Sunday, July 12, 2009Y

people do change



after looking through the photos of the last 2 cakes i've baked, i realised how much i have changed throughout the years. please forgive me for saying this but may i say so, i think i have improved a bit in cake baking =P



the first cake was inspired by Happy Home Baker. i remember her making a post on a Tiramisu Gateau she made for her birthday and how she covered the sides with sponge fingers. on the top, she covered wiht strawberries and chocolate shavings then as though signing off, she tie a ribbon around the sides to secure the fingers. hey i thought that was a very nice signing off touch! well i didn't have any chocolate shavings and i really really cannot show how horrible i am with whipped cream. truth is, my whipped cream always turn crumbly and bleh.




this cake was meant for a classmate's uncle's 50th wedding anniversary. talking bout real commitment and responsibility!! and it pissed the shit out of me to make this cake cause it was their very very first order from me. I really hate to do this but.... i've got no choice but with get done with that penguin again. but this time round, the penguins are slightly different from the usual ones i made.

verdict?




surprisingly, they said it was good but just a little dry. lol i was actually expecting to hear a tad too sweet as that was a vanilla sponge with ganache filling. hmm guess i should brush some apricot jam on the sponge before assembling the cake in future. i really hope the couple had enjoyed the cake and may many more years of bliss for them.


next... was a very good friend's 20th birthday.




i had been eyeing on this cake since February. it was a cake from one of my cake book, Irresistible Cakes. and i must say it wasn't as stressing as the penguin one as i had been planning it for a really long long time. yes yes go ahead and wow and omg and ask if i really made this cake. that was really everyone's reaction that day =D


so the plan was this: bake the cake today, let cool. tomorrow beat up the strawberry buttercream and sandwich the cake and start on the fondant. i was initially settling on store bought fondant until i came across a super simple marshmallow fondant recipe through youtube.



first, grease every single thing you are using for making this fondant. you need to grease a huge microwavable bowl, a spatula, a table top. yea just grease as much as possible with shortening or butter.

then dump in a whole bag of marshmallows ( i used rocky mountain) and a splosh of water into the bowl. microwave the bowl for 3o sec on high. take out and stir and microwave for 30 sec again. keep doing this until all marshmallows have melt. then take out and stir a bit more for the marshmallow to cool down a little.



while leaving the marshmallow to cool, pile icing sugar on the greased table top. standby one whole bag of icing sugar by the side cause its gonna need hell lots of icing sugar. but really... don't bother to think bout the sugar amount okay? that was one of my biggest problem in this recipe.



next as you can expect, pour and scrape the marshmallow onto the icing sugar. the marshmallow will sort of 'escape' everywhere so using the spatula, keep everything back and try mixing in the icing sugar. keep apply the sugar and 'keep' in the mixture until this happens:



i promise you, it wouldn't take very very long. just probably 2o mins and lots of icing sugar. i did this on a very humid night so i used up almost the whole bag of icing sugar. you can now go ahead and do whatever you like to this fondant but if you are gonna keep this for later use, cover the dough with more shortening or butter and gladwrap it.



so back to the plan. i spent the whole sunday morning coloring the fondants and shaping the cake. wasn't as hard as it seems actually! just a good amount of patience and interest to keep things going.




and then, using the back of the handle of a teaspoon make dents all over the cake and make little seeds out of yellow fondant. i think the only thing i crap up was the seeds. at some point they do look like pimples =X




anyway. THE BIRTHDAY QUEEN DEFINITELY LOVED THE CAKE. we took hell lots of photo of her posing with the cake but erm... think i'll leave that out here yea? anyway everyone was really surprised and amazed by the cake and i must say i was really proud that day. we all enjoyed the cake and loved the strawberry buttercream. i still have some stash in fridge for jam spread =D


really wonder whats my next cake gonna be =P




Katherine blogged@ 1:16 AM





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