2012

Happy New Year!

2011 has come and gone quickly but it has been an exciting year for Quintbelles.  Adjusting to our cake schedule took some bit of an effort but we tried and accommodated orders as often as we can.  2012 is going to be so much fun! Looking forward to a better and brighter year! :)

Drop by our blog for updates!

Who's Gonna Do Your Cake

So between the last post and today, many things happened!

I'm getting married! Can you believe it?   I've told everyone about it and after a few moments I get asked..."Who's gonna do your cake?"

Really a tough question. As you know, we do not employ staff to bake and decorate cakes. We do them ourselves.  And so, the question now is, do I want to spend a few days before the wedding covering cakes with fondant?

I don't know if we can do it but our coordinator, Jody, said if I don't, then I might regret it for the rest of my life. By the way, this was the clincher that me sign up with her!

So this is it, we are doing my cake! We'll sketch the cake and post a photo!

Threadcakes Contest

Have you heard about Threadless?  It's an apparel store that sells shirts designed by a online community and voted on by the public.  The creators of the winning designs receive a cash prize and store credit-- of course, bragging rights come with it as well. 

To make things more fun for the fans (say that ten times!),  Chris Cardinal hosted a cake contest based on Threadless shirt designs.  Threadless and other sponsors donate prizes!  And the amazing part is famous cakers judge the entries! Nicole of Baking Bites, Jen of Cakewrecks, Mary Alice of Charm City Cakes and Bakerella of the cakepops fame.  Fun, right? 

Smart Parenting Feature

Smart Parenting featured Quintbelles (and Elaine Shih) on their SP Momtrepreneurs:

For the full interview, please visit the site.

Her business idea: Quintbelles Celebration Cakes makes customized cakes for any occasion.  We customize based on a theme, a specific design or a character.  We use homemade style of baking which gives the cake the distinct flavour and personal touch to ensure that no detail is overlooked. 

How she started: I learned how to bake along with my sisters when we were still in school. One summer, we were feeling adventurous and decided to try to bake a cake. That started a hobby that turned into a passion. When my sisters and I made my wedding cake, we decided to put up a business. Quintbelles was born. The name “Quintbelles” came from “5 sisters” to represent our common love for baking. 

Her future plans: I want our business to grow at a gradual pace and eventually put up a store. To prepare for this eventuality, I want to continuously master my craft by refining my techniques in cake design. 

Work-life balance: Prioritization is key. It’s really difficult to balance family and career. I used to be part of the corporate world while Quintbelles was in its infancy but decided to            do my business full-time two years ago. Although I really love to bake cakes, family time is very important for me.  That is why I do not accept a large number of orders. 

My husband is also a great help in taking care of our son especially when I am busy with baking. My son is my greatest fan! He even markets our products to his classmates and their moms. 

Memorable Cake: I baked a huge choo-choo train cake filled with candies for my son’s first birthday. It was a big hit! 

Tips for Mompreneurs: We should remember to allot time for ourselves.  I believe a happy mom makes a happy home. Take some time off once in a while to relax and unwind.

Steve and Sheila's Chinese Themed Everything

It's fun when you meet a couple preparing to get married-- they'll all excited and giddy (Just the way it should be!) :D So when Steve and Sheila contacted Atch Elaine, we were as excited and giddy as they were.  


The theme (at least for cakes) is Chinese! 


As dictated by tradition, Engagement Cakes should come in pairs, one smaller than the other with 喜喜 somewhere in the cake.  Some time in the middle of the ceremony, the groom replaces the cakes inside the boxes.  He will carry the cake with bride's name and his wingman will bring the other cake. They will ride/walk around the house or restaurant carrying both cakes.  Some say twice!  In any case, the point is that going around means unending relationship of the couple.  He leaves the cake with the brides name for his family and brings the cake with his name to give to the family of the bride.  Cake swap, yes!


They liked the cake so much that they decided to order their wedding cake from us, too! 


We tried to make the cake as simple as possible.  Knowing that the location was going to be huge, we upgraded their ordered size to something bigger. Shhh, don't announce that we do that-- everyone might want to order something smaller and hope for a freebie upsize! 

Mocha cake! 

The kokeshi dolls. You can customize these! 

To keep with the chinese theme, we piped their names and surnames in gold coins liked Huangti of the past.  We also made coins that are used to greet the couple.  

Basically means love one another 

May you stay together for 100 years! 

We wish Steve and Sheila many decades of happy marriage! 

Bong's Boxing Gloves Cake

I've never been much of a boxing fan-- but, Manny Pacman Pacquiao surely makes every Filipino proud when he is inside the ring (yes, only when inside--outside of it is a different matter altogether).

