Army Retirement & 50th Birthday Cake & Desserts

5 days is really impossible to plan a surprise party for 50 people: make and send out an e-vite card, confirm attending guests, secure an appropriate venue, arrange F&B, engage a decorator, balloons, photo booth AND bake a battalion of desserts and cake. Ok never say impossible. It is a big challenge, but not impossible! and I'd only ever do it for family or a very very good friend.

Army Cake and Desserts*

This is precisely what happened on Sunday night, when my very very good friend shot me a message that read: "Do you think it's crazy to do the retirement/birthday party on 13/7?" My reply: "Ha. Yes but not impossible." (Hold on to your hats, guys, cuz this is gonna be an epic post.)

sweet smiles family pic*

That was all we needed to get the ball rolling. She was asking about her husband's retirement/50th birthday party. He has served over 30 years in the army (31 years and 7 months, to be precise) and officially retires on the same day that he turns 50 years old. OK to be fair she did mention back in March that she was thinking of throwing a party for him. But after that, no mention of it again. Months passed. And then he was having pains and needed to get checked out so she didn't want to plan anything just in case. 

pic with the guys*

lots of happy faces*

Thank goodness he was given the all clear. And a week later, I got the message that the party was back on!! (ended up holding it on the Saturday instead)

Photo Booth fun*

Thanks to the super wife's solid network with her husband's past and present colleagues, we were quickly able to mobilize, divide and conquer. Invites were sent out, speedy-quick! Special thanks goes out to Warren, cuz he did his magic contacting everyone and confirming the guest list! I got in contact with a whole bunch of venues, half of which were not able to accommodate the event in short notice. But I already had the perfect venue in mind, and luckily, it was available! More on this later.

invitation

sneak peek of the Army Dessert table

I'm so very grateful to the All Mommy Wants team for willingly and passionately taking on the challenge of styling a premium dessert table and creating a photo booth for this super last minute celebration!! 

brownies, cupcakes, and all things green

The only fitting theme to celebrate a guy who's served nearly 32 years in the army, is of course, Army! And what an unexpectedly fun theme to plan desserts for! I brainstormed all the green and brown things that I could think of: brownies, cupcakes, cakesicles, cookies, jelly cups, fruit tarts, eclairs, candy, and of course, cake! After that long intro speil, now we're finally getting into the meat of it! 

mint chocolate chip brownie batter

mint-chocolate brownie swirl, before baking

Brownies were an easy choice. They're brown! But to get green in there, I made mint-chocolate chip-cream cheese swirl brownies! They looked a lot greener going into the oven than they did coming out, but I love the natural camouflage effect!

perfect camouflage patterned-brownies

mint-chocolate chip-cheesecake-brownie bites

Now for cupcakes, you'd probably guess chocolate. But since the cake was already going to be chocolate, I wanted to do a different flavour for the cupcakes. And something special too, not just vanilla cupcakes dyed green. Stroke of genius: something very green, and something very local: ondeh-ondeh! 

pandan-flavoured cupcake batter

fresh outta the oven: soft, fluffy and Green!

preparing the gula Melaka filling and caramel

Ondeh-ondeh is a traditional Malay kueh (steamed glutinous rice dessert): green-coloured and flavoured with pandan (screw pine), sweetened with gula Melaka (palm sugar) and coated in grated coconut. I translated these flavours into ondeh-ondeh cupcakes! Soft and fluffy (& bright green!) coconut-pandan cupcakes, filled with freshly grated coconut gula Melaka, frosted with vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream & drizzled with salted gula Melaka caramel! I hardly ever make any locally flavoured desserts, and I am so pleased with the results. These cupcakes are seriously "die-die-must-try" (Singlish for "to-die for"!)

"cling film" method for frosting

Cupcake drill: bake, core, fill, frost, drizzle. repeat.

