A TRULY REMARKABLE WOMAN

A kiss for baby Anne 2 - a painting by Mary Cassalt

It was like a Pasadena Flower Parade but without the flowers. Wheelchairs rolled down the aisle through the ballroom of the PJ Hilton, one behind the other. It was quite a sight. We all turned and smiled. Most of us stood up and some reached out with kisses and hugs.

There were probably about fifteen of them (maybe more) but each wheelchair carried an octogenarian mama, each woman a great grandmother, a grandmother and a mother, all seated and looking quite sublime, their wheelchairs pushed by their smiling and younger relations.

I looked at them and they reminded me of once great admirals or generals who have fought great wars, engaged in minor battles, who have made difficult, deathly and risky decisions, who have lead unwaveringly, who have toiled with their men in blood and sweat, who have witnessed the pain and suffering of their men and have been admirals and generals who would have gone down with their ships or with their men without second thoughts. I imagined the string of medals or of the Seri Pahlawan Gagah Perkasa Award (the Malaysian equivalent of the Victoria Cross or Medal of Honour) that they must have earned for extreme bravery, courage and sacrifice - had they been serving their country in the the armed forces or the navy. Had they been Generals or Admirals.

This afternoon's book launch was for a book by Kalsom Taib written as a tribute to her mother, 90 year old Zainab Ahmad, "A truly Remarkable Woman". The event was attended by mostly women who were grandmothers, mothers and daughters in their own right. I think we were all buzzing and agreeing on a woman's worth.

As women, we have always known that women need women. And the book was a woman's salutation to the greatest woman in her life whose contribution as a full time wife, mother and repository for her family's physical and emotional needs has been fully recognized, appreciated and given due honour and award. She must have been a truly remarkable woman to have been bestowed with that recognition from her daughter in the full glare of public light.

The reason for attendance was good, the music (Ghazal) was good, the company was good and the food was surprisingly ok good, not excellent but ok good (I have never much looked forward to mass produced function food). But this time around it was pretty good - considering.

This time motherhood and the role of a housewife was being celebrated, recognized, upheld and appreciated. It is a difficult and time consuming job and with the emotional strings attached it makes it one of the most highly strung and volatile undertaking that can be quite hard to bear. Sometimes.

So this is a tribute to a woman who has simply been a good wife and mother in the eyes of her daughter. Nothing more, nothing less. This is not about a woman who has climbed the highest mountain, sailed solo around the world, who has achieved a scientific breakthrough or who has tried to do what men do. It is about being a wife and mother.

I believe it's about selflessness, about sacrifice, about walking the fine lines between between caring and fussing, between concern and prying, between pain and joy. It's about the the future they have put down for the future of others, the dreams they have pushed aside to dream for others and the glory they share should those they love be glorified.

But this time around She was glorified.

MY CAKE DECORATING CHALLENGE - PART THREE

Where would the world be without flowers? And where would the world be without colours and to think that there are even more shades, hue, tints, tones, more selective reflections, more prisms of broken light...more colours out there than the human eye could ever perceive, sense and soak in is painfully unimaginable. I thank God for colours and for flowers and for birds and for corals and for all those gorgeously swathed tropical fish in coral reefs of every indescribable hue. If I could live in a coral reef with all those divinely coloured creatures of the sea I would. If I could grow with all those flowers in a field under an open sky I would. If I could fly with all those brilliantly cloaked birds in a tropical canopy of paradise I would and if I could perceive those colours that we cannot see it would complete me. But if only I could.



I don't believe in ugly colours for every colour conceived is a blessing. But there can be an ugly combination of colours. And it is these that spoil my day. They so spoil my day that I would sit and suffer until I realise the perfect combination, until the colours come together to make a pleasant and refreshing sight, until all tones balance each other out and nothing sticks out like a sore thumb, until the green is the perfect hue of green that was hiding in my head. And that was what I did today. I sat and suffered.



And yet I haven't got it quite right. But nevertheless....I shall display my effort for tomorrow is yet another day.


The yellow green of those little flowers were a tone too bright I thought. A little too light and too lively for what I had in mind. Subtle, subdued, muted and romantic shades are what I am aiming to create and so I mixed another batch of royal icing yet again and am in the midst of piping flowers yet again.


Once I get the colours right, the types and combination of flowers will be my next important consideration, the accents I should use, the background and finally the arrangement of the whole. I have a whole month to ponder, to progress or to regress but most important of all I am enjoying it. The pain, the pleasure and the bewilderment makes it a strangely satisfying way to suffer in joy.

Here's the recipe for royal icing.................

3 egg whites
about 675 gm icicng sugar
2 - 3 tbsp strained lemon juice
1 - 1 1/2 tsp glycerin (optional)

Royal icing can be made in any quantity as long as you allow 1 egg white to each 8 oz icing sugar. While using icing cover bowl with damp cloth to prevent a crust from forming. For making the flowers I used only one third of the recipe with no glycerin and no lemon juice. Glycerin helps to soften teh icing for coating a cake so since I was making flowers I did not need the softening agent.

Beat egg whites until frothy, then gradually beat in half the sugar using a wooden spoon. A mixer can be used but it creates too much air pockets which will be hard to remove and interferes with the piping of flowers. Add the lemon juice and glycerin at this point if using and then gradually beat in remaining icing sugar until the mixture stands in soft peaks. Keep icing in an airtight container or cover the bowl with a damp cloth for several hours to allow most of the air bubble to be released if you are icing a cake.

For piping the flowers I used it immediately and a Wilton 101 petal nozzle.

