This is only as far as my automechanical skills go. The cake is fondant-covered; the Lightning McQueen is made of gum paste. Everything is edible, of course.
Inside are three layers of lemon cake moistened with lemon syrup, white chocolate and cream cheese filling, and Swiss lemon buttercream. The cake is 9×13-inch, over 3-inch tall; the cartoon character is about 4-inch long.
Sorry, this is not the post I promised. I still don’t have time for a lengthy post. I’ve been doing a lot of cake decorating lately. It’s a time consuming but also a quite satisfying activity. This particular one was made for a boy (a young man, I should probably say) turning his twenty. I was told he’s into martial arts and graphics. His nick name is Tiger, and that’s an animal I was supposed to represent in a cake-form somehow. Since the birthday boy already passed the Winnie the Pooh age (pity… I love Tigger), I had to find more of an adult-oriented solution. This fondant appliqué took me longer than I expected due to the curvy shapes. Well, live and learn… The hieroglyph on the side means “tiger” in Chinese (I think a Japanese character with the same meaning is very similar to it). I thought it would be appropriate considering the boy’s interest in martial arts. I tried to copy the symbol precisely (I know you have to be careful with Asian letterings); I just hope it didn’t get misspelled during the process.
Under the fondant was a Devil’s chocolate cake filled with strawberry jam and bittersweet sourcream ganache.
I made this cake for a little boy’s birthday celebration party who loves everything related to Curious George.
Fondant was not a decorating option in this case, so I used it only for a board covering and message cut-outs. For everything else I went with freshly made marzipan instead – just a little bit over a kilo :) All these bananas, as well as the monkey, were glued to a buttercream frosting while it was still soft. The cake itself was chocolate-banana, filled with whipped milk chocolate ganache.
I can’t believe my little baby has just turned seven! I guess he is not a baby anymore… It seems like he was two yesterday. We’ve been busy lately with all the planning and celebrating (that’s why I’m not always here and a bit slow to respond; my apologies). There are more parties to come, more cakes to bake (smaller groups of kids are easier to control).
I borrowed this jet decorating idea from Lindy Smith – a well-known cake decorator. Technically, the whole thing is edible, including the jet. The last is made of pastillage and gum paste. As for the cake, I thought these clouds presented a great opportunity to bake two different cