Wedding Cake Madness

no this was not my first wedding cake - but this was my first FORMAL wedding cake, feeding more than 30 people, and more than two tiers, AND with sugar flowers!!!

S&J were getting married (well duh!) on 18th Sept, and had asked me to do a simple cake for the luncheon they were holding post the wedding ceremony. I ended up doing other decorative bits at their wedding - go to my other blog - www.letsbemarry.blogspot.com to see the florals.

Ok, so the cake. It had to be a plain cake, and one that would appeal to 'the masses'. AND covered in fondant with sugar flowers! why the exclamation? well generally a butter cake is not terribly dense and to withstand the weight of three tiers, WITH fondant - WHOA now thats a challenge...

I was told to cater for about 100 people, though I don't think the crowd ended up being that large - but then again you can NEVER have too much cake right :)

So, I made a butter orange cake with a little almond meal to make the cake a little more dense than normal, and drizzled mild orange liquor mix to make it a rather compact cake. Usually once you do this, and it is wrapped with those layers of fondant and marzipan, when you cut into the cake you will have a moist orangey wonder ;)

I kept the base of the cake white, and made the sugar flowers in hues of red and pink, complete with leaves etc... This was the first time i was trying a different style of flowers, fresh from my UK courses of colouring the flowers - at the request of the bride we styled the table with red rose petals.

Making this cake has really made me catch the bug - I wanna do mooooore!!!

Mickey Mouse Club

Mickey Clubhouse - was such a new term for me - I mean other than the fact that I dont have children pawing at me in toy stores dragging me to the shelves with these toys on them, nor do we even subscribe to the disney channel - but i was a huge fan of mickey growing up and had not heard about this!?

so when the mother of this little girl said those words to me I had to scramble to the internet to find out what it meant!
Have you seen this clubhouse?? wow! where was this thing when we were growing up?? it was so cool and i was already designing the different parts of the cake in my head - however this mum had other ideas.
the birthday girl's mother was more interested in her own version of the mickey clubhouse theme, and so it was to be a very simple flat cake with colours that the mum preferred ;)

This was a very very simple sheet cake, with the only complicated thing being how to best to do the mickey imprint.

The cake was chocolate, with a buttercream icing. the polka dots were done in fondant and so were the letters - apparently kids don't like the WHOLE cake in fondant but love small tiny bits of sugar hits - i pity the parents of those kids ;)

So this is the the cake without the mickey club characters....

and this is with the mickey characters that were set up on top of the cake.

simple and sweet. would have liked to have had to make the more complicated version, but this was cute too ;)

Are these Flowers for real??

i have always been intimidated by these sugarpaste modelled flowers - first of all so many people do it soooo well, and with this heat I have visions of the flowers just melting into oblivion.

then of course I deal with fresh flowers and seriously why would I go and MAKE the flower when I know exactly how and where to get the real thing for half the cost and time and will list a cake anyway...Plus the flowers that I had learnt to make were nice, but there was not realism about it.

but curiosity found me signing up for  course with Alan Dunn while I was recently in the UK, and boy am I a changed person. first of all, I learnt some new tricks and then he introduced me to really exotic flowers (well the fact that you can make them anew at least) and petal dust - oh my word!
they are the bestttttttttt things EVER!

So, yes, if given the time I will make the flowers - they are a nice keepsake at the end of the wedding when all the cake is gone I guess - though I really dont think I can charge the TRUE price for something like this that take a long time and a lot of effort to do...
but hey - it is fun and I like it, so hopefully I get to use it more.

Attached are some of the things we made in class - the Lotus and the Vanilla Orchid and trailing and leaves. SOOO fun!

The Lotus styled with fallen petals

The Vanilla Orchid on its own before colour was added, and then with the foliage (see picture below)

Update on the red cake

So folks....

the RED cake? well it was pinkish
it tasted GRRREAT, but it was a bit too buttery for me (is that EVEN an issue I hear you ask!!)

so yes, the red simple cake quest is still ongoing ;)

stay tuned.

And Its MAGIC!

There is something akin to magic don't you think about putting eggs, butter, sugar, milk and flour in a bowl - whizz it, and bung it in an oven (even a make shift one in the sand) and out pops CAKE!
it does not have to be fancy at all - just the smell and thought of cake is enough! it can be good ole butter cake or the most decadent chocolate filled chocolate covered chocolate decorated MOTHER of a cake - it just makes it alll better! the smell of it wafting through the home - the licking of the spoon after mixing (yes guilty - but we have to know what it tastes like SURELY!)

This was the thought all week (well ok ok half of the week) and I realised with my flowering and bags taking up so much of my time, I had not baked a cake just for the heck of it for AGES!
i think reading and seeing others around me do this cake thing as a business and doing so well at it, had given me,... well robbed me of my confidence.
But when you think that I did not start baking till three years ago - it puts things in perspective. without much training, I have experimented and baked and decorated and people have LIKED IT! from choc chilli cakes, to sugarless cakes - there have been SOME duds (like the melon cupcakes to which my aunt will attest to) - but there have been some GREAT successes.

Plus, I had to start prepping and practising for a very important wedding where I am doing the cake!

so this morning as the washing was swishing around, and the coffee bubbling, there I was experimenting with red cakes - I just wanted to see if I could create a simple tasting red coloured cake -
whether or not I succeed you will have to wait and see - cos it is baking as I pound this out on the blog...

suffice to say if the smells are anything to go by, we have a winner ;) photos soon I promise ;)

mocha chilli mud muffins

I baked these for my theatre group for opening night - I used an existing mocha recipe and added chilli powder for the chilli choc taste -
they were great cos they were not too sweet, with a little bit of a buzz from the chillies - though I think my taste buds were more accustomed to the chilli than some of my friends! oops!

small steps

hi
been quiet on the baking front cos i have been so busy with the flowers - but this year I promise to make time to do more -
and in that spirit here is something I made for a friend - we were invited for a bbq and my mother always said i should never go to someone's home swinging my arms ie without a gift - so i baked one! ;)

it was an almond lemon cake, and painted in the marks I made rather than colouring the whole icing this time - much faster!!