The Tiffany Blue Wedding

Last weekend was my sister-in-law's wedding. It was the second wedding in the family (after ours), but since she's the first girl in the family, it was our first time organising a solemnization ceremony plus a wedding reception. And it was not an easy wedding to organize! Yours truly being 38weeks pregnant didn't really help either. But that didn't stop me from being the official baker for the wedding. I camped out in my kitchen in front of my oven every single day, the week before the event. Did I also mention that since it was also my final week in the office, I was jumping from one meeting to another (everyone in the office wanted a piece of me before I left), handling my handover to my colleagues who were going to cover for me during my absence, and also squeezing some time during lunch to review last minute documents??!! Combine that with coming home and baking till the wee hours of the night - it was quite a miracle that I could still stand on my own two feet by the end of the week. Thanks Hubby for the foot massages every night!

So after the disastrous attempt on Tiffany Blue baby donuts (look and colour wise - taste wise they were excellent!), I decided to just stick to baking things I know best. And that would be cakes, cookies and macarons. As for the dessert table, I designed it based on a wedding set that I had purchased during our recent trip to Houston.

Tiffany blue with black damask.

Although Tiffany Blue is somewhat an "in" colour in other places, it has never really arrived in Malaysia. It wasn't easy explaining the colour to the printable designers and finding matching candy and decorations. Even the closest ribbon colour I could get to it was Aqua Green and I found it a tad too greenish for my liking. And try explaining the colour to the elderlies - even my in laws ended up with buying cloth material one shade too green off Tiffany Blue, but then ordered blue decorations, blue wedding favours and turquoise tents! In the end, we had all shades of blue - carca marba!

Printable designer never really got the right colour. Oh well, can't be too choosy! These are frames for table decorations.

Enlisted a friend to help out with the paper tissue poms. Again, I had to use baby blue paper as it was the closest thing to Tiffany Blue.

Next, on to the baking! This was relatively easier to manage since I was the one controlling the colour. First up, macarons! Macarons are usually a big hit with my dessert tables since I make mine small bite sized so they are usually the first to go. I decided that 3 batches should be sufficient for the night, and that gave me about 175 pieces of assembled macarons, minus the rejected shells.

Rows and rows of Tiffany Blue macarons, waiting to be popped into the oven.

The end result. Loving the colour and the consistency in size.

I have had numerous requests to share the recipe for these macarons. I will try to do so in a different post. But I should warn you that it's not just the recipe that matters. All those evenly piped circles that you see on the baking pans - those are from batches and batches of practice. And you need to know the consistency of the batter when you stir it. Stir it too much, and it gets runny and you end up with imperfect circles. Stir it too little and you get pointy tips and bumps on the macaron shells. Sounds complicated enough?

Next up, cupcakes!

Vanilla cupcakes with Tiffany Blue buttercream (although still a bit too green for my liking) adorned with white fondant butterflies.

Personalized cookies were next on my list. The monogram design below is used everywhere in the wedding - the wedding favour tags, personalized chocolate bars and water bottles. So I decided to use the same design for my cookies, After much back and forth with the edible image printer, they finally printed the right shade of colour for me.

Round cookies with white fondant. Cut out the edible image and stuck them on top of the fondant.

Loving the professional look of these cookies!

Last but not least in my baking list, Tiffany Blue mini cakes! Initially I wanted to replicate the Tiffany Blue signature box and bow. I even made a few test pieces before the event, but every seasoned baker knows how much easier it is to fondant wrap a round cake instead of a square cake. As I was going to make so many of these; and since cakes (and cupcakes) are best made just a day before they are eaten, I didn't have the luxury of time!

Tiffany Blue box test piece.

Round Tiffany Blue mini cakes.

Covered the cakes with fondant all by myself but fortunately I had help with the fondant ribbons as I was so busy juggling the cupcakes at the same time!

Not in pictures above are chocolate covered oreos and chocolate covered pretzels. Don't know whether they count as baking but essentially I used a wedding themed oreo mould (available in baking shops) and covered Oreos with Tiffany Blue coloured chocolate (again, not the right colour!), whilst the pretzels were store bought and covered with white melted chocolate.

