Choccywoccymegasuperyummyfabulous

This was my first cake that I've used pillars with, and they're not the traditional plastic pillars you'd usually associate with a tiered cake. This cake was an order for the sort-of-step-sister of an old friend, and she had found a picture of this design online and wanted the same for her wedding. The bottom tier was a chocolate fudge cake with dark chocolate ganache, the middle tier was a vanilla sponge with milk chocolate ganache, and the top tier was a vanilla sponge with white chocolate ganache. All three tiers have their respective flavour chocolate cigarellos surrounding them, which is held in place by the ganache.

The pillars I used were clear fillable acrylic pillars, and they come in a range of tube widths and numbers. From the looks of the picture I was given as a guide to follow, the bride and groom believed the chocolate balls filled in the tubes to be Maltesers, but since I couldn't find dark or white chocolate Maltesers ANYWHERE in the middle of summer (usually you see them at Christmas time) they were happy to let me use rolled-up balls of chocolate Cocoform instead. They were only used as decoration anyway, not to be eaten. Now these pillars were extremely expensive - about £50 from the cheapest places online! - but lo and behold my amazing cake shop owner had these in stock that she lets out to hire, and she let me have the two of them for the weekend for a mere tenner! Score!

I really enjoyed the assembly of this cake, from fixing on the chocolate cigarellos to adding in the chocolate shavings to bring the whole piece together - the entire look really worked well and I was so pleased when it was finally assembled at the wedding venue.

However, I mentioned this was a summer wedding cake. When I arrived at the venue, I was horrified to discover that the cake table had been set up in direct sunlight - and it was a scorching day!! I mean - it's a three tier chocolate wedding cake! And they wanted me to leave it to melt?! You can even see in the picture that it's amazingly bright outside! So after a slightly heated discussion with the wedding co-ordinator, we agreed that the table would be moved into the shade whilst I assembled the cake, and when it was time for the Bride and Groom to come into the Reception room that they'd move the table back where it belonged. I really didn't like this idea. Cakes are extremely fragile, and I had to leave it in the "trusted" hands of the venue staff. So I left the cake in this condition as you see above. But I have no idea what happened later in the day... And unfortunately the B&G were extremely unhappy that by the time they got to the cake that evening it apparantly looked like "the leaning tower of Pisa," as they put it :( Obviously this left my confidence extremely knocked for six, as I knew that I had stacked the cake as carefully as I always would - using dowels and cake boards between each tier to support the weight of the next one. I can only assume that when the staff moved the table with cake later, something jigged and moved...

I suppose this is just one of the punches I have to roll with when working in this business - after delivery the cake is out of my hands and I just have to hope and pray that nothing happens to it.

Icing on the Top:

• It looks brilliant, I'll even say it myself. I was so pleased with how good it turned out that my mum treated me to lunch as a congratulatory celebration on delivery of my first real wedding cake. So she was witness to everything, by the way!
• I received LOADS of compliments for this cake from friends and family. It kinda made up for hearing such a critisicm on one of my creations.

Burnt Bits:

• This is the only cake that I've made to date that the recipient has not been happy with :(
• Where some of the milk and dark chocolate Cocoform balls touched the white ones they left little smudges of chocolate. I'm a perfectionist, so I HATED those little dirty bits!
• Chocolate is EXTREMELY difficult to work with in hot weather. When we moved the tiers onto the WHITE table cloth, a few of the chocolate shavings fell onto it and stained it slightly. We were able to fix this by flipping the table cloth over, and when it happened again we used the diamante table decorations to cover them, too.
• The chocolate cigarellos come in all shapes, all sizes. Some are wider than others, and unfortunately this made them hard to line up next to each other in a uniform straight line. You can see where this hit worst on the bottom tier.

I was on such a high after the delivery of this cake that I can't believe how much that turned around in a few days. I hate this part of the business, disappointing people. I just hope next time that someone requests a chocolate cake that they ensure their cake table isn't in a position that could compromise the final presentation of it :( Something to consider, for all you engaged couples!

Happy Baking x

For Better or For Worse...?

Quite possibly one of the worst cakes I've made.

Alright, I know it's not terrible. But it ain't great. People can say all they like that it was a great cake, but I know deep down they're thinking... WTF?!

This was for one of my best friend's engagement party. She is one of the sweetest people you will ever meet, and I feel so terrible for the way this cake came out. On their first wedding anniversary I plan to replicate this cake the way it should have been made so fear not! Hannah and Mark will get their perfect engagement cake one day! It should be noted that I'll also be making their wedding cake so I'll be sure to make that one perfect too!!

Icing on the Top:

• This was a replica of their proposal, which I cried at when Hannah told me (not because she had a diamond ring, because I'm genuinely happy for her!!). Haha, no being serious. It was Hannah's 21st birthday at Glastonbury 2011 and Mark took her up on Glasto Tor and after much fumbling about in his pocket for the ring that his mum had SEWN to the inside of his trousers, he managed to pop the question to our beautiful Hannah. So Hannah and I agreed on this design for their cake.
• The reason I don't like this cake is because there's too many inside layers of cake. Don't get me wrong though, you can argue that having too much cake is a pro, so I will argue that.
• Hannah and Mark really are just the sweetest couple and couldn't stop gushing about it. I even got a mention in the toasts, so I'm guessing they liked it.

