Little Bowl

Here’s to a great year ahead! Cheers everyone!

brrrrrrr…it’s really cold outside!

*Note that this post was actually written a few days before Christmas*

Tra la la la la..la la la la…

Everywhere I go now it’s all about Christmas  and although I don’t actually celebrate it, I do love the idea of this time to be the time where you get to be with your family, giving presents and just being happy (& jolly), and thankful for what you have..which is very much like celebrating  Eidul Fitri back home

So on the note of it being Christmas in a week or so, I ‘d like to dedicate this post entirely to Christmas.

Well, let’s start off with practically the BIGGEST cupcake order I’ve had so far. And it was for my dear friend’s husband’s Xmas party.

He was so kind to be ordering 14 packs of a dozen which tallied up to 168 cupcakes all together!

Anyways, yes..so I was so, so, so ,so excited about making this order cause it was MY FIRST TIME making such great amount of cupcakes ever since I started this whole “cupcake-craze” thing.

He told me about it about a month prior to the event, so I had quite some time to prepare. I browsed and  browsed and  browsed, endlessly, on Christmas Cupcakes on Google, Flickr, Yahoo..you name it. Just so that I can be sure what I want my cupcakes to look like.

So, fast forward to about a week before shipping those babies of to Tokyo (yup, I sent them all the way to Tokyo), I was listing down all the stuff I needed, boxes, stickers, wrappers, name cards..bla bla bla. Luckily, I made the decorations a week before that so, I was pretty much set.

Then came THE DAY – the BAKING DAY. There I was, in the kitchen, baking loads and loads of cupcakes, and I was grateful that my small but very reliable oven didn’t give up on me. I finished baking the cupcakes that night. And went on to the decorations the next morning.

Initially, I had already sent a sample pack to him, to ask him which flavor he’d like to have for the party. The prototype pack was this:

There were 6 different flavors, with each having it’s own different frosting on top. Starting from the top left:

*Matcha Cupcake, Azuki Filling with White & Chocolate Ganache & Almond Flakes
*Matcha Cupcake, Azuki Filling with Lemon Cream Cheese frosting
*Vanilla Cupcake with Vanilla Bean Whipped Cream, Macadamia nuts and shredded coconut
*Vanilla Cupcake, Raspberry Filling with White choc. Ganache & Almond Praline
*Chocolate Cupcake, Raspberry Filling with Chocolate Ganache
*Chocolate Cupcake with Salted Caramel Whipped Cream
*Gingerbread Cupcake with White Chocolate Ganache
*Gingerbread Cupcake with Salted Caramel Whipped Cream & Caramel Swirl
*Pumpkin Cupcake, Pumpkin Filling with Vanilla Bean Whipped Cream & Walnut Praline
*Pumpkin Cupcake, Pumpkin Filling with Maple Cream Cheese & WAlnut Praline
*Red Velvet Cupcake with Lemon Cream Cheese
*Red Velvet Cupcake, Raspberry Filling with White Chocolate Ganache & Vanilla Salt

He wrote back saying they loved them all and wouldn’t mind having these at the party. So there you go..I was then officially making 12 different cupcakes for the party

On baking day, I pretty much tested my oven to it’s limit as it was forced to work for almost 10 hours straight. The outcome? Close to 200 cupcakes were baked and cooled in my kitchen.

The next day I spent decorating and packing those cupcakes, with a help from a good friend. 7 packs went into one big box, and 2 boxes were later sent off to Tokyo.

These were the cupcakes that went in the boxes. All of them had pretty much the same decorations. I thought the color’s could’ve been a bit more organized, though.

The next day after sending these babies off, I got a message from my customer that I had sent the cupcakes a day early! *super gasp*
But Japan’s delivery service being great as it is, kept them for another day and sent them to my customer the following day *phewwww*

I later on received another message from my customer saying that everyone loved the cupcakes. Yatta!! Although I was really curious how the cupcakes turned out by the time they reached my customer, I’m glad that they liked all of it.

And least to say, this was truly an experience that I have learnt a lot from.

友達の旦那さんのクリスマスパーティーのためにはじめて大きな注文が入りました。こんな量は初めてで、不安を抱えながら、楽しく作っていました。注文したものは写真のようなもので、全部170個ぐらいでした。

各カップケーキの上にクリスマスの飾りを飾り付け(もちろん食べられる飾りです）、12種類のカップケーキを一パックに入れました。デコレーションやパッキングをしたあとで、東京に発送しました。

数日後買っていただいたお客さんから喜びの言葉が届きました。

正直、少しホッとしました。

とてもいい経験になって、将来にもこういう機会があったらまたぜひチャレンジをしたいと思っています。

2ND NOTE: More on Christmas cupcakes coming along so stay tune!

Oh…I’m sorry, I meant my darling Harisa

Yes,our mini monster’s name actually means ‘hot pepper’ in Tunisian. Well,maybe she’s turn out to be a super hottie. Hot Pepper hot! LOL

Anyway,looking at some old photos of hers (which I’ve been meaning to sent out for prints, and yet still remains untouched in my pc), I realized just how big she’s gotten.

It’s unbelievable the changes a year can bring to a child. I’m just a teeny bit sad that she’s no longer that cute little thing that I can just wrap in a blanket and watch her sleep for the longest of hours . But then again, seeing her trying to drink from a cup, pushing god-knows-what buttons on the remote control, pestering our pet cat Sasha, re”organizing” the drawers (and the list goes on..)are just as much fun and worth every second of my life.

I love you my dearest “hot pepper”!

もうすぐ我が娘は１才になります。確かに１年って早いもんですね。信じられない。この間お腹から出てた赤ちゃんが今部屋にあるものを全部散らかして．．やっぱり子供の成長はすごい！

といっても、赤ちゃんの時の写真を見るとなんか懐かしい～って思っちゃいます。

ハリサちゃん、あっまり早く大きくならないでよ～！

At the end of last month we went to Handayama Botanical Garden with Nazra. It was a day after she found her lost kitten, Milo and the outing was somewhat a celebration for his return.

Lay Yin, a dear friend of mine told us about this spot in Handayama, which I reckon was not so well known by locals (or maybe it was just us :p) where there were a whole bunch of Momiji (maple) trees, all looking gloriously red at the back of the park.

So, packed with our cammies and Harisa(my little princess) off we went.

Boy, was it beautiful! I was blown away by the spectacular view I was seeing right in front of my eyes! And how come I never knew about it after almost 7 years living in Okayama??

To prove to you just how breathtaking the view was, here are some photos that we took that day

Masya-allah…cantik betul ciptaan Tuhan kan?

And that’s why I love autumn in Japan. Although it is no more, in my heart I know that I can look forward to my next autumn, insya-allah.

先月岡山にある半田山植物公園に行ってきました。今まで私が知らないとってもきれいな紅葉がいっぱいで、本当に素敵でした。
やっぱり秋ってきれいですね。私は秋チョー好きです。

残念たが、すっかり冬に入ってしまったけど、また来年の秋が来るまで、今こころの中の一つの楽しみが増えてました（＾＿＾）／