The story behind my brother's 'Hantaran' cake

This cake is not that easy to make you know! We went through a lot of unfortunate events to finish this cake. The story is like this...

12.11.2010, Friday 8:15 a.m.
My brother, eldest sister and husband, my eldest male cousin - Abg Abu and son, my uncle and aunt and another close cousin depart from Kluang, Johor to Pekan, Pahang for my brother's solemnization ceremony after Friday prayer. While I, after finishing a wedding cake for a friend has to undergo haemodialysis for 3 and 1/2 hr before I can join my family in Pekan and the best part was we haven't finish decorating the Hantaran cake and 'sirih junjung'!

12.11.2010, Friday 12:00 p.m.
I came back from haemodialysis centre and get ready for my journey to Pekan. My sis has to catch up some sleep since she slept only around 3 hrs that night and has to drive for another 4 hrs after that. She prayed and had her lunch around 1:30 p.m. and we (my sis, a cousin and I) depart from Kluang at about 2:30 pm.
During the journey I asked my sis, "have you brought the pink flowers we bought in Bake With Yen?" My sis said, "Hah! What's that for?" and there goes our plan to make our life easier! So, when we were in Pekan, we have to find some tools to make fondant flowers for the Hantaran cake!

12.11.2010, Friday 6:30 p.m.
We arrived in Pekan, went straight to the bride's a.k.a. 'new sister-in-law' for wedding dress fitting.We ordered a new wedding dress for her, ok! We sent our cousin to the homestay my brother rent for the night and my brother and sis-in-law directed us to the hotel my sis-in-law has booked for us. The homestay was already full and they can make without another two in the house, so we opt to stay somewhere else. The hotel turned out to be 'The Chief's Guest House", it is very near to the palace, quite old but it is clean and well kept, very near to the town most importantly! We exploerd the town that night and went to Mydin to buy cookie cutter to make flowers, some sponge and some food to eat for early breakfast tomorrow. We had dinner and my sis went to bed straight away after we went back to the hotel! While I, on the other hand had slept during the journey and started to ensemble the 'sirih junjung' until 12:00 a.m.

13.11.2010, Saturday 5:00 a.m.
My sis woke me up but I told my sis, I slept around 12 last night and asked her to soften the sugar paste. After finishing the task, my sis made some coffee and woke me up. We have to make do with whatever we had at the time and try to create some flowers. I managed to make small roses, ribbons and cut flowers using the cookie cutters. We had to on the air cond to dry the flowers. We managed to finish it by 8:30 a.m.

Our working table a.k.a. dressing table!

13.11.2010 Saturday, 8:30 a.m.
My sis opened the cake box and found this!

Apparently the cake was cold when we covered it back home and it's quite warm throughout the 4-hour journey to Pekan, Pahang. The fondant layer was stretched and air bubbles were formed in the middle of the fondant layer and butter cream icing layer. I asked my sis to close it and asked her to go to the morning market to buy some breakfast for me. I managed to scrapped the torn layer and patch it back to the cake.
By the time my sis came back to the hotel, I have managed to paint the flowers. We had another problem, we had no royal icing to paste the flowers and ribbons on the cake. So, I asked my sis to dilute the sugar paste in hot water to make edible glue. We only managed to ensemble the cake around 11:00 a.m. and our siblings were calling us to come over and finish up the 'hantaran' so that the wedding procession can start around 12:30.

To cut a long story short, my brother finally sat on the dais around 2:30p.m. and we went depart back to Johor around 4:30 pm. Although we went through a lot of difficulties but we enjoyed our stay in Pekan. We love the old well kept room in the woody villa of the Chief's Guest House and not to forget the chandelier in our hotel's room!