Burnt Bits:

• It's shit.
• Normally, I bake two layers of cake and sandwich them together with buttercream. For some reason I was convinced that these layers wouldn't add enough height to the cake so I carried on baking and gave them a triple-layer cake on each tier. Unfortunately, this didn't work in my favour due to the amount of buttercream I sandwiched between each layer, and this led to it spilling out of the sides of the cake once I covered the cake in icing. The weight of the icing just helped push out even more buttercream, and gave this horribly bumpy edge to each tier.
• I thought that by adding a string of trees around the tiers it would help disguise this. It didn't, and I don't even think there are many trees at Glastonbury festival.
• I was under a lot of pressure to make this cake. I had stupidly agreed to also make my then mother-in-law's birthday cake for the same day, and suffice it to say, I put more effort into her cake :(
• I couldn't get the consistency of the royal icing right when I was finishing off the bottom of the tiers, and a lot of it melted into one another instead of maintaining their 'star' shapes.
• The 'Glastonbury' sign was supposed to be made out of flowerpaste, so that it would harden and I would be able to stand the letters up on the side of the tiers. I didn't plan this very well, and the letters I was cutting out were very wonky, messy, crappy... So I just printed off a picture of the sign and cut it out, layering the letters onto card and affixing them to the cake with cocktail sticks stuck to the back of the letters.
• Hannah and Mark are HUGE compared to the sign. Evidently not good to make out that they are in fact, giants.

I will now post about the other cake I made that day to make myself feel better about my cake-making skills. Boo me!

Happy Baking x

The Baker's Back...

Over a month since my last post - I'm so sorry!! I've had probably the most hectic few weeks of my life recently and suddenly become a responsible adult by moving out of my parents' and in with my gorgeous boy!! As you all know, I've started a small business called 'Cakes by Kirsten' and this has been one of the reasons for my shoddy blogging! Here's what I've been up to over the weeks...

1) Martini Glass Cake - 2) Willy Cupcakes - 3) Lady Gaga Cupcakes - 4) Holy Communion Cake - 5) Blu Parrot Cake - 6) Fresia Fruit Wedding Cake - 7) Oliver's Christening Cake - 8) Paula's Pirate Cake - 9)  - Red Velvet Cupcakes

I know it must be super boring that I haven't been blogging my recipes lately, and have gone a bit bigheaded with the whole "look at what I can do!" motion, so I'll post the recipe to the Red Velvet cupcakes in a few posts' time :) 

TV Reminder: Couture Cakes!

One of the author's of my recently reviewed cake design book, Mich Turner (Couture Wedding Cakes) has her own cake show on Wedding TV every Sunday night at 6:30pm. I've recently errr... stumbled... across this channel and one of the adverts featured Mich and I was like :O have to watch that!

It looks like it's going to be a really good programme for anyone who needs video tutorials on cake craft, and she emphasises the point of accessorising your cake with everything else in a wedding e.g. your tiara, your flowers, your colour theme. Definitely be watching this come Sunday night, might even do a little follow up on it. Anyways, just thought I'd let the cake lovers of the blogworld know about this :)
Happy Baking x

Disclaimer: I take no credit for the above image, sourced from Google.

Couture and Romantic: Book Review

Ahh so sorry for lack of posts, I've been out of money for a while and anyone who knows anything about baking and cakes knows that a lot of money goes into all those little details. So for now I thought I'd do a quick review of two books I've recently acquired for my cookbook collection. They are exactly the sort of cakes I'd love to delve into and get proper stuck in but for the time being all I can do is commissions :( (Don't worry, I have a fabulous chocolate cigerello tiered cake coming for my mother's 50th in a month! Oh and I'll probably do some sort of Halloween themed something-or-other come payday!)
So my new books are "Cakes for Romantic Occasions" by May Clee-Cadman and "Couture Wedding Cakes" by Mich Turner. Both authors are reknowned cake designers and they have a fabulous array of cakes inside.

Couture Wedding Cakes:
Mich Turner has designed some of the most intricate and amazing cakes I have ever seen, gaining inspiration from top notch designers such as Amanda Wakely, Tiffany's, Boodles (sigh!) and Chanel. She founded the Little Venice Cake Company in 1999, which stocks both M&S and Harrods.

The chocolate monochrome cake in the top right is what I will be attempting to make for Mummy's birthday - ahhh!! And I love the detail on the bottom left cake, that's actually painted on to give a feather effect - gorgeous!

Cakes for Romantic Occasions:

This book has really hit the nail on the head for a new craze in wedding cake design - mini cakes! I absolutely love them and they are so versatile, it's you wedding cake, dessert, and a party favour all rolled into one! Couture Cakes touched on them, but I really think Ms. Clee-Cadman is on to something here. I'm being commissioned to recreate one of her cakes for one of my best friend's wedding, and it's so easy to just adjust the colours to match in with her wedding theme. Get a load of these beauts:

Even my boyfriend, Jim, thinks that chocolate brownie mini triple-tiered wedding cakes would be adorable for our own special day :P And below that, you can see how amazingly little detailing can create such a perfect wedding favour. A small clear box, ribbon and a dried posy makes it look just that extra bit special.

The top right Raspberry Ripple cake looks to diiiiie for, and look - my cupcake wrappers have hit the trend in this book!



Here's a sneak peek of what's to come soon - modelling chocolate: ever seen a beautiful sugar flowered arrangement on a cake? Try that, but chooooocolate! I'll be trying my hand at this baby to practice for the 50th birthday cake.

That's all for now folks.

Happy Baking x

Disclaimer: All photographs in this post are re-taken images from the books previously mentioned. I take no credit for any of the images in this post, they are simply there to help advertise the books I have reviewed.