Three Weddings and A... (Birthday) Cake! {B-Day Cake At Last}

I try to publish something on this blog at least once a month - and my biggest motivator is my lovely MIL who asks me regularly when my next post will be up :-) Even though I've ended up on Oct 31sh with a not very Halloween-y post, I'm glad for the inspiration from my family to keep blogging regardless of the season! 

For my MIL's birthday last year (celebrated along with two other family members' birthdays), I made my first two-tier cake.

For the trifecta birthdays this year, I made three spring-themed tiers (slightly early, as it was the end of July). Finally, here is the birthday cake that brings this seriously long-spanning four post series of 'Three Weddings and A... (Birthday) Cake! to an end - just in time for the next wedding season...

 

Bursting into spring on a sunshiny day...

I'm pleased to say that the design for this cake was my own, with a lot of inspo from a set of craft stencils that I scored from a newsagents' in Fairlie.

 

I'll keep the details as to-the-point as my detail-loving brain will allow: the top tier was chocolate (I think, although my notes say carrot...) with Swiss meringue filling and icing, and decorated hand-painted fondant clouds - thanks to my happy helper E!

The middle tier was red velvet, poorly covered in white choc ganache - I say poorly because the red velvet leakage that ensued could have been prevented if I had been more careful and not left any gaps! The escaped moisture also made the outer layer of fondant soft and prone to mishaping (as seen in image below)... My near-despair was topped off by my lack of consideration for the thickness of the fondant in the overall design, meaning this tier was almost the same size as the bottom tier.

Well, I guess if everything was done right the first time then the world wouldn't be such an interesting place ;-) At least the hand-painted little birdy looked happy with his outlook! I traced the stencil design onto baking paper which I then stuck onto the fondant surface and lightly traced over to leave an indentation for painting. Gel paints mixed with cake decorator's fluid did the trick to colour between the lines. 

Lastly the bottom tier was made of delicious preserved ginger cake covered in chocolate ganache with green grass done with royal icing (by eye).

 

Whew! It was a big effort, and the unseasonably hot weather on the day of the birthdays celebration was an unexpected challenge for the buttercream to keep its shape. But sunshine like that and a cake like this, how could we not have been hopeful for an early spring?!

 

 

I'm looking forward to next year's birthday cake challenge - though in future I'll try not to challenge them all to eat so much cake (sorry guys, quality not quantity!) ;-)

 

Three Weddings And A... Birthday (Cake!) {Wedding No. 1}

It's been a bit quiet on the blog-front for the past month or so - which means that it's been busy in the kitchen! I'm finally able to share with you what I got up to slightly secretively in December and give an update of what I've been baking recently - namely a bunch of lovely but challenging wedding cakes for friends plus my bestie E's special birthday cake. There's been a lot of cake (understatement of the century!), so I'm spreading them over four posts altogether.

As much as I like to share with the virtual world, I'm looking forward to reading (and re-reading!) these finished posts myself to remind myself of what I've learnt during the past six months in baking and caking :-) I've also been taking fledgling steps in food photography, which you'll see in some of the posts, although where the images are not mine (mainly this post) I have given credit to the photographer(s).

Wedding No.1: S + J = Fondant Frills

Seeing as I was enjoying getting into cake decorating for the first time in 2014, I figured I would need a challenge to flex my new skills on by the end the year. S and I had flatted together before I got married, and then I got wind that her own engagement was near (having a unique vantage point because of J's request to hold the fort at the church bookstall while he took her out to a 'surprise' weekend retreat!).  I asked (as soon as it was proper) who would be making their cake, and was met with "we weren't even thinking of having a cake!" 

Well, that was all I needed to see my mission in life as their personal wedding cake-r. In my enthusiasm, I didn't ask how many people they were inviting, which meant a wee bit anxiety, a lot of thinking and a fair bit of consulting other more experienced cakers. The loans of my parents in-law's freezer and a colleague's massive perspex cupcake stand - to store and then display 370 cupcakes - convinced me that this epic first wedding caking could indeed succeed. 

Cupcakes a-plenty (photo by NOPHOTO)

Beautiful photos by Dru and Talia of NOPHOTO show the outcome: a day that drizzled until the last moment (the tent covering threatened with tiny drips to unleash a torrent of captured rain onto the cake table) cleared up for the ceremony then opened up into sunshine for bridal photographs. The bride and groom made a handsome couple in ivory and tweed respectively, flanked by bridal party members wearing the sunset colours of the icing flowers and leaves on the cake.

Photo by NOPHOTO

The cake itself was my first proper attempt at ruffles using gumpaste and I found this tutorial (by the wonderful Rose Atwater of Rose Bakes) to be invaluable. It took a wee while for each frill to dry but was not the most difficult design, seeing as the rustic look benefits from not looking absolutely perfect!

Photo by NOPHOTO

The gumpaste roses and leaves were made using Wilton and Americolor gel pastes and dusted with colour lustre dusts. I was really pleased with the yellow ones in particular - the orange dust I used gave them a nice depth. In case you're wondering...they were attached to toothpicks and stuck into the cake, while the leaves were attached using edible glue.

Photo by NOPHOTO

Cake flavours were Annabel Langein's banana cake recipe with dark choc ganache and preserved ginger (S's fave!), both covered in white choc ganache under a fondant base. 

