44 orders, 75 dozen, and over 900 cake pops later, you've helped me raise over $1,100 out of my $6000 (adjusted) goal for the Lavender Pen Tour happening this October, 2017! Thank you all so much!

​Special thanks to my mom and POPS (see what I did there?) for helping me wrap, bag, and double check all my orders!

Happy Lunar New Year! More important than Thanksgiving in my family is definitely the Lunar New Year. This year, I went to hang out with my mom and her sisters to make little sweet peanut, sesame, coconut turnovers. 

The little pouches of sweetness look like little gold nuggets once fried up, like old school Chinese currency back in the Qin Dynasty (sycee or yuanbao), and the sweetness inside is to wish the receiver sweetness and good things in the year to come.

Here's a photo of the completed turnovers, as well as a video of my aunt's mastery in making the beautiful folds.

Merry Christmas! A Chinese Swiss roll cake all dressed up as a Yule log.

Garnished with Chocorooms, rosemary sprigs, and pine cones (almond slices stuck into a ball of marzipan). Plated on a bedding of crushed OREO dirt, finished with a sprinkle of powered sugar snow.

Out of all the cakes that I've done, and that I've wanted to do, I've always wanted to do this one:

..... and on a side note, I'm caught up with my posts-to-date. If you didn't know, I changed jobs about three and a half months ago. I'm working for the Oakland Fire Department as a dispatcher!

My shifts have been weird and wonky, and I'm tired almost all of the time - learning and processing lots of new things. So thank you all for your patience, and a special shout out to Training Battalion Chief Sheppard for his support and encouragement in my new job, and of Chu On Cakes!

How do I even start talking about this? It was for a Friday the 13th party! So of course, Jason was invited, and the Mummy Boy was the Guest of Honor. -- According to my planning sketch below, I thought the mummy head and the mask would be much smaller, but I calculated it wrong, and i didn't have a smaller baking bowl. However, all the elements were still there. I made the mask with fondant, drew in the red with food coloring markers, and then airbrushed the mask until it looked dingy and yucky (but awesome)! I fondant covered the cake -- again with the stacking! -- and lightly airbrushed it with black that made it look more dingy and yucky (but awesome)... then instead of using corn syrup for the blood, i used a mix of strawberry and boysenberry syrup with some strawberry jam to thicken it up a bit. It was the perfect consistency to make it look dingy and yucky (but awesome)! I didn't want to use corn syrup, cuz it would have just been sweet, and i felt like that wouldn't have taste well with the cake -- red velvet cake with vanilla buttercream... it was fun making the blood drips, and messing up the Mummy Head with my hands and finger prints and "blood" spatters, making this possibly one of my "easier" cakes! Oh, and there was the knife in the background as well, dripping blood, adding to the cake being dingy and yucky - BUT AWESOME!

Need I say more?!?!! :)

I had so much fun making this cake. What's awesome is that I also got to stay and see people's reaction and to see it cut! For the same party, I made more of my Halloween cookies. I will need to set a timer to see how much time each cookie takes! *whew!*

So this isn't a purely Chu On Cakes post, but it's part of my series of posts about Halloween celebrations. I love halloween!

Last night, I had my first official dinner party at my new house. It was an experiment to say the least! how many chairs? dining room configuration, living room configurations, need to get more non-alcoholic drinks... (oops)..

besides my eyeball casserole, i made some pumpkin-y cake truffles. It was a pumpkin spice cake with little fondant stems I had formed the day before. When they were sitting in my pan drying, i thought they looked a little like the "poor unfortunate souls" in Sea Witch Ursula's garden.

I had ran out of time, so I was making them the cake truffles during the dinner party. On one hand, it was nice to have people see some of the background work of what goes into the cake truffles. On the other, it was a different thing to have my BIL around, and eating the treats even before I could plate them. I ended up having to put them in the fridge to hide them while they cooled! I also made a little boo-boo and put too much chocolate chips in with the orange candy melts, and turned the whole batch brown... =( I only did it cuz the orange was too orange, and i wanted to tone it down with some brown. I probably only needed no more than 10 chips, instead I put in half a handful. Still turned out tasty!

Also had my first experiment with dry ice. it was a very cool eerie scene. When my nephew was asked what he thought it looked like, he said, "science!" i just bought some vases of different heights at the dollar store, which looked like beakers, or containers that potions might be brewed in. I love 99c stores. Dry ice from Smart & Final, and voila - witches brew. I also had a cauldron of beer, and put dry ice into the cauldron and it looked so awesome... i didn't take a picture, cuz i was so in awe myself... and yes, that is a jar of gummy worms. Marinating. In vodka. Pick your potion!

I love Halloween! I love the dressing up, I love the goblins and the ghouls, and I love the decorations. I love making regular things look like creepy things... I had the fortunate opportunity to do more Halloween goodies this year. Check them out!

...and believe me, it's not over! I have a skull cake coming... it's gonna be spectacular!