We’re at Kedah at the moment. This is one of the states in Malaysia located at the northern part of the country.  A state where it was famous for its laksa and its paddy fields.

Another wedding we’re attending, but this time it is a very close cousin’s of mine. Hanis. We’re a very family with many aunties and uncles with respective children who quickly become our cousins and second cousins and whatnots.

Kedah is also the birthplace of my mother and when both my grandparents were alive, we came home for Eid every year and it was a blast, year after year.

The Kedahans too, at least the ones I’m related to by blood are great cooks. You will not get through a day without stuffing yourself silly. The Laksa Teluk Kuchai, white plump noodles in spicy fish broth, served with shredded vegetables are by far my favourite. As well as fried ikan pekasam and kacang poi and ubi kemili and a myriad of other dishes.

All of my aunties and uncles are generous people and the dinner tables seem to refill itself all day long.

I can’t wait.

We’re going over there tomorrow to join my clan.  The kids are whining that they should spend a night here when their cousins are already there.

BTW, a little note on the cookie picture.  It’s one of my favourite cookie design and cutter too. I love the Topsy Turvy Wedding Cake .. but sadly it’s not a typically common choice.  So, when Azzu requested for them, I chanced upon it.

It took a bit of time to make since I have to fill in the different colours in the bottom tier, one by one. But the rest were so much fun to make. She wanted lime green and purple and the rest was up to me, she said. Whoohoo!!

When I started playing with sugarpaste, I was fascinated by the myriad of things you can do with it. But most of all, I love that I can imprint designs on them.

But to my dissapointment, embossing pins or mats specific for cake are exorbitantly expensive, I seriously felt like strangling someone. Hahah.

So, I turned to ebay and found these. These Cuttlebug embossing folders are meant for scrapbooking, where you put a paper in between and run it through a pressing machine and out comes beautifully embossed paper.

And bonus points, there are plastic thin folders and cost me about USD9 to ship 9 sets. The only snag is that you can only do a small portion of fondant at a time. But I do cookies, anyway.

These were for Farahiya for a wedding doorgift. I made the ribbon rose the easy way, no tool whatsoever. Take a ball os small fondant, make it into a sausage, and thin the up side and just roll.

If you live in this particular latitude and longitude as I do, you’d notice how it rains a lot the last few weeks. In case you’re not sure where I am, I live in Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia in the region where monsoons are rife.

It rains in the mornings.

It rains all through the afternoons, ripping branches off tress and sent them sprawling on the roads, stalling traffic.

It rains at nights, ever so welcome so we all can climb onto beds, into our plush comforters and turn on the air-conditioners for that continued creature comfort.
Note: Duvets aren’t entirely welcome here cos even the lowest tog is too warm.

And for house owners, these rainy season is about discovering new leaks on your roofs. Sigh!

We found lines of slowly dripping rain water on the walls of our master bedroom. In the girls’ room. Next to the PC. Even one drip managed to soak through a whole box of non-stick grease paper, I use for my cookies.

They’re everywhere. Sinister lines. You just have to go and touch them and hope that it’s dry and not still drippy-drip.

Sigh! I guess the house does need a makeover. It’s after all 12 years old and it’s high time for a major overhaul too.

Well. Must keep an umbrella at all times now.

Note: I pray for the folks up north in Terengganu and Kelantan and Kedah and Perak for their flooding woes. Here I am complaining about dripping, leaky roofs while they have their houses being swept off by gushy and rushing floodwater, parking itself some 200m away from its original location. *eyes buldging*

And the stories about a housewife killing a large snake just sent shivers down my spine. I wouldn’t want to wade through the floodwater imagining of what sort of creatures are swimming to save themselves in that murky water. But if you’re stricken by the floods, you have not much choice I guess.

And the boy and the girl who drowned. How sad it must have been for the parents and relatives.

I pray for you and for your losses on your house, livelihood, ruined paddy fields and the hardship in these coming months. Amin.

I love designs like this. I hope one day I can make a full size topsy-turvy cake this like. But for now, I comfort myself with a cookie version only.

Hahah.

I bought the cutter a while ago and these came with 3 textured mats for fondant, but I’m just lazy. So I just used RI.

Here goes, simple decoration with swirls and dots with silver dragees accent.