Ms. Pia emailed Quintbelles for a cake -- she's organizing a surprise boxing themed birthday party for her hubby's 40th.  We thought instead of the normal boxing ring cake (which is actually easier to do), we'd make a pair of boxing gloves.

We haven't done that before so we researched (read: google) boxing gloves.  Her requirement was to make the cake red and it has to have a towel with his name on it.  It has to be a 3D cake and as close to the real size as possible.

3-1/2 batches of chocolate cake was used to make the cake. 

Would you say it looks close enough like a real set?  Maybe one day I can take up the sports -- for now this cake is as close as I get to boxing.

Sometimes, my sister would ask us to do cakes for her.  This rarely happens though because she knows how full our cake schedule is.  So we know that when she asks, she really wants the cake--

This time was for the special merienda for her previous manager.  Her manager uses this gigantic calculator so they decided that it'll be a perfect gag cake!

 

So they presented her with this:

We're glad that she's grinning like her miniature gumpaste model!   

Star Wars

One lazy afternoon, I figured a Star Wars 6 movie marathon would be famazing! So I immersed myself in Obiwan, Anakin, Luke and Han Solo for a day.  Since this is, after all, a caking site, what would be more fun than to scroll for some wonderful Star Wars Geekery (Geek Cakery).

Master Yoda

One of my favorite lines in the movie is from Yoda:  "Do or do not. There is no try."  

R2D2

Death Star

Star Wars Cupcakes

What other geeky cakes have you seen?  Leave a link! :) May the force be with you! 

Edit: oh, found out that it's Geek Pride Day today (May 25)! How serendipitous, yes?

Read about it on wikipedia.  

Filipina HomeBakers Online Celebrates Its 3rd Year

We joined FHO three years ago when we saw the short invitation Nikka (founding member) posted on www.dessertcomesfirst.com.  


Nikka and PJ formed a multiply-based group because of the "need to share our love for baking with fellow bakers."  And there has been a lot of sharing!  Expect to learn tips on baking, suppliers, and even recipes! Ask a question and someone will have an answer.  If you have a difficult cake inquiry, fellow FHOers will be able to help you estimate costs.  Frustrated? You can rant and someone will surely be able to relate.  But, FHO is more than just be a baking site--FHO is a virtual home where long-standing relationships and great friendships are formed.


FHO is celebrating it's 3rd year anniversary this month!  It will sure be fun to attend the meet-up!  


Click here to know how to join FHO.

Below is the feature on Quintbelles.  Original post is here.

Name/s: Elaine Shih & Val Choa
Online HomeBakeshop: quintbelles.multiply.com
Status: Married with one kid /  Single
Profession: Finance / Marketing
Location:  QC
Baking Level: amateur
Years Baking: more than 10 years

How did you go into baking?

Elaine: Baking started out as a hobby that we would do during school breaks.  We tried all sorts of recipes—ice cream, cookies, cakes, brownies, chocolate truffles.  Then we started giving away Food for the Gods for Christmas.  After that, some of our relatives started ordering.  This inspired us to try out other things. Friends who know that we bake cakes ordered from us.  Our first wedding cake was for a friend...  We even made my wedding cake  ---  a five-tiered orange themed cake

What was your first baking experience and how did it go?

Elaine:  Lifestyle Channel was not yet shown on tv-- we didn't even know how to beat egg whites into soft peaks since none of us were taking baking classes. With no formal baking lessons, we made salty cookies, uneven one sided cakes (this was before whimsical cakes were in fashion!) burnt cakes, we had watery icings, tough pie crusts... every mistake you can think of...

Val:  One time, I think we were trying to make ice cream cake with chiffon-- I'm not too sure if its really ice cream and chiffon-- I clearly remember that I used salted butter then followed the recipe to a T and added the required salt... this is buried in the recesses of my mind kasi sobrang embarrassing.  Come to think of it, chiffon and ice cream don't require use of butter, 'no? Our parents still tried to eat it but we all agreed to throw it away after a bite :))  After that, we continued to experiment and learn from our mistakes. And let me tell you, there were plenty! 

Quintbelles. I get the "belle" part, but why is it Quint? How did you decide on this name?

Elaine: I always joke that I started Quintbelles.  Actually, each one of us would claim this.  We're five sisters in the family so when we were trying to come up with a name, we chose Quintbelles for 5 girls. 

Val:  Quint means five. The need for a name only came up when we started to sell cakes and pastries and by that time, 5 of us sisters were helping out in this hobby/business.   If you actually ask each of us the background to our name, you will get 5 versions! hahaha!  Everybody is claiming they came up with this...so I guess we can say that we naturally agreed to this name. 