I frosted the cupcakes with a camouflage-coloured swirl, using the "cling film" technique, where different colours of buttercream are piped in rows on a piece of cling film, and then rolled up, with one end cut off, and stuffed into a piping bag fitted with a piping tip. Love how they turned out. 

camouflage frosting, drizzled with salted gula Melaka caramel

delicious coconut gula Melaka center

Now onto those cakesicles. They were funfetti cake, coated with white and dark chocolate in camo green, brown and black colours. 

Army cake popsicles

Cakesicles, army-style

I managed to get a hold of an "SAF mobilisation Green Man"-shaped silicone ice cube tray, which I used to make chocolate soldiers out of to decorate some of the cakesicles with. I had a hard time getting the rifle part out of the mold though, so these chocolate soldiers will have to stick to close combat in standing hip firing position, sans M-16 bayonet.  There were some extras to go on the cupcakes too. 

different shades of green chocolate to achieve camouflage effect

chocolate camo-drizzle aftermath

black chocolate "Green Men"

where'd their M-16s go?

For the cookies, I had to make tanks. The celebrant is from the Armour formation and has expertise over fighting vehicles such as the M113, Terrex and the impressive Leopard tank. I hand-cut the tanks out of cookie dough, using a sharp knife, cuz I don't have a tank-shaped cookie cutter. I decorated the tanks in army camo pattern, achieving the army green royal icing shade by mixing Americolor mint green with a few drops of espresso brown and warm brown food colouring. 

Army tank sugar cookies

closer look at the camo and tank tracks

The other set of cookies were decorated with edible icing images of customized logos designed by All Mommy Wants. I put the red logo on a digitized camo pattern background so that it blended better with the overall colour scheme. The black logo came out a little dark after printing, but one could still make out the design without issue. A thin coating of royal icing behind each edible image was used to stick them onto the cookies. 

custom logo cookies

Army cookie set

One of the fun dessert suggestions came from All Mommy Wants' research: green Army men jelly cups! I decided on lychee konnyaku jelly, with a whole lychee in each cup (fruit = healthy! Ha!) 

Toy soldiers on jelly cups

After filling the cups 3/4 of the way up, dropping in the lychee and allowing that to set, I set a toy soldier on top of each cup and added a couple more teaspoons of the konnyaku jelly liquid on top, to hold the soldier up. Each jelly cup set up nicely after about an hour in the fridge. Love how the soldiers look like they're wading in a swamp, through enemy territory!

mini fresh blueberry and kiwi tarts

For the super tasty and fresh mini fruit tarts, I went to my go-to source: Sugarena! To go with the theme, I selected blueberry tarts and kiwi tarts, since those fruits are black and green! (and another "healthy" item on the dessert table amongst all the chocolate and candy. haha)

candy horde

I spent some time in Candylicious, scouring for camo-coloured candy. Here's the loot I ended up with: watermelon green rock candy, giant green Jawbreakers, mojito gummy bears, gummy mints and a custom-mix of Jelly Belly jelly beans! 

cool edible image digitized camouflage wrapped-cake

Finally, for the cake, I decided to keep it mature and simple, with a 4-layer decadent devil's food cake, filled with delicious whipped dark chocolate ganache. The cake was wrapped in edible printed sheets of digitized camo, and topped with a Funko Pop Toy Story solider, a pair of fondant dog tags, a paper banner from All Mommy Wants, and decorated with a pair of metal mini Leopard tank models. I hand-cut the letters for the name out of fondant using a sharp Xacto knife because I wanted it to be Army Rust font, instead of using standard letter cutters. 

Army Birthday and Retirement Cake

I found the perfect candles to go on top of the cake too: these camouflage chunky candles by Wilton! With 5 candles for 50 years, we have the country's first "5-star general"! Haaa. 

cool camouflage candles

Armed with all these desserts, and with All Mommy Wants' talented, creative styling power, we put together this epic Army-themed dessert table, perfect for the retirement/birthday celebration! Many of the deco on the table are actual Army equipment: the water canteens, mess tins, toolbox, camo cloth, binoculars, and of course, the authentic camouflage net backdrop, fitted with a custom-designed LED signboard! All that was missing was real foliage! 