These were for Tania’s Engagement doorgifts and hantaran. Hope she likes them. It’s kinda rare for green to be chosen, but that gives me the opportunity to test my mint green colour.

As doorgifts.

Imprints for the Hantaran Round Cookie

Pink fondant ribbon flower.

The Silver Heart with Ribbon Flower

The accompanying Heart with Dots and lined with silver dragees.

Munira was so sweet when she called asking details about my cookies and the best part was when she just decided on the colour theme and let me be.

So, there. I hope the engagement went well and I hope insyallah sampai ke pelamin dan berbahagia ke anak cucu. Amin.

First 2-tiered wedding cake. A 6″ cake which is also 6″ tall on a 8″ cake. The past 2 weeks have been kinda relaxing for me, cookie-wise. Hahaha. Since I didn’t take a lot of orders preferring to focus on Ramadhan.

I only did a High Fashion cookies class on the 29th August and that was it. I was so relieved after the class as I was looking at a leisure month. BTW, the class so much fun. It was Ramadhan nevertheless and I was fasting but somehow it was very interesting. The 11 students who came were very enthusiastic and I’m grateful that I was able to conduct the class well.

Anyhow.

I meant to write about some of the cookies I managed to deliver for the past month but someone borrowed my camera through hubby and yet to return. I hope that person returns it back soon and she’d better not delete any of the pictures, still!
*shudder*

Well. There’s 2 weeks of Ramadan to go and then it’s Hari Raya and suddenly we’re right smack in the wedding season. The good thing about taking time off like this is that I get to reflect and to really plan for my October wedding orders. Whatever I can do in advance like fondant ribbon flowers and fondant hearts cutout I should start soon. And this is the best to check on stocks of ribbons and bags and tools.

Anyway.

Selamat Berpuasa to all you out there. The last 10 days is fast approaching and we should all quadruple our efforts. Insyallah.

I met up with a tall, lanky girl named Alia a few weeks back after she called me up to ask about the cookies. Her aunt, Farida had ordered the milk bottles for SHAQUILL’s birthday as well as MOZZAD’s khatam Quran do.

So, she and her glitzy friend Trina poured over the catalogue of pictures I brought while, we the Garties were all hands eating the ketam at Kayu Manis over at Bukit Jelutong.

Here they are, Alia!

She wanted a silver-white theme, a wedding cake a heart monogram.

And I so love the silver, alhamdulillah. It really worked and I was so happy.

The 3-tiered wedding cake in silver and white. Since silver is rather mute, I added tiny daisies with golden yellow centre and leaves just to perk things up a little.

Alia ordered 25 of the cake and the other 25 of the heart monogram.

Just to highlight the silver. I tinted my icing with a drop of black, then a touch of royal blue. Once the flooding is set, I brushed the silver lustre dust mixed with some fresh lemon juice. I used to use a normal bruch which was so ineffective for large areas like this. So, now I got wiser and use a blusher brush, of course a specially reserved for the purpose.

So, Selamat Bertunang, Alia.

These were meant for her brother’s wedding, I think. She wanted pale green & pink, and then purple.

6-Petalled Daisies

Butterflies

Hope the wedding went great. Banyak betull wedding these days. My mom was telling me, she had like 6 weddings to attend in a weekend, tapi I takde pun. Pathetic, I know!

AS is one of my very hip, chic neighbour and we get on really swell. Unfortunately for us, she moved to a better, bigger place a few years back and now she’s moved to another bigger, better place outside of Bukit Jelutong. Sigh!

But we get on swell still.

So, when she sent me a distress sms on tuesday night asking for 100 pieces of wedding monogram cookies, I found it very hard to decline. Fortunately for me, Nadia’s 60 pieces of wedding cookies were all ready and I said yes, eventually.

So, here they are.

One little snag though. She wanted blue. I was being curious and I started mixing Royal Blue with Sky Blue and although I thought the blue looked bright and chirpy, it kinda looked a little turquise. Shucks! I hope As wouldn’t kill me. *ampun*

Monogram in little dots all around.

Monogram in in a frame with a Cornflower blue hearts at the side.

All of them little delights in a box.

These were for a cousin’s wedding, I was told.