The cupcakes were vanilla (MY fave recipe) and chocolate (a la Sweetapolita) with regular buttercream as I've posted about before except substituting half of the butter with Kremelta to make it brighter and whiter. Each had a little rolled rose and leaf in the same colours as the cake's ones. And there were certainly a lot of them...

Photo my own

So when I say it was an 'introduction' to wedding caking... it was more like a  baptism by fire!!! But good fun and good learning ;-) Thanks to the bride and groom for the opportunity, and to them and NOPHOTO (check them out!!!) for letting me use these stunning photos.

Photo by NOPHOTO

A Farewell Feast

I should point out that I'm not 'farewelling' this blog - after less than six month's efforts! This post is about the farewell morning tea that I held a couple of months ago when I left my previous job. I'm well overdue for a post, and I've been meaning to share the shots and recipes of what I made then, so here goes!

Always trying to be classy, I designed a high-tea-like feast centred around sugar! I wanted to use my recently-aquired fondant skills and buttercream designs to get more practice and please a crowd, so I planned three cakey items: a buttercream rosette-decorated chocolate cake, a simple white choc-iced carrot cake, and rhubarb cupcakes with floral fondant decorations. For the 'extras', I had a failed attempt at macaroons (however, you may have noticed that I do not equate 'fail' to 'inedible' so I served them up as meringue bites anyway!) and made a successful batch of fig and ginger slice.

Recipe-wise, I once again leaned on the vast experience and creativity of Rosie at Sweetapolita for her delicious and attractive cakes. Her chocolate cake recipe with Swiss Meringue butter cream that I've blogged previously (and special post on making this butter cream yourself coming soon!) was three layers of decadence which I covered with rows of rosettes in graduated peach colours. For making butter cream rosettes, you need a large, 'open star' type of piping tip such as the Wilton #1M, fitted to a large piping bag. You start at the centre of the rosette and apply an even pressure to release the butter cream while moving the tip away from the centre in a tight spiral. Check out the photos below, taken by the j-amazing James for the detail...

I orientated the rosettes in each row in the opposite direction to the ones below them (i.e. I piped in the opposite direction) because I think that it emphasises the slight colour intensity change - and I like to add interest :-) To get the 'ombre' colour change, you start with a small portion of buttercream coloured as dark as you want to go, use it for the bottom row of rosettes, and with (hopefully!) the last bit of that icing, add a whole blob of uncoloured icing and mix to get your next shade lighter. 

You'd be amazed at how little coloured icing you start with for each consecutive row - colouring goes a long way! I used Wilton's gel colouring in 'creamy peach'. The lighter shades look more orange-y due to the natural yellow of NZ butter! This can be fixed a bit by using a shortening (Crisco, Kremelta, Chefade, etc) to replace some of the butter in the icing.

Cake number two was an interesting but delicious one: ginger carrot cake with white chocolate icing (also of Sweetapolita). Although it took FOREVER to cook (and even then wasn't quite done, as I found out when I cut it...), it was definitely tasty, and a nice change to raisin-and-walnut-ified carrot cake.

I wish I'd been able to take some shots of the inside of these cakes, but I was pretty busy being farewelled and all...

The macaroons, well, I'm probably not the expert on those. I had two goes, being careful with everything from ingredients to macaroonage (the technique for folding all the ingredients together), so I have no choice but to blame my tools and say that my very basic oven could not hack it. The one other time I have made macaroons they were perfect, and I wasn't nearly as careful but I DID have a fan bake oven to use at the time. Meh. People still ate them, and they were gluten-free. I used Christine's recipe from her inspiring blog, 1001 Makron - yes, that is my question in the comments for her base recipe post; it's really nice to have some interaction in the cold, hard world of blogging (hint hint!!! ;-)

These cupcakes were a bit too numerous for all the other baked goods on offer, but they were eaten up as leftovers (who knew that rhubarb was a favourite of architects!). I adapted Julie Le Clerc's vanilla cupcakes recipe by adding some rhubarb - a couple of cups, chopped and 'marinated' in castor sugar in the fridge. The icing is the simple buttercream recipe used here and the fondant flowers I covered in this post. 

I think that's all - oh wait! The ginger fig slice! I LOVE ginger slice, with a love that probably (just) tops my love of brownie. All I did was use the Edmonds Ginger Crunch recipe (which Chelsea Sugar appear to have permission to publish in that link!) and added a cup of chopped dried figs. Crystallized ginger would also go nicely in the topping. When I make ginger crunch, I at least double the topping ingredient quantities and use a good quality butter (so that it sets well), and sometimes halve the base quantities using a margarine instead (so that it doesn't set so well!). Goes nicely in a high tea set-up :-)

Mmmm... my mouth waters at the memory! When you have to say goodbye, sometimes cake is the only way to say it ;-)

By the way... you may have noticed that I've started to watermark some of my images with the blog's URL. I'm doing this in particular for the one-of-a-kind, special items that I make (not many at present, but hopefully a growing number) after reading this interesting post about copyright for images. Since my blog is being accessed around the world (hi overseas friends!) I'd love to have people come back to the source to check out where the random images spinning around the web come from. And if one day I ever want to make a dollar out of this, that's the way to play the game.

Happy baking, irrepressible ones! xo