End of an era, start of a new beginning

I rarely make wedding cakes unless the requested cake is structurally challenging or it's for really special people. I made a three-tier cake for Kyle and Stacy's wedding. It is a cherry blossom themed, golden chiffon cake with passion fruit buttercream as filling and frosting. The top and bottom tiers are filled with kiwi, while the middle one with mango.

The theme for my travels this year has been all about cherry blossom, so when they asked for a cherry blossom cake for their wedding, I didn't even think twice about it. On a personal note, I had been working for Kyle for 4 years now. That's 80% of my time at Tellme. I learned a lot from him and he is just an awesome boss. Nothing makes me happier to see him being so happy. The wedding cake is the least I can do for the lovely couple.

The cake is also a departing gift for Kyle since he's taking on a new opportunity at another company. The day when he and David left, I put on my happy face even though I was incredibly sad inside. People move on, learn new thing, explore, adapt to changes, challenge oneself to be better... isn't it what life is all about? So way to go, Kyle!

As to making the cake, home kitchen is not ideal. For better tasting, we decided against fondant, which means I needed to make 10kg of buttercream for filling and frosting. With a 6-qrt mixer, I had to divide and conquer, and ended up making it 7 times. The entire time I was worried that my mixer's gonna burn out. Thank goodness that it held its ground. When we had a heat wave in SF last week, I prayed that we have 60 degree weather on the wedding day; otherwise, the cake wouldn't be able to stand the heat, and we will have a blob instead. Again, we are lucky that we had 64 degree weather, sunny but cool. Many things could have gone wrong, but didn't. Cake delivery is usually more nerve wrecking than making the cake itself. Guess what, we had a very smooth ride today.

I always joke that on a wedding day, I am probably more nervous than the bride. I am both physically and mentally exhausted after 3 days of intense baking, mixing buttercream, and making flowers. But people love the cake and it is all worth it.

Cheers to the newly wed!

Baker's Time

Waking up at 4am, baker's time. Finally recovered from the grand opening of Honey + Tea combined with my birthday celebration. ~70 people attended the event and we received great feedback yet again.

Hany and I went all out this time. It took us a week to prepare for the event. We both work full time, so all the planning was done at night; and three days to bake. To maintain the freshness of the desserts, we have to assemble some items right before the event. It is a battle against time, physical tiredness, and mental stress. We pulled it together. Phew...

To recap, we made Vanilla Cream Puffs, Eclairs, Panna Cotta with Masala Blueberry sause, Fruit Tarlets, Lemon Meringue Tarlets, Cheesecake Pops, Matcha Macarons, Mango Macarons, Vanilla Creme Brulee, White Chocolate Raspberry Mousse, and Chocolate Indulgence (pictures to come). Hany also made a fabulous two-tier, vanilla passion fruit birthday cake. Being the baker and all, nobody had made me a cake before, so it was a truly special gift:) Thank you, honey!


It was wonderful to see so many familiar faces and reconnect with many people who I hadn't seen for a long while. It was a reunion of all sorts, friends from high school, college, work, and random strangers off the street. heheh. We had a blast. Other than being there for us, people generously supported us with "angel funding". Just yesterday, a friend of mine handed me a check even though she couldn't make it to the event. We are deeply touched and overwhelmed by everyone's support and kind words. At the end of the day, we are just happy that we get to add a bit sweetness to people's life. The smiles on people's faces make all the work worthwhile, make this journey worthwhile.

I know I said that I am glad that I only have one birthday a year. Well, guess what, three days after we recovered from sore arms and legs, we are in the process of planning the next Honey + Tea event. And this time, there will be tea :)

Soft Opening: Tasting and Survey

We hosted our first dessert tasting event last Sunday! So exciting!

The main purpose of this event was to introduce our name: Honey + Tea, and to get feedback from our friends. We prepared a total of ten different items.




I, personally, found it quite challenging to bake these things in my home kitchen since my oven is so small! It took quite a long time to bake some of these sweets. But in the end, it was all worth it.

We received many useful and constructive feedback, so thanks to those who participated. We hope you enjoyed the evening as much as we did :-).