I really hope that the wedding went well. Nadia wanted these in a transparent box for hantaran. I got the box, but I’m not sure I have such flair in arranging hantaran, so I stacked them up, with bubble wraps to protect against bumps and humps.

Hehe.

Nadia did not specifically defined a colour theme, so I figured blue and pink and white and orange would be apt.

Here goes.

Butterflies. I actually damaged 2 of these butterflies as I scraped them against the drying rack while I was arranging the tray. So, I compensated with 2 more flowers. Yikes! This is the exact reason why I always have 1 or 2 spare cookies per design. Just in case, eh?

2.5″ daisies in white base with sugarpaste tiny sprays of flowers and three dots.

Ciao

Images from DarlingCandy

DarlingCandy who ordered my cookies for her sister’s wedding posted an entry in her blogspot. And I found out that she’s a great digital scrapbooker. Wow! I wanted to try my hands at that. Hmm need to make more hours in a day for that. How now brown cow?

I feel so unworthy at the moment and seeing the cookies all dressed up digitally, made me just swooned. *kembang semangkuk*

*perasan*

Thanks DarlingCandy. I learned a lot from making these and it was so much fun too. What a perfect ending for the cookies. In tummies instead of on a mantelpiece. They are after all, cookies!

These were requested by MrGart’s colleague at Putrajaya. He’s just transferred into this office and I barely know his colleague, so pardon me, if I cannot remember who ordered this.

Anyhow.

I hope that the wedding goes well for I and R.

More on the sample cookies for Nadia from DEMC.

These are a variety of tiered wedding cake cookies I did.

Polka-dotted Yellow Tiered Wedding Cake with White Sugar Daisies

Round Monogram Cookies in White & Purple Letterings

Polka-dotted Tiered Wedding Cake in Purple.

I meant to use violet flowers for these, but I forgot and stuck of it the daisies. A little odd, I know! *head hung*

Enjoy!

Congratulations to Hazel & Adzim on getting engaged-not-yet-hitched last Saturday, the 21st March 2009. Finally, eh?

I’m just so happy for you and sorry for not being able to attend the ceremony. I’m sure it was beautiful and you, a bright shiny beacon in a sea of happiness. *did I just write that?”

Anyhow.

If you’re wondering if I have wonderful, steady hands to pipe the As and the Hs consistently, 100 times. No.

I must have piped about 200 of these a few days earlier, extras in cae of breakages.

So here. Hazel wanted a hundred of these. And I had tremendous fun making these. The only snag is that, I used a different royal icing recipe and some of the cookies were tainted.
*head hung in shame*

So, Hazel enjoyed a huge, huge discount for that. *wink*

Lavender Base

White based with Purple and Pink Letterings & Scrolls

These were ordered by Rina for her sister’s wedding. The tiered cakes were for HANTARAN and the monogram hearts and squares were for FAVORS for the guests.

I used Aztec Gold lustre dust on the cookies to achieve the gold effect. And I so love the effect this gave. But I thought the gold streaked a bit. Hmm must research how not to have it smeared on me the next time.

Anyhow. I love these so much and thanks Rina, I had tremendous fun doing these.

Heart Wedding Favor Monogram Cookies

Square Wedding Favor Monogram Cookies

Hantaran Tiered Wedding Cake Cookies

The Gold Theme Wedding Set

Nina from Puchong (eh, betul ke?) called my twin to order. These were very late orders, but I obliged anyways.

These were done for a hantaran for a wedding. I didn’t use royal icing but instead used fondant with fondant accents in terms of sprays of flowers.

These were so sweet, even I was sold. Haha.

Mamachak ordered these for her parents’ 40th anniversary. Wow!!

These were decorated by fondant. I didn’t have the cutter for tiered cake, so I made my own for these cookies. Later, I bought the cutters and I’m glad to report that my tiered cookies are perfectly balanced now. *snicker*

These were one of my first orders in June 2008.

These were ordered by Nina for favours for a wedding. I so love the wedding dress. White on white worked wonderfully well.

Cookie cutters were hard to come by then. So, I made the cutter myself for these cookies. It was painful, strenuous work with wonderful results. Future wedding dresses are all made using the wedding dress cutters I bought off Cakeconnection. Yay!

A bunch of them.