The day of the event finally arrived and we were greeted with a bright and sunny morning. I, of course was not fooled by the sun since I had been charting the weather for the past few weeks. (It rained heavily during Aiden's kindy graduation which was a day before the event.) In the afternoon, it continued to be bright and sunny, and deep down in my heart I knew that it was not a good sign. But really, how can you control the weather? So I proceeded with preparing my dessert table. The venue for the wedding was the Cahaya SPK clubhouse, about 5 minutes away from our house, but it was quite an effort to cart everything between these two locations.

The Tiffany Blue (bare) dessert table.

Tiffany Blue really looks classy in the day sunlight. However, the colour didn't really make much impact in the night, in my opinion.

Paper fans and paper poms as the backdrop. I used matching food tags, damask cake base and damask doily paper to match the wedding set.

Since I had to pre-prepare the dessert table before getting ready for the wedding, the table was ready approximately 3 house before the start of the event (after Maghrib). Which explains why I refrained from putting the baked goods and candy on the table at this point.

Oh, that gut feeling I had about the weather? Of course Murphy's Law stepped in and we were "blessed" with heavy rain at about 6pm that afternoon. It poured cats and dogs, and since everyone in the family was at home getting ready, it was the clubhouse employees who helped to minimize the damage. Thanks to them, although the dessert table board fell and hit the table, they managed to save my apothecary jars and serving plates. Hubby immediately rushed out to the clubhouse at the sight of the rain, and when he came back, he reported that everything was an absolute mess. All of my dessert table decorations were on the ground submerged in rain water which came up to his ankles. Not only that, the akad nikah area was soaked with rain (it was supposed to be an outdoor solemnization) and some of the flower vases which decorated the dias had fell and broke. Hubby wanted to arrange for Plan B which was to shift the solemnization to a sheltered banquet hall, but since it was so close to the start of the wedding, the clubhouse couldn't accommodate to our request. I swore, the bride was at the verge of tears when she heard about the disaster. Yes, it was definitely a wedding full of drama.

Thankfully, after the initial heavy downpour, it soon reduced to a drizzle and I braved the slight rain to see whether I could fix the dessert table. I tried to salvage whatever I could, and with the help of very very supportive family members, I redecorated the dessert table in less than half an hour (record breaking time!) and we managed to put the solemnization area back to somewhat its original state, albeit some missing vases and flowers. And of course, we hoped that the carpets would dry up in time before the tok kadi arrived!

The dessert table after the disastrous rain.

Some food tags and paper fans were ruined, but I salvaged whatever I could. Thankfully all the baked goods and candy were safe in waterproof containers. If the dessert table had been loaded, we would have to throw away all of my baking efforts!

Personalized cookies in action. Excuse the arrangement of the cookies, family members helped me fill the platters so I didn't have time to do a quality check.

In this picture, cupcakes, personalized cookies, macarons and mini cakes. You can even see matching gumballs in the glass container and matching candy sticks in the medium apothecary jar, both on the far right.

Personalized kit kats in a serving platter, and mini cakes on a matching black damask cake base.

Candy sticks and pretzels dipped in white chocolate in the apothecary jars. Down right you can barely see the matching rock candy.

All Tiffany Blue candy were sourced from the US. That was another drama, the shipment got delayed due to resource issues with MAS Cargo, but because they knew the package was super important for the wedding, they kept an eye on it and even arranged for a special personal delivery just a day before the event. Kudos to the MAS Cargo and Pos Malaysia team!

Solemnization was held at the clubhouse outdoor deck, overlooking the lake. That's Hubby in the middle of the picture, overseeing the whole event, walkie talkie in hand!

The newlyweds.

Instead of flower girls, we had Aiden and Darwish as bunga manggar boys.

Handsome Aiden! Drama King - he fell asleep during the solemnization (after telling everyone "This is too boring!") and I had to threaten to throw away his iPad just to get him to wake up so he could execute his bunga manggar duties!