MY CAKE DECORATING CHALLENGE ..PART TWO

It has been more than a week since I have made an entry. That's because I have been spending most of the time kneading colours into fondant which as always seems to take forever. And each time I have gotten the colour kneaded in evenly I found that it needed just a touch more. I then start the kneading all over again with the additional pin drop of colour punctured into the ball of fondant. And by the time that was done and the colour had evened out again I then realise that I much prefer the previous shade. It has been completely maddening. For those of you who have worked with fondant you know how painful that is.

And if you have had to keep the ball of fondant overnight (tightly wrapped) because you haven't the time to finish it all off you know that you will end up with a ball of fondant that is rock hard and with which you could effortlessly maim that ear piercing surat khabar lama man (old newspaper collecting man) who revvs by your house about 5 times a day and shrieks like a banshee in the stupor inducing hum of the afternoon for a few deafening minutes each time.

I have also made countless successive trips to the baking supply store, The Cake Connection, at One Jaya which is the only store that sells a small range of Wilton colours and a good variety of sugar paste flowers that makes me stop and wonder why I bother making my own.

But make my own I must. As a matter of fact, I have requested my daughter to get me some more food colours and mail them to me from the US. I have also requested her to get me some maple leaf and other strange looking leaves gum paste cutters in the smallest size so thatI could attempt(note: I said attempt) to make a Martha Stewart wedding cake like this..........



Isn't it lovely, pretty and whimsical!!!!! I soooo love it and so does my sis in law.

Although I will only be making a single (1 level) cake (not 3 tiered) and that the design looks easy enough I just discovered yesterday that I would not be able to make it because my daughter has not been able to get hold of the leaf cutters. Getting them online is an option but it is not one that I am willing to make at the moment. But isn't the cake just adorable? sigh...

I have made some fondant roses though and although my first ones after a long hiatus were exceedingly short of spectacular all in all they weren't too bad. I still can't get the colours right...I am going through a 'I-don't-know-what-colour-I-really-want-exactly-but-I'll-know-when-I-see-it' phase and is something that I simply have to shake off if I still want slender/weak/wimpy wrists. Hulk Hogan I am not and have no intention to be. I see a long and winding road ahead and the pin of light at the end of the tunnel is no where in sight.



Do you like the colours?


I have no idea what the cake might look like because I still have a month to have a long drawn discussion with myself (my sis in law has been so kind and has left the decision making to me although, like me, she does love the Martha Stewart cake above). I know that I will use roses and some other tiny flowers in a combination of three colours............. perhaps like so.....


What do you think?

MY CAKE DECORATNG CHALLENGE

Another dear nephew is getting married next month and I had agreed (out of a flash of foolhardiness) to make his wedding/hantaran/'wedding gift' cake. And I'm bracing myself just so I don't crack into a million pieces and drop to the floor in smithereens from panic attacks. Having said that I do, however, hope to pull it off and emerge with a gaspingly, breathtakingly and cardiac arrestingly beautiful cake that will finally put my name up in lights for the rest of my life.....even if those are lights that glimmer pathetically at a mere 10 watts within the confines of home and family.

So......... colour smeared fingers, sugar crusted hair, perplexed-to-be husband and slappy happy ants here I come.

Which means, dear freinds, for the next few posts, I'll be updating you of my struggle, of my revisits to my long abandoned cake decorating tools and in all likelihood of my irregular heartbeats, of my blood, of my sweat and of my tears.

Just last night I cajoled and patted my dusty, whining tool box from under the shelf, fingered the tools inside, widened my eyes in horror at all those confounding utensils, dug feverishly around for my cake decorating books, stacked them up by my laptop and cudgled my brains so that I went into a cake decorating mode. So I think I might be ready.

And this morning I'm going to the bakery supply store to get 2 tons of icing powder, some Wilton food colours, some round styrofoams to use as cake dummies for practicing, some liquid glucose, some shortening and some gelatine. I'm off .........Will be back soon..

Hi ! I'm back. Got them food colours, two styrofoam dummies, searched the disorganized store for the other ingredients, knitted my eyebrows at the clueless attendants but finally managed to get the rest of the things inspite of them. My fingers are itching, my temperature's rising, my pupils are dilating and I can't wait to sweep everything out of my way so I get down to serious business.

These are my cake decorating bibles that I cling on to for dear life..


If you would like to play/work along with me here's the recipe for the gelatin icing for the sugar paste flowers. It's from "The Icing On The Cake" book. This is what I have always used to make roses, primroses, leaves, figurines, clown noses, tulips, alley cats, violets, impatients, forget-me-nots and some disasters.

Gelatin Icing/Modelling Icing/Sugar Paste
500 gm icing sugar
1/2 oz or 12. 5 gm gelatin powder
4 Tbsp (60 ml) water
2 tsp (10 ml) liquid glucose
cornflour

Put water in a heatproof bowl. Sprinkle gelatin into the water and let it soak for 2 mimutes. Place the bowl over a pan with 1/2 inch of water and set on the stove. Heat gently until gelatin dissolves. Remove from heat and stir in the liquid glucose. Allow to cool for 2 minutes. Turn the mixture into the bowl containing icing sugar and mix in. If the mixture seems wet add alittle more icing sugar. Add sufficient cornflour to allow the icing to be worked like bread dough. The finished icing should no tbe sticky. Wrap in cling film and place in an airtight container until ready to use.

This is the fondant/sugar paste that I have made with the recipe above and which I have coloured pink just for a trial run. I will be buying more colours tomorrow to experiment and until I decide on the perfect combination.


And these are the tools that I will be using......



And this is my plan...........well, 2 plans. Plan 1 is to decorate cake A and plan 2 is to decorate cake B... if cake A is ugly.