Anything but dogs :P

Last week, another pal of mine is having a birthday. E is a dog lover, so I wanted to make something canine-ish ;)

I saw the idea for this somewhere, but I can't remember. All I know is when I'm brainstorming what to make for E, this idea came up. And I remember it's easy to decorate. Something foolproof. So I did yellow cake cupcakes, covered with cream cheese frosting, and add milk chocolate sprinkles + Milo Puff and Coco Crunch cereals. Little did I know that once it's done, no one recognize that it was a puppy until I told them so =='....

My mom thought it's bears. (Ok, I can sorta see that). My Grandma asked why I'm making rats (*ouch). My boyfriend said cute sleeping Pandas (What!?). Birthday girl E squealed and said it was cute, but sorta have no clue what it was >_<... until I told her it's supposed to be dogs (then she squealed some more... heh heh heh.... esp after she saw the cupcake liners are Scooby Doo - another dog ;)

Ok what does it look like to you? :/ *I guess I need to practice my decorating skills....* :P

On a side note: 2 outs for cake recipes. *SIGH*. The soft cake recipe I usually use in the US ended up like this. It is more difficult to make so I decided I wanted to do a really simple cake recipe this time (Not as tasty) but in theory it's a little more foolproof so it won't shrunk. Well the upside is the cake did not shrunk. BUT it didn't rise either. >_<..... GRRRR.... So the first batch ended up really hard and dry T_T... the second batch is better but still sort of flat - and ended up being chewy and dense. Thank goodness for the cream cheese frosting that sorta balance the cake out. At least I got that right and it help improves the taste of the cake :P My friends swallowed their cupcake portion and seemed to enjoy it. (They seem to really like the frosting... mwahaha) And they said it's adorable - so I feel happy ;)

Now for the leftovers: Since the house is still being renovated, we have some workers daily working on the house. So after icing the rest of the cupcakes (and I made mini cupcakes with the leftover batter too), my Mom used the leftover cereals and add sprinkles on top of the cupcakes and passed them out to the workers. Here's pictures of the leftovers:

From what I heard, they gobbled those up pretty quickly :P This is good, I can experiment and have lots of people as my taster guinea pigs :P Hihihi....

Thoughts: I really have to find a working recipe here *sigh*... Next, I plan to try making the wiid recipe in my kitchen (which ALWAYS work without any glitch back in the US). Crossing my fingers for that to work.... *wish wish wish wishhhhh*

Operation Pink - The result

Still upset with the result of these cupcakes, I'm heading to my friend's A house. Thankfully for this Project, I'm not alone. I'm working together with my very good friends A and L, both are experienced in the kitchen :) (In fact, L is a pro chef) hehehe - so I'm in VERY good hands.

Right from when I arrive, still fuming from the cupcake's far from perfect appearance, my two pals knew just how to make me feel better :) "It's ok, we can cover it with buttercream and it won't show" "Hey the cupcake tastes good!" "It's actually a good thing! More place for the sweet stuff!" :D (Love ya gals!) :)

So we made cream cheese frosting to cover up the cupcakes and worked the fondant as best as we can (The fondant is hard to work with too - it's very soft and stretchable - very difficult to work with compared to the ones I used in US) and decorate it as girly as we can to please Pink.

And I think we did a fine job given all the circumstances :) Here's what we did with the 26 cupcakes:

Not bad right??? And the birthday gal, Pink, love our surprise. Heh heh. She was squealing especially when she saw the Hello Kitty cupcakes (Yes, she's a fan) and almost didn't want to eat it. My friend L actually had to smear the kitty face so that we have an excuse to feed her a deformed kitty :D... hahaha... and Pink really like the taste - she said it's the best tasting cupcake (Aww shucks, she's just too nice ;) Here's a close up of the cupcakes:

Special thanks to my awesome buddies A and L, couldn't have done it without you! :)

So all the headaches and the drama and the stress are worth it - once we see how happy Pink is with the surprise and the cupcakes ;)