It's The Thought That Counts...

It's the thought that counts... that would not be so appropriate for this post. Should it be it's the heart that counts? I was decorating JH's cake for his friend of the opposite sex... AHEM... a normal friend he said... AHEM... I wasn't born yesterday. I will never make a cake, an ice-cream cake at that point, for a normal friend. I will bake cakes for abnormal friends, friends whom I love, friends who are dear to my heart, if I was 17. But as I remembered to the dot, at the age of 17, I have no skills to even cook instant noodles or make myself a cup of cold Milo let alone baking a cake. I'm baking now to brush up my skills...

I do have regrets teaching him how to make cakes. He's my student whom I taught Additional Maths and Modern Maths to and I wondered how both of us ended up searching for cake recipes. He baked the first cheesecake under my tutelage.... muahahahha and at that time, I haven't even started on my white chocolate cheesecake yet. So, indirectly he has given me the encouragement to take a bold step forward and make a 10-inch cake, from scratch, without any guidance from anyone. I just have a piece of printed recipe in my hand and with instructions that I couldn't understand at times. You know, I'm a quitter, that's what my hubby said I am... and indeed I am one. 

The first thing that I quit was finishing my piano until Grade 8. I'm one who relies heavily on my ability to sight-read. I realized that I can sight-read pretty well so any piano sheet that I couldn't play by sight-reading, I changed songs. The main reason why I quit was because I detest doing the Grade 6 theory. I loathe looking at it. I would memorize the whole revision book for History rather than trying to understand the theory. Thus, I quit. 

Back to decorating the cake, I only have two different types of gels for writing, a chocolate fudge writing pen and a white chocolate writing pen. When JH said the writings could either be in pink, purple or sky blue my face turned green. So I asked him the next day whether the words can be written in white which he asked why can't be coloured, I went speechless. Yesterday night after making the glaze which was suppose to be as easy as making Gracie's birthday cake because it was the same recipe, something went wrong with the glaze. It wasn't flowing as smoothly as how I did it the first time. Now, my face was turning purple and I dumped the whole cake back into the freezer as it was an ice-cream cake and it was threatening to leak from the bottom. I prepared the cream cheese icing, separated them into three bowls, mixed them with food dyes and got myself a few plastic bags where I smartly cut a small hole at the end corner of the bags. The first squeeze got the pinky creamcheese icing coming out from the little hole and the top. My hand got dirtied and I hate it when my hands were soiled. Instead of having either pink, sky blue or purple I made them all as I love colours and I love bright colours. The round icing to cover the flaw on the surface of the cake was a little bit dented as I turned the icing tube as I was doing it straight from the freezer. Oh, well... if you think it's ugly, you know people always have comments here and there like... yyyeeerrrrr, so ugly.... yyyyyeeeeerrrrrrr not nice... well, I can only say if you're so good and if you think you can be better than me, do it yourself then, no pun intended :o) 

I know I'm not a professional in decorating a cake or even baking a superlicious cake as I'm seriously not a professional. I have no one to teach me or to guide me. If I make mistakes, I will have to stand in the kitchen and face the failure on my own. I have no ideas in decorating as I have no cowsense in decorating. I have to wait for God to zap me with the ideas. I was a little impatient yesterday nite, I started sprinkling crushed walnuts and pinky sugar sparkles then the idea came. I should have just decorated the cake with the hearts. I couldn't repair the damage done or it would be just like 'tikus membaiki labu'. It's a Malay idiom and direct translation sounds like this, "Like the mice repairing the pumpkin". The more you try to repair the damage, the more damage you make. So, just let it be...


As the saying goes, 'It's the thought that counts'. As how I see it, it's the thought that counts, from a simple thought, something great comes out from the heart. It's the willingness of the heart that creates wonderful things for those whom we care about. I hope the lucky girl who got this cake would appreciate it. You can hardly find any guy who will make you a cake on your birthday.