Now that the wedding is over, I have nothing else to distract me from looking forward (looking forward ke??) to the imminent labour of love - pun intended! Wish me luck!

Tiffany Blue Baby Donuts

I have always loved Tiffany Blue.

(I also love Tiffany & Co. but that's not the subject of this post.) I am so obsessed with the colour that I even managed to convince my SIL to adopt it as the theme colour for her upcoming wedding. Of course, yours truly is in charge of all the baking and decorating the dessert table. And of course, the baked goods have to match the Tiffany Blue theme. So as I was surfing the internet for ideas, I came across a recipe for baked donuts. Yes, I kid you not. No more deep frying donuts for tea time. Not only is it easy to make (no KitchenAid mixer needed here), it is also healthy!

Extremely easy recipe, you can even get cheap labour like the one pictured above, to help you with the mixing. Since no mixer was needed, matching measuring cups from KitchenAid pun bolehlah. 

The recipe calls for the use of a mini donut pan. Mini donut pan??? Where do I get one? And as I started browsing through the pictures included with the recipe, it dawned on me - I do own one! I had purchased a variety of baking pans during the Macy warehouse sale back in 2009, and even with all the baking I've been doing these past few years, this particular baking tin had remained unused - mainly because I didn't know what to use it for! Hopefully, upon the discovery of the use of the mini donut pan, I will start utilizing it more often.

Vanilla Bean Baby Doughnuts

Recipe from SprinkleBakes.com here. Yields 3-4 dozen baby donuts.

Doughnut Batter:2 cups all purpose flour, sifted
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 cup buttermilk
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 tbsp. butter, melted
Seeds from one vanilla bean

Method of Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 425°F (218degC). Spray donut pan with nonstick cooking spray.
2. In large mixing bowl, sift together all purpose flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Add buttermilk, eggs, vanilla extract, vanilla seeds and butter and beat until just combined. Spray doughnut cavities with cooking spray or brush with butter. Fill each donut cup approximately 1/2 full.
3. Bake 5-8 minutes or until the top of the donuts spring back when touched. Let cool in pan for 4–5 minutes before removing. Finish doughnuts with vanilla glaze. Doughnuts are best served fresh.

Vanilla Glaze:
1 cup confectioner’ s sugar
1 tbsp. milk
½ tsp. vanilla extract
4 drops of liquid blue food coloring

Method of Preparation:
In small bowl, stir together sugar, milk and vanilla extract until sugar is completely dissolved. Add food coloring and stir until color is uniform. Use immediately to glaze doughnuts.

Here's the mini doughnut pan.

Aiden hereby reminds you to pun the donut batter into a piping bag. Since the batter is quite runny, the piping bag makes it easier to fill the cavities of the pan and prevents spillage.

Even with the piping bag, we made quite a mess!

I need a new oven! The back of my oven has a higher temperature compared to the front. Which is why the back row donuts have bumps and looks browner than the row in front.

Cute mini donuts, the size is about half the palm of my hand.

Next, glazing it to the right colour. I wanted Tiffany Blue, which really leans more towards blue instead of green. In the picture below, I tried using Americolour Turquoise. The left one obviously had too much colour in it. For the one on the right, I got a bit smarter and started adding the colour drop by drop. But even then it looks more like Petronas green instead of Tiffany Blue. *sigh*

Glazing the donuts.

Glazing donuts is not easy too. I think you need a steady hand to get a nice, even coat, and the right glaze consistency to ensure that it doesn't drip down the sides of your donut.

Once the glaze dried up, it looked a tad more presentable. But it is definitely not easy to try and get the right tinge of colour.  

The flowers and box were my guide for Tiffany Blue. *shakes head*

Such a far cry from the perfect Tiffany Blue baby donuts pictured here.

Just purchased Wilton's Teal and Sky Blue colouring, because I read that mixing these two yields a closer shade of Tiffany Blue. Next try, perhaps!

