Millennium Falcon - The Epic Cake!

Happy Tuesday peeps!

My oh my, the past three weekends of April certainly went by in a blur. I was so busy preparing for Aiden and Ian's Star Wars party that I didn't have much time for anything else (what more, blogging)!

But the party is now done and dusted. And I spent much of yesterday, enjoying the peace after the storm. I did absolutely NOTHING. Such bliss!

Craziest cake we've done!

To kick off my recap of the said Star Wars party, here is a post dedicated to the birthday cake - the Millennium Falcon. This takes the cake (pun intended) for birthday cake paling gila we've done for our two boys. We slept past 5am, three nights in a row working on the cake; the first night for baking, sculpting the cake and crumb coat, second night covering it with a second layer of buttercream and then fondant, and the third night working the small fondant pieces. That final night, I think we clocked over 10 hours just for decorating to detail!

I downloaded a blue print of the Millennium Falcon here, and enlarged it so that the circular part is nine inch wide (to fit my nine inch pan). I printed a couple of copies for use. With the print out, I traced the template onto a cake board, and using an electric saw, Hubby cut the board to size. Also worth to note, the largest cake board I could fit into my fridge was a 13x17, so I was limited to only that amount of board space.

Moist chocolate cake. We sculpted the cake from one 9 inch cake and another 6 inch cake. Not too flattering, right? Someone thought I burnt the cake *chuckles* while another thought it was kek gula hangus! *giggles*

The cake was Aiden and Ian's favourite moist chocolate cake, layered with dark chocolate ganache. Everything was completely edible; no boards, wires or plastic supports were used inside the cake. Since the Millennium Falcon has a lot of slopes and ridges, lathering on buttercream on the very moist chocolate cake was no easy feat. By the time we were done, we had so many cake crumbs littered on the table. In the end we had to give it another layer of buttercream (on the second night) just to give it a smoother finish.

Ready for fondant!

Also on the second night, we placed the first layer of fondant over the cake. Initially, we tried covering it part by part, but I wasn't happy with the end result. So at 3am I made the executive decision (tear drops included) to rip the whole thing off and start from scratch again. It was only at 5am that I was finally happy with the end result.

The night before the party, we started on the decorations from 5pm till 5am the next morning; with only brief stops for solat, shower and a quick bite to eat.

Close to midnight, and only halfway done.

5 am - finally done!

Cutting those small fondant pieces took a lot (and I mean, a whole lot) of patience. On some instances, we had to use a toothpick just to push the minuscule fondant into place. We made sure we incorporated all the nerdy details, such as the panels, escape hatches, floodlights and such. We tried as much as possible to follow the blueprint to the last detail, but by 430am we were just 'winging' the final details, mengantuk punya pasal.

Once the cake was ready, we gave it a good spray with edible colouring (I used Wilton silver colour mist) to give it that shimmery look. Unfortunately, it also covered the red coloured fondant with silver shine, so using cotton buds, we had to 'clean' those parts. We weren't able to completely remove the shimmer, but thankfully for us, the slight gleam gave the reddish parts a rustic look which worked well!

The cake after shimmer spray.

Back of the cake.

Complete with a satellite dish!

The attention to detail - sharp and clean, just the way I like it.

The cake was certainly the center of attention during the party. Many thought that it was a toy, not many expected it to be made fully from cake. We actually had to cut out a slice to show them the cake layers inside! And the excitement on Aiden's face the first time he saw the cake, was simply priceless. Made all our effort so worthwhile!

But, will we do this cake ever again? Naaahhhhhh... Taubat tak nak buat dah! *giggles*

Light Sabers

Hey everyone!

Sorry for the lack of updates. I've been busy on Star Wars party mode. Aiden and Ian's party is in exactly two weeks hence every single spare minute I have is spent cutting, gluing or assembling something that is related to the birthday. After this I will be up to my head in butter, flour and eggs so I am eager to get all the tedious DIY crafts out of the way.

Here's another Star Wars DIY inspiration from Pinterest - pool noodle light sabers! Unlike in the US, where pool noodles are sold at the Dollar Tree for yes, you guessed it... one dollar; pool noodles don't come cheap in Malaysia. I went scouting around Mr DIY, Daiso and Tesco, but found none for sale. I even went as far as contacting Prosun Swimwear for bulk orders. But still the cheapest was at ToysR'Us - RM21.90 for a length of 150cm.

So when I found these foam hangers going dirt cheap at GM Klang, I was ecstatic! 

So cheap, I nearly cried.

Using grey duct tape and black electrical tape, I taped the end to make it look like the handle of a light saber. And tadaaaaa.... three hours later 50 foam light sabers were done!

A hanger, repurposed as a light saber.

Okay, I'm off cutting personalized food tags. Till my next post, may the force be with you! *chuckles*

Work in Progress - BB8 Pinata

If you've read the Nuffnang FBOTM write up, you would have noted that Aiden has requested the theme for his birthday to be Star Wars.

I am no big fan of Star Wars, but I certainly enjoyed The Force Awakens. I've only watched it once at the movies, but I am very lucky as Malaysia Airlines is showing the movie on their in-flight entertainment all throughout this month. Hence I've been using my time on the plane, observing the characters and their costumes. I'm planning to dress up as Rey, and I haven't even finalized my outfit yet!

On the other hand, what party would be complete without a pinata? Aiden wanted BB8 as the character for the pinata. I pondered on it for a few weeks, utterly lost about how I was going to 'make' the shape of a sphere... and it has to be a hollow sphere too!

As I sat thinking in my DIY room (aka the spare bedroom), my eyes landed on a pink lantern that I had bought eons ago. I probably bought the lantern some time ago to decorate a girl's birthday party, but it has been left unused since then. Perfect! I finally solved BB8's body!

To strengthen the lantern, I covered it with layers and layers of newspaper, using homemade glue - gam kanji! Aiden helped too!

To make cheap homemade glue, mix 4 tablespoons of tepung ubi kayu with 500ml of water, and heat it on your stove until it thickens. Make sure you keep stirring it to prevent lumps.

Next, BB8's head! I used a sphere shaped Styrofoam (available at most art shops) and cut it to half. The height wasn't really proportionate to the body, so I taped a Styrofoam plate underneath. Similarly, I covered it with layers of paper glued with gam kanji.

Half sphere Styrofoam and Styrofoam plate.

Filled the lantern with candy. We had to stop at quarter full, for fear that the lantern couldn't take the weight!

Next, I punched two holes through BB8's head. I tied strings to the lantern's existing hooks, and threaded it through the said holes. These strings will be used to tie BB8 up for some serious pinata whacking!

The assembled BB8 left in the garden to dry. Ignore the patchy grass, it was just freshly mowed that day.

That's as far as I have gone to date. Hubby tried spray painting it white, but it simply enhanced the horizontal lines of the lantern. Hence we dropped that idea. Therefore tomorrow I'll have to go hunting for white crepe paper to cover the body instead. I've also managed to find orange florescent paper, to be used to sketch BB8's circular shapes that decorate its body and head. Still need to think of something for it's black eye. And then hopefully it is done!

Here's hoping that the lantern is strong enough to sustain the weight of the candy! Wish me luck!