fondant wasn't sturdy enough so I had to minimize its shape. In the end, I ended up with a simple ribbon and a birthday tag. When I was done, I wasn't completely satisfied because it was totally different from what I imagined it to be in the first place. But when I saw my sister's face when she saw the cake, I was happy. She really appreciated it and that's all it matters!

Anyways, I'm thankful for my life today. I was just so thankful that I woke up this morning and for the new day that God has granted me. I know it sounds so random but something that happened last night made me really appreciate life.