A Mature Garden

I was flicking through my old posts about my garden here and here, and was shocked at how bare my garden was back then. Hubby enjoys gardening and our now mature garden certainly reflects that.

Since our house is so close by to Sg Buloh, we are constantly adding on to the garden. There were certainly a lot of trial and errors - just because the leaves are healthy and the flowers are blooming at the nursery, it doesn't mean that it will stay that way once it gets into your garden. We are not gardeners, nor do we have time to tend to the plants everyday. We only make sure all the plants get water once a day and fertilizer twice a month, and even that doesn't guarantee healthy plants! We once planted a row of red shrubs, and they all started dying one by one until not even one survived. *sigh*

Our front door. What used to be bare, is now blooming.

Ignore the umbrellas. As you can see, i'm trying my hand out in orchids now, but frankly, it's not looking too successful. The plant in the pasu was taken from my aunt's house, and I was so surprised that with the right amount of shade, it is quite easy to maintain. We used to have a plant with sharp leaves in the corner beside the pebble filled drain and the roses, and it was growing big (as tall as me) and healthy when suddenly while we were in Houston, we received a call from my in-laws reporting that the tree rebah ke tanah! Apparently anai anai had attacked the batang pokok to the point that it became hollow. So we are now trying out a new tree with red leaves. Read that it is not an easy tree to maintain, and there is also a possibility that the leaves will turn green - we'll see!

My future Tiger Woods. In this picture the corner I mentioned above was still bare. Cucuk dengan pelita jer in memory of the tree that fell. So sad!

Bought this kids' golf bag and set of clubs in Houston. Reasonable price, complete set of clubs were only USD 10!

The above mentioned tree with red leaves. Tiny roses blooming on the left.

Front view of the garden. 

Remember we used to have a black bowl with water lilies at the end of the pebble filled drain? Well the black bowl is now elevated on a vase stand. In its place we placed a big white pasu - don't ask me how much soil we had to use to fill that huge thing! Our favourite corner is still flourishing - as you can see the trees are big and sturdy and we added two new Bucida trees beside the corner and in front of the elevated black bowl. 

Middle view of the garden from the front.

Ignore the freshly cut grass. I hate it when the gardener cuts the grass this way, it looks patchy instead of smooth. We changed the row of shrubs between the two elevated vases at least 3 times until we finally found one particular type which is very hardy and that the rabbits hate to chew on! White garden tables and chairs courtesy of the in laws. I especially love the plant with the white flowers at the end of the wall strip. It is constantly blooming!

Water lilies in the afternoon. But they bloom beautifully in the morning!

Middle view of the garden from the back.

Previously, the walls were bare. Now, its completely covered with multiple types of plants. Hubby loves pokok lalang, so you can see a clump of pokok lalang with red leaves just beside the tree on the left, and on the right in the elevated vase is another type of pokok lalang that lives in water.

See the ends of the pokok lalang? I don't have to buy the fake ones they sell in Ikea. Instead, they live naturally in my garden!

View from the patio. Water slide dirt cheap from Houston, as usual.

The patio garden.

When I first bought my garden furniture, the patio was completely bare! This is where I grow my herbs. Alhamdulillah after 3 tries, my rosemary looks healthy. My daun kunyit on the contrary, macam hidup segan, mati tak mahu. Any tips?? On the other hand, my Hydrangeas (pokok tiga bulan) are blooming with leaves, but refuses to sprout any flowers. Again, any tips??

View of the patio from inside the house.

Adventurous Hubby decided to bring this aeroplane home from Houston. Very impressed that he managed to stuff it into our luggage safely!

Back view of the garden.

Our bamboo tree in the right hand corner of the picture is growing healthy and tall. Daun pandan is also flourishing. But I think I need taller trees to block the laundry area. Next project, maybe?

Tiger Woods concentration in action. Red bushes lining the dining hall windows are constantly getting attacked by anai anai *sigh*

Check out that winning smile!

And as a finale - at the back of my garden, introducing my pride and joy. A pokok kari that is even taller than me!