Army Dessert Table

cookies in the biscuit sand pit

camo cakesicles and cupcakes

eclairs in mess tins!

soldiers wading in swamp jelly

camo brownies and mini fruit tarts

Jelly Belly jelly beans in camouflage colours

mojito gummy bears!

watermelon rock candy swizzle sticks

I love the degree of premium styling and attention to detail. Even the model tank was personalised and every toy solider was purposefully positioned . The tank cookies displayed flat on picture frames with trailing tank "tracks" were too cool! And I love the biscuit sand pit too. The huge personalized light-up PVC balloon was just icing on the cake. 

it's all in the details*

Shang's tank*

soldiers recce-ing over cupcake mountain

battle, on!

tank cookies leaving tracks in the mud!

giant LED customized balloon

In additional to dessert table styling, helium balloons and signature board, All Mommy Wants set up a photo booth, with camo net backdrop, a large Leopard tank cutout standee, actual tires, authentic Army helmet & load-bearing vest (aka flak jacket), silly glasses to wear and fun signs to hold up, with my personal fave being The Shang Face. We did have an instant photo printer set-up on site, but we just couldn't get an operational flow down with all the other things going on.    

memory signature board

colour-coordinating plates, napkins and forks

Army-themed phootobooth

fun times!

three little monsters

Photo Booth fun*

battle ready*

"The Shang Face"*

The celebration was held at an apt venue: The Armoury Craft Beer Bar, in the trendy South Beach area. The heritage building that the restaurant is housed in was previously an actual armoury for the former Beach Road Army Camp. After this, it was an NCO (non-commissioned officer) club. You really can't go wrong with the place's impressive selection of craft beer (15 on tap!), and gastropub food including Balinese rib sticks, grilled steak cubes, calamari rings, truffle fries, pizza and spicy buffalo wings. Everyone's tummies were happy. All that was missing was the promised '80s live band. Oh well. 

drinks, on!*

mmm steak cubes*

love the industrial vibe*

speech time*

happening conversations*

The birthday boy walked into the restaurant in complete shock, seeing the sea of smiling, familiar faces, clapping and cheering with exclamations of "Surprise!". He initially didn't want to go in cuz there was a "Private Party" sign displayed outside. His wife lured him out for dinner on the guise of catching the NDP rehearsal fireworks and they were supposedly looking for eats and drinks around the area. Well done with the sly tactics, mastermind Pam. She is too awesome. Planned the whole celebration under his nose! 

still no idea*

private party? we can't go in there.*

Surprise!!*

I am so pleased to personally hear positive feedback about the desserts, venue and everything else from all of the guests. A memorable feedback was from one of the guests who raved about the desserts: "Many times dessert tables look great but don't taste great. You got both things right, cuz it looks great, and tastes great!" Totally made my night.

dessert table fans*

l'il sweettooth*

Even a few latecomers who insisted they were full and only wanted to sip whiskey, ended up sharing a slice of cake and polishing off 2 ondeh-ondeh cupcakes! Seriously, there is always room for dessert. 

light 'em up with 35cm-long sparklers!

doing the cake cutting honours

SLTC Shang has had a long and diverse career with the SAF, with many key appointments, notably as peace keeper deployed in Timor Leste, Commanding Officer of the Army Fitness Centre, Aides-de-camp to the President of the Republic of Singapore, and DS in the RBAF CSC. Wishing Shang a very Happy 50th Birthday, and all the best on the road ahead following his SAF retirement! 

Shang's in the house*

One big happy family

Make a wish!*

Best wishes on your 50th Birthday and Happy retirement, Shang!*

Thanks for reading all the way through! Hope you've enjoyed this post! It was a memorable celebration :D

*many thanks to the event's un-official official photographer, Isaiah (Warren's son), for sharing these photos!


P.S. If you've ever wondered what the inside of a giant jawbreaker looks like, this is it! I had some fun slamming them on the ground after the party to check out what's inside! Too bad they don't taste all that great. Even my kids didn't want to eat the chipped off pieces!

giant jawbreaker-reveal!

look at all those rainbow layers!