But here's the official story, as I tell it—hahaha!  Quintbelles started with one belle--me! As cake orders got bigger and taller, I realized I needed help and recruited my two younger sisters to help. My two other sisters started helping too-- each of us having specific functions.  But now, its just me and Elaine -- her being the multitasker superwoman manager!  One sister is currently working abroad.  Another sister is busy with her job in a multinational company and the other one has CTS so she's just the cheerer. Since we are a loving family, anytime the other sisters are interested to work in Quintbelles, they will be welcomed with open arms. 

Hazel (one of our sisters): Ako nga nakaisip ng "Quintbelles"…

How and when did your online bakeshop start?

Elaine:  Based on our site, we started in October 2006 but I think started selling in 1999.  But really, the online bakeshop presented itself to us.  Our idea was to just showcase our cakes.  During the first couple of years of baking, we had huge (wedding) albums to showcase our cakes and creations which we lug along to meet with potential clients, mostly brides and grooms.  Later on, since we found updating those albums tedious and expensive, we started using phlog to post our latest cakes on the web.   We also started to join exhibits and they keep asking for a website, so we figured we need a better way to post photos and something people will easily remember—our phlog had a long url.   After some researching, we finally chose multiply because it was easier to post photos!   We've always wanted a dotcom but then multiply works for us as is. 

  

You have such beautiful creations. How did you learn to make these? Did you go to school for it or is it all self-taught? 

Val:  Thank you for saying that!  We mostly learned through experience.  The first few cakes we made were tiered cakes.  Then one inspired day, we made this bathtub cake for a bridal shower party my sister was attending.  Then around Christmas time, we decided to make Santa bags for our relatives.  We made tiny candycanes, and giftitems to put inside the bag.   There are many books and websites to learn from-- and a group like ours (FHO) is a fantastic way to share knowledge and know-hows. 

Elaine:  Only the youngest belle has an HRM degree and she concentrated on cooking rather than baking.  The rest of us have finance, management or engineering degrees.  We would take short baking or decorating lessons and share at home.  The rest is practice and research thru web or baking shows.  We are also appreciative of our clients who leave us an open hand to decorate and design their cake.  Sometimes designs just hit you in the head, you never know!

You've had the chance to be featured in the media. Tell us what these special citations are and how does it feel being shown there for all the Filipinos and even the world to see...

Val:  Our first time to be interviewed was in Shoptalk with Pia Hontiveros!  We were super nervous and super excited.  Sabay!!  We were asked to bring cakes that we want to showcase.  We still wonder where they found us because we're really just home-based and we rarely advertised.  But nevertheless, we made cakes that we like the most...and just wish we won't end up bulol on TV!  Once we got to the set, they were surprised that we made a picnic cake with their logo!  Pia was very nice and then commented that we laugh very loudly :))  Elaine's hubby and our elder sister were there to support us (and take pictures and videos!)...and then when we got home, our parents watched the bootleg video many many times...we texted everyone we know and asked them to watch the replay that night...

The other media exposure is the Workingmom Magazine.  The contributing writer contacted us and asked if we would like to make them a cake for their article.  Originally, she wanted a picnic cake too but later on changed it to a sailboat cake for a girl.  We actually didn't think it will be an article -- just a small feature on homebakers.  But whoa, when we saw the magazine, we were super happy!  We actually had a scheduled cake order that week so we couldn't deliver on site anymore.
 

I'm not too sure if we are allowed to say (but we do it anyway!) -- the cupcakes you see on Lifestyle Channel station ID is ours!  A friend of a friend was styling for the show and normally they'd bake their own for the production but during the week they were shooting, their oven needed to be fixed so they just requested that we bake for them!  We are super thrilled even if we're the only ones who know that those are our cupcakes hahaha...

Quintbelles comes up with fun promos every now and then, among them the cupcake decorating activity and the photo contest on clients eating cakes... How do you come up with these interesting pakulos and how do your clients respond to them? :) 

Val:  We've been doing this for a couple of years and with more and more bakers in the market, we wanted to be able to come up with new things to keep Quintbelles interesting.  Sometimes, the ideas come from clients. Sometimes, we come up with our own crazy ones.  Our favorite clients are the ones who push the envelope and challenge our abilities.  They'd tell us their theme and then ask us what we can do!

Elaine:  We enjoy talking to mommies who want customized cakes for their kids! Some of our clients are the ones who really take the time and think of the things that show the personality of the celebrator.  We have a client who once ordered a golf course inspired cake but with farm animals—chickens, pigs and even fishes!

Val:  Honestly, the photo contest came about because we don't have photos of some of the cakes we've created because either we were super rushed or we forgot to take photos!  Hahaha!  We figured that our customers would most likely have them so we encourage them to send the photos to us, so...we came up with the contest! 

Elaine:  Cupcake decorating activity was introduced as we see this as a venue for kids to create their own during parties.  We noticed that most interactive booths for parties were into arts and crafts or food, so we thought of mixing both and came up with this.

What do you think is your specialty from the many cakes/pastries you've already baked?

Elaine:  Our special designs includes the Letter block cake design, bubble bath cakes, the Choo-choo train design, the picnic cakes and the Disney float design.

When you are not baking for others, what do you like baking and eating for yourself?

Val:  I love cookies! Chocolate chip cookies. Chocolate chip cookies with nuts. Double chips chocolate chip cookies.  Cookies cookies cookies.  We don't sell much of these though.

Elaine: I don't!  There are a lot of homebakers out there, so we try them out once in a while.  My son Keaton loves our chocolate cake with icing.  Sometimes just the icing! :) 

What are your near or distant plans for Quintbelles?

Elaine:  At the core of Quintbelles is a family.  And that's what we want to bring to the market-- we want other families (be it nuclear family, friends or officemates) to enjoy their parties with a Quintbelles cake.  And that's what we want more of—more cakes to make more people happy!

We also want guestings on TV (like FHO!).  Hahaha!!

What are the challenges of being a homebaker?

Val:  Deliveries and meet ups!  It's sometimes hard when people expect that you can deliver to them whenever they want.  We have full-time jobs and bake only at nights.  Sometimes, we'd get calls asking where our shop is and if they can drop by because they want to pick up cakes.  We have to explain that we customize cakes and bake only by request. 

Elaine:  Limited time!  Major challenge for us is time-management.  Since we only do this at nights, sometimes we really are pressed for time specially if it's a big order.  It's sometimes hard to take a vacation or even an out-of-town trip. Of course, I have to balance home life, work life and baking life.

Baking Tips you can share with fellow FHO members?

Elaine:  Don't forget the timer!  Make sure you're stocked up on ingredients!  Practice makes perfect!  Dream big coz you never know!

Adrianna's First

Farm Cake

Farm cakes are fun to make.

Adrianna was going to celebrate her first birthday at TOSH UP Technohub.  (A sidenote: I didn't know where TOSH UP is originally.  I google-d it and found out that it's The Old Spaghetti House at U.P. Technohub!)  

Adrianna recognizes animals so Mommy Mai thought it would be amazing if her cake is made of farm animals.  I tried to place all the animals in given the small space available.  The cake is 6x6 and 10x6.  Carrot walnut on the second layer.  

There are ducks all over the cake, pigs, cow, cat, dog, monkey, chicken and sheep.  I wanted to put in butterfly and ladybug but forgot about it! 

We also put in some fluffy clouds! 

The candle in the middle is wrapped in gumpaste and decorated with little flowers :) 

Cake Topper of Chicken, Ducks, Pig, Sheep

Because she recognizes monkeys

Little Sheep

Piggies from behind

I love how the tree came out.  Three shades of leaves with three little leaves falling out and a very small heart shaped apple on the side.  If you look closely, i placed a woodcarving on the trunk of the tree (for Mommy and Daddy.)

Tree and Cow

We'd love to hear what you think about this cake.  Drop us a line :) 

More photos here.

Ace of Cakes

There are a lot of good decorators in the world. Famous on their own right. One of my favorites is Duff Goldman. He's a badass decorator-- lights, digital frames, rotating parts, fireworks! He does them all. Besides his own reality tv show, he also has his own line of decorating stuff and book (thanks, Joe!). They also have Cakes for Two (actually for 15!).


The best thing about him (and his show), is that as a decorator, we can relate to his "issues". One example was when he had to do horizontal designs on a cake and he's been wondering how to hide the ends of each line! I've always wondered about those and guess what, he doesn't know either. So, do you know what he did? He called up Collete Peters (another institutional name!) and asked what to do with that bit. Surprisingly, Ms. Peters told him there's gonna be that annoying imperfection and just put it on the back! How cool is that! Photographic sides are the norm! :)

You know how we prefer not to do mini cakes? His crew doesn't like doing them too! It's soooo difficult to make them! Regardless of the size, the effort to do one regular 8" cake is the same as doing a 3" cake.

Ace of Cakes makes me feel assured that we are doing things right! Too bad, they're ending the series. They are, however, opening an East Coast branch (yey for them)!

Charm City Cakes
http://www.charmcitycakes.com/

Icing Colors

When we were starting to decorate cakes, we use Wilton Gel to color fondant and gumpaste. The gel containers come in 1/2 ounce and 1 ounce. It was great and they even teach you how to mix up colors.



However, one issue we had is that our resulting cakes are pastel-y. Unfortunately, this is not always desirable. Granted that it may be because we didn't use enough gel, it was a bit difficult to use different sticks every single time to avoid contamination. We tried using Chefmaster, too, with the same results.





Finally, Americolor came into the picture. With it's fliptop bottles, we found it so much easier to use than the bottles. Just a little squirt goes a long way!



Since it was easier to color fondant and gumpaste, our cake colors became bolder and deeper. Reds are really red, blacks are really black!



We are sure that Wilton, Chefmaster and Americolor are all good brands but we think Americolor comes out as the winner just by its packaging! :)

We plan to conduct a comparative experiment on all three brands one time! Watch out for that! :)

The Woodlands

Od has been a Quintbelles customer multiple times already and it's always a joy when she orders. She usually let us know her budget, her theme and an idea of what she's interested in (birthday cake, cookies, or mini cakes). Her youngest celebrated his first birthday recently and they threw a party in 8 Waves Hotel in Bulacan.

Her theme for this part is the woodlands. We had a couple of ideas for the main cake but what we knew for sure was we're going to make the cake 3D! The problem though is the party is 1.5hrs from Manila and the cake has definitely got to withstand the transport bumps and breaks. We finally decided on a 3D owl! :)


The Cake

Surely an Od party needs more than just a spectacular cake! So we set up a woodlands background from cupcakes. Each cupcake has a two-dimension topper based on Joachim's party decorations.

If you look closer, there are Woodland Mushrooms sprouting all over. My mom said that red and white mushrooms are poisonous but these are totally edible because inside are chocolate kisses with almonds! Covered in red gumpaste and piped with white royal icing. The stems are then made out of gumpaste.

Owls. Squirrels. Trees. Frogs. Turtles. Nuts.

Setup of cupcakes.

To make the set up complete, we made 3 bird houses in 3 different colors!

The cake set up was a hit! Yey!

Why We Bake Cakes

I don't know how many cake decorators there are in the country but there are about 45 members in Filipina Homebakers Online -- a group that fosters camaraderie of Filipina bakers. Sometimes, I wonder why we'd bother with the long hours, sticky and tired hands, the washing of a mountain pans and stuff,and the increasing prices of ingredients. Really, these are just some of the issues we deal with. Cake decorating isn't always as fun as they show in Ace of Cakes.

At 2am, while still working on a cake that I would have to deliver in 6 hours time, I continue to wonder if it's all worth it. Sleep? Maybe just nap. The cleaning? Those can't wait, you know...'Coz the icing will harden, then, it'll take even longer to wash off.

So why do we bake cakes? I think all the downside are overshadowed by one fact: we will be part of a special event. It could be a monthsary, the baptismal of the 4th child, or her job promotion. We may not know the celebrator, we may never ever meet them but one thing's for sure-- we would be on one of the photos they will take. The cakes we make get to be a star even for a few minutes. We spend multiple hours on a cake, and it'll be a quick birthday song but we still think it's 10 hours well spent. We may not even be recognize by the celebrator, but if for one moment, the cake made them happy-- that's all that matters to us.

And sometimes, what's amazing is you get to do a wedding cake and a 50th wedding anniversary cake on the same weekend!

To celebrate the beginning of their lives together.

To celebrate their 50 years together.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23893156@N07/

So if you ask me why we bake cakes, I'll show you the photo above and say, that and everything that happens in between.

Christmas Cakes

Merry Christmas to you and your family!

Christmas is always a busy time for homebakers like us. Sugary confections abound this time of the year with boxes and boxes of cookies, bars, and cakes!

Quintbelles specializes on baking Food for the Gods and cupcakes but sometimes, there will be special orders-- like Christmas Gift Boxes and the Santa Gift Bags (pictured above).

These colorful creations are covered and decorated in fondant and gumpaste.

What's your favorite confection this year? Leave us a comment :)

Iron Man Cupcakes

Did you watch Iron Man? It's Ravi's favorite character!

Each cupcake topper was designed by hand because there's no cutter for Iron Man. We started by doing the red base first then put in eyes followed by the gold mask.

36 chocolate Iron Man cupcakes

The 3D head was a lot harder to make. Made out of cake, we carved the shape of the head then covered it with red fondant. Another layer of fondant with eyes cut out was place on the front side. Accents were done and then finally, the front face was painted in gold.

Do you like this cake? Let us know! :)