This week's creation was requested by a dear friend for EID L' ADHA's Feast.

What is Eid L' Adha?

From Wikipedia "Eid al-Adha (Arabic: عيد الأضحى‎ ‘Īd al-’Aḍḥá,IPA: [ʕiːd al ʔadˁˈħaː], "feast of sacrifice") or "Festival of Sacrifice" or "Greater Eid" is an important religious holiday celebrated by Muslims worldwide to commemorate the willingness of Abraham (Ibrahim) to sacrificehis son Ishmael (Isma'il) as an act of obedience to God, before God intervened to provide him with a sheep— to sacrifice instead"

My dear friend requested for something simple.
I thought this is a celebration so a gift design will do.
A dove which symbolizes peace is a great topper for the cake.

HOW TO MAKE THE DOVE

1. Get a ball of gumpaste or fondant (w/ tylose powder) and roll using your hand to form a cone shape. 

2. Then shape the head and the neck using your two middle fingers. I will probably  make the head a little smaller than the one shown in the picture. 

3. Bend the bird and insert a stick (skewer or lolipop stick). Flatten the smallest end to make the tail and score the tail using your pallete knife.

4. To make the beak, get a small ball of gumpaste and roll into cone shape. Get a scissor and cut halfway to form the open beak. Attach using melted chocolate. Get a piece of paper and put in between the cut (beak). The paper will be replaced by the twig that you will be making later. 

5. To make the wings, use the Wilton leaf cutter (the biggest one). Try to reshape the widest end to make it more rounded and then score the wings as shown in the photo. 

6. Get a small bowl and put cornstarch powder - you will use this to dry the wings so it will dry to the position you want. 

7. The next morning attach the wings using melted chocolate.

8. Make the twig using gumpaste and let it dry. Once dry, attach to the beak using melted chocolate..


HOW TO MAKE THE CAKE

Bake two (2) 10 x 3 in round cakes and two (2) pillow pan shaped cake.
Torte the round cakes into four and fill with your favorite filling. 
Create a dam or circle of icing just inside the edge of the cake. This will prevent any filling from seeping out when the next layer is added.
I frosted the cakes using chocolate ganache.
 I really love frosting the cake with ganache compared to buttercream 
when covering the cake with fondant.
It is true what the experts say that you can get that perfect sharp edges using ganache frosting.
I placed the cakes in the refrigerator overnight (or 4 hours will do).

It took me about 8 hours to decorate the whole cake.
Starting from the cake board, the bottom cake, the lid and the pillow cake.
I put five (5) dowels on the bottom tier with the dowels cut slight higher than the cake,
to make the open lid effect.
I used styroform for the lid although I could have used a 10 x 2 in round cake instead.

Hope you like my creation this week!
Until my next cake!

Here are more photos of the cake.

When I was searching for cake/cupcake inspirations,
I chanced upon quite a number of blogs about Dessert Table ideas.
I LOVE the idea so I decided to have this Halloween Dessert Table
for the Welcome party we organized for our two friends.
I started with a simple arrangement for now.

The party was to welcome a newcomer (Dolly, Lai's niece) to town and a
"surprise" housewarming for a dear friend (Mae).
The venue of the party was at her newly purchased house.

I decided to make Halloween themed sweets.
I made a Jack o' Lantern cake.
I made two bundt cakes and put them together.
I got this idea from Sharon Zambito (SugarED Productions).
I covered the cake with white fondant and airbrushed it with Americolor Airbrush Food Color Orange.
I brushed the indents with cocoa powder to highlight.

I made Jack O' Lantern, Ghosts, Witches Hat and Skull Cake Pops.
Of course the idea was from the queen of Cake Pops  - Bakerella.
I was supposed to make some Black Cat Cake Pops but there was no time left.
Too much on my plate...I only do these at night when my daughter's in bed.

You see, aside from cake pops...cookie decorating is another thing I am
getting interested on.
There are so many sweet inspirations on the internet...I just have to try making them all.
So I made Jack o' lantern, Witches shoes, hats and pots Vanilla Sugar Cookies/
I decorated the cookies using Royal Icing.
It was so much fun...I am glad I tried it.

I also made Halloween themed cupcakes.

At the last minute I added some Dead Finger Cookies (Idea from Cakejournal).
I only have sliced almonds for the fingers but a whole/half almond would have worked better for the nails.
I also should have brushed more cocoa powder for more effect.
Oh well maybe next Halloween.

The night's favorites were the cookies and the cake pops,
not that the other treats were not great (as per my friends and the kids they are all great).

Everyone had lots of fun eating the treats.
Here are some photos at the event.
Enjoy!