The wait is finally over!

Smileys!!!!!

This morning I finally received the email from Charity Water, the email I've been looking forward to for almost two years! The complete project report including the GPS coordinates of the wells (yes, plural!!), showing where all the money went - the report I've been harassing them for for the last 6 months!

So, today was a good day for me, but probably much better for those who have been getting access to the clean water :)

And seeing these photos of the hand dugged well in Enda Agam Village (somewhere in Ethiopia!) is... a bit surreal. It feels like a million years since I was staying up late after work baking for the cause and harassing people around me to get involved. I was so excited to check it out on Google Earth and I can't imagine where they would've gone to for water before the wells were implemented!

Check it out for yourself with these coordinates on Google Earth, you'll know what I mean...
GPS: 14.15111111, 38.65111111

Look!! a plaque as they promised with Sugar For Water engraved!!!!!! (note: there's going to be extensive use of exclamations in this post, just because!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

The field report says:

Thanks to you, this village now has access to clean and safe drinking water. They've also been trained by our local partners on safe hygiene practices and basic maintenance of their water project. Each family using the new water source contributed between $0.03 and $0.06 toward their project's construction; that's a small fee, but one that helps instill a sense of personal ownership for the project. Each family will continue to pay between $0.03 and $0.06 per month to use the water; the community will save this money for any necessary maintenance or repairs. 

The people here, especially women and children, used to walk up to two hours to collect water for their families. Even then, each family member had to make do with just five liters of water per day for drinking, bathing, cooking and everything else. The water wasn't safe to drink and often made people sick. Thanks to your help, people here are walking significantly less every day to collect water. On average, they're less than 15 minutes from their water project, which means each family now can use up to 15 liters per person per day! Most importantly, the water they bring home each day is safe enough to drink. 

Note: We wanted to show you that this community is serious about keeping their project safe, clean and functioning for years to come. They built a fence and a door on their own initiative, to prevent animals from contaminating the area and to show ownership of their new water source.

So now the women and children spend less time sourcing water, instead more time can be spent on education, family duties and working to supplement income!!!!!!!!! I think this is the best way to help a community sustain itself!!!!!! empowering the people by giving them ownership and knowledge.

They even built a fence around it as a community to prevent animals from contaminating their clean water source, I think that's pretty neat! And the local partners / field workers educated the village people on hygiene and maintenance both very important for the sustainability of this project. Hopefully, the well will continue to provide clean water for 20+ years to come.

Well #1, fully funded by Sugar For Water.  Located in Enda Agam Village, Ethiopia

The dates on these photos are more than 10 months old, so it seems that the well has been supplying clean water for a while now, but the field report has been delayed...

To be honest, I have been losing patience the last few months having had to constantly write to Charity Water asking about the progress of the well, emails going back and forth, getting the same replies about field work being postponed etc etc.... I even started doubting whether anything was getting done at all! and only yesterday I was googling the net, but failed to find anything negative about the organization. So I half gave up, but then they surprised me with an email today, proof of what they've been doing with the money from all the people who supported this campaign. Sorry for ever doubting!

The above hand dugged well costed $4,440 to complete and the remaining $582 went towards another well (below), together with 10 other campaigns to build a shallow bore hole dugged well located in Sakeyh Village also in Ethiopia. Together, these two wells will serve around 600 people clean water for 20+ years!! That's pretty sweet!!!!!!

Well #2 located in Sakeyh Village, Ethiopia

Kids with cool haircuts enjoying the clean water!!

To Conclude...

Thank you old friends, new friends, family, ex-colleagues, directors at Conrad & Gargett Architecture and the many strangers for your support and patience during those crazy three months in 2010 and most of all, thank you Charity Water and your local partner (A Glimmer of Hope) for doing what you do.

Keep on giving.

xx
Amy

PS. this may be the last post on this blog, or not, perhaps I will do it again and continue what I've started. For the time being, good bye.

Links

Sugar For Water Campaign Page
Well #1 in Enda Agam Village
Well #2 in Sakeyh Village

It's been a while...

random pic of me in mexico :P

I had to retrieve the password to log-in here... it's definitely been a while since this place got abandoned as life just kept happening and I moved on. It's been about 17.5 month since the end of my charity:water campaign and a lot of you guys have been asking me about where the money really went!

If you know me in person, you'd know since this whole charity stint, I have quit my day job, went to pastry school, and started my backpacking trip around the world alone... BUT rest assured all the money you helped me raise went to the charities I was fundraising for!!!! and I'm just back here to say I received an email reply back from charity:water saying they will be sending out a report of the well at the end of this month! How very exciting!

It's taken them so long because typically they do not consider a project "complete" until they are sure that it is sustainable, and it normally takes them 18 months to follow up with reports. I'm pretty eager to see it on google earth and just to have a proper finale, and see the happy people who benefited from the clean water.

random pic of me on the salt flats - boliva

I'm still currently in the middle of traveling, back home in Brisbane just to pack up my gear and sell my remaining valuables to fund for the rest of my trip. It gets difficult when you haven't had income for over a year! But I'm doing something I will not regret, and it's been an interesting turn, something I definitely did not anticipate but was bound to happen. It's been great meeting up with Koiti's family who supported me all the way in Brazil during my South American journey.

I haven't baked for a while, and still crave for cake but steering towards a more health conscious diet lol... Anyway, keep a lookout on this spot for the mentioned "report" from charity:water in the near future.

xx, amy

J&A's Wedding Cake

Jesse & Annie's Wedding cake (grrr... the lace is wonky!)

I just received these "low rez" wedding cake photos from Annie the bride nearly three months after their wedding. Perhaps it's about time I wrote about the wedding cake commission/challenge although it seems like years have past since I last embarked on this crazy baking adventure!

the newly weds ready to cut the cake

When Annie and I originally met up to discuss about what she wanted for her wedding cake it was all pretty vague. She showed me a few photos of her wedding dress on her iphone, I noted down the colour theme and the overall mood that the wedding would be - at a winery, lacy dress, mauve and champagne, cake needed to be durable as it was going to be placed outdoors (that was what she told me hence the fondant icing, but it wasn't the case on the day)... In my mind, the cake would be modern yet elegant (like the bride) but I had no idea how it'll turn out until the morning of the wedding, like most of my art works in the past. Annie put her trust in me, she didn't really care what I came up with so I just wing-ed it... (where do you find such a carefree bride?!)

some rough sketches

I started with some rough ideas in my mind, sketched a few out (at work lol)... and tested out the flavour combinations beforehand, the rest was just actually putting everything together the night before the wedding. It was a long night...  adrenaline kept me pumping and I enjoyed not knowing how the cake would turn out, it somehow did come together at the end. From the sketches, there were intentions of making the sugar flowers but they didn't dry in time so I had to do without :(

Anyway, basically this was how the cake turned out on the day. A lot of the last minute detailing by hand with royal icing, my hand was shaky as hell after being up for 24+ hours... so I just went with the "rustic" whimsical look... and painted bits with edible luster dust mixed with vodka! The colours were deliberately left uneven, and I didn't mind the look of it.

I thought the cake looked like a plastic model when I was done with it... 

Getting the cake there in one piece was also a challenging task. Thanks to A & M and me in the backseat, we managed nearly an hours drive of hilling and super bumpy roads and sharp turns... I had the cake on my lap as it wouldn't fit in any boxes I had, the cake must've weighed more than 10kg! Very robust tiers... loaded with cream and sugar!!!!

... and I didn't have time to make the cake toppers (I didn't know flower paste needed a week to dry!). So luckily I was able to find these cute handmade orange centered chocolate penguins at a chocolatier near the winery as replacement, and I just piped a wedding veil on one penguin's head. I think I might have picked the wrong penguin to be the bride though...

and here are some process photos... a bit yellow coz it was taken at odd hours throughout the night, I can't be bothered to photoshop. The cake flavours were yoghurt, chocolate fudge and white chocolate with dark chocolate and white chocolate ganache. I got some tips about not using buttercream in our hot climate from the lady at the cake equipment supply shop, so I was pretty much limited to using ganache as filling as it won't go rancid without refrigeration. I also made the cake tier combo unconventional heights for fun.

  

more playing around...

purple or white?

It took me hours to roll out and apply the fondant icing and figure out what I wanted to do for decoration... was all a bit of trial and error...

I was shocked at how strong food colouring was, that purple blob of dark purple fondant icing was created with only a tiny dab of powdered violet food colouring! So I really had to lighten it up significantly.

then the sun crept back up all of a sudden! argh........

I thought I was done with the cake at this stage, and I HATED IT.. it looked like an unresolved composition. So I thought I'd try the luster dust, and got a bit carried away.

cake before I decided to paint the purple bits with luster dust and added champagne highlights

look how wonky the royal icing piping are lol... and the last minute luster dust colours gave it some depth

took this photo with my phone camera... 

I stuck on the lace and ribbons around the rim of the cake base... and wala, with some fresh flower petals and romantic candles, it didn't look too bad on set :) Annie was really brave to trust me with their wedding cake as this is my first ever attempt on making a multi-tiered cake, also a first with fondant and royal icing and all the new gadgets/toys I acquired for the decorations.

The wedding was sweet and fun (even in my zombie state). Before serving, Annie made sure the guests were informed about the background of this cake and the work of charity:water and wellwishers.

Thanks again for letting me be a part of your special day. 

Giving it all away - yay!

Finally, I've sent out the extra money raised that's going towards building Well #2 with Well Wishers!!! Meanwhile, I hope Well #1 is being taken care of by Charity:Water since the campaign closed at the end of September. Also, the donations page and final sum donated to both organisations has been updated. 

According to my excel spreadsheet, the actual amount raised from the three month campaign was AU$6,679.90 + US$1,722 (plus $340 people have given me for ingredients and labour!). Unfortunately, $107.28 went towards covering bank transaction fees and approximately $150 was lost in the sh!tty exchange rates at the time :( and that's why I've decided to put the extra money raised with Well Wishers. I've given it all away now, off my chest, moving on!!!

So, I managed to pull through the last challenge of making my first wedding cake and using fondant....

It was a fun process although daunting as I was basically just making things up as I go and having lack of time to do anything (working during the day!) I was lucky nothing went drastically wrong the night before the big day.

Here's a spoiler process photo compilation taken throughout the night... zzzzzz

I'm waiting for the professional shots from the wedding to do a proper post of the cake/wedding.

I don't remember much of the actual wedding, just have a few photos to prove I was there as I was basically a sleepy zombie having done an all nighter. I realised I'm seriously getting too old to go 30 hours without sleep, my body is still recovering from that.

Thank you Jesse and Annie for letting me be a part of your special day!

Pro Procrastinator

there's my ugly feet chillaxing :)

So it's been another few weeks gone by... and there was suppose to be wedding cake samples made and mock-ups of the real thing for the bride and groom (and for myself), except I have been doing what normal people do on the weekends - catching up on housework, catching up with friends, going to the beach, to the park and making sure I get 8 hours sleep each night.

First sunny day in months!

Anyway, I do feel quite bad that I took forever to get my ass back into the kitchen. But it's not like I haven't been thinking about the wedding cake. It's been on my mind. I've been searching for a suitable cake stand, ordered numerous books on the topic, purchased a heap load of equipment (for my own pleasure), going through tonnes of images for inspiration, visiting craft stores and even hardware stores to source stuff.

The stress is coming back. The wedding is right around the corner. The bride and groom decided to trust me with their cake, I apologised for not having anything to show but I promise to show up with a wedding cake on the day! lol......

I tested the chocolate fudge cake recipe and baked the red velvet cake for the first time (I finally know what it tastes like!)... except they were both extremely sweet, and after talking to the baking supplies shop lady, I realised being in Australia has its disadvantages. We are pretty much limited to using ganache as filling for the cake unlike in the UK or US where people are more worried that their cake might freeze. Here, everything is melting, on a daily basis.... so my tester cake, the one that I filled with cream cheese frosting/buttercream and covered in fondant didn't really work out. I was also surprised by how intense powdered food colouring is (I had grape purple from 1/2 tsp of that stuff! so had to really dilute it back down )...

I seem to blabbering, does anyone even care?! (I'm only updating coz I saw I'm still getting a few stray visitors in the past two weeks)........

first attempt at fondant icing... all a bit wonky and mushy

I didn't take photos of stuff with my sticky hands, just these mediocre fondant iced midget tester pieces which was applied under humid/hot conditions (damn summer) so everything was just difficult to handle..... luckily I did try it out with the cream cheese filling, now I know not to use it as the cake will be out in the sun... ganache is going to have to do it on its own. I also found out what fondant is like....

Hopefully... all goes well (jesse/annie if you're reading this DON'T WORRY! it won't look like this on the day!), I'm going to have to dramatically decrease the sugar ratio of these cake recipes for the asian crowd, although they did say it doesn't matter how it taste but it needs to look good...... don't think I'll be sleeping much the night before the wedding....

Going to test out white chocolate fondant and flower pastes in the nights to come... :))))