Despite certain pain in the process I enjoyed doing this cake because it's full of blessings. The whole cake is full of Rina's blessings and well wishes. What more can a man ask for? 8-)
Why emperor theme? Rina said the darling husband is like an emperor ;o)
The blessings, 寿，福，安，康，健，爱，喜，乐，满，祥，财，万，运 were hand-piped and painted with pearl gold dust. Thanks to my calligraphy training during primary school days. By the way, my pieces got onto the notice board of the school often, hei...hei...hei...
Back to the blessings, hope I remember all of them because I'm still a bit heavy headed from lack of sleep and muscle fatigue. I worked till 12am yesterday :-(
The Chinese characters in English: longevity, blessings, prosperity, health, peace, happiness, joy, fullness, luck, fortune, wholeness.....totaled 12?...anyway, you won't get exact number in English because Chinese words are very profound, hehe....)
The gold bars, 'yuen bao' (olden days Chinese money), jewels, ginsengs on the top tier symbolizes fortune and health. The red hearts sticking out behind symbolizes love. The kids playing on the second tier symbolizes posterity. In short, lucky Jeremy is blessed with success in all areas of his life =D
Maybe some of you are more familiar with these:
福如东海，寿比南山，万事如意，财运亨通，子孙满堂， 乐福安康。。。ai yoh, rusty already...perhaps you know more, hehe.....
Customer's feedback:
My husband and friends commented that the cake decoration is fabulous and in fact, my husband had difficulty on deciding where to cut the cake so as not to spoil the cake decoration. Everyone had a good laugh and enjoyed the cake decoration. The cake cutting session took as long as 45 mins, everyone liked the idea of the symbols of each of the figurine which i had explained to them. So many photos were taken !!
As for the base cake, taste and texture can be improved better. I don't really know what this means as there's no further elaboration. I take it as taste being subjective as there were also good comments from other customers on this Lemon Cake.
This is the painful part. I spent more than half hour to try to put the empress' lips on the emperor's cheek but ended up having to repair his left ear which kept coming between her lips and his cheek, and...it kept dropping off. In the process I also had to repair the empress' head and neck so many times....ghrrr....wait ah wait...Your Highness, the empress is getting near...her lips will land on your cheek tonight, haha....
Next pain, the 'cake' was too heavy for her 'dainty' hand. It kept drooping down :-(
In front of the little girl is the 'sou tou' which symbolizes longevity.
Kids playing, symbolizing the family will be filled with kids' laughter and joy. Also, this tier is splashed with birds and little flowers which symbolize life.
Gingseng: symbol of good health (at least for this cake la.....haha....)
I really like the this cake and enjoyed so much in making it. Thank you Rina for letting me do this cake and thank you so much for your confident in me throughout the process.
3-recipes Lemon Cake carved down to 2 recipes. Just nice after a full course Chinese dinner.
P/S: RED is Jeremy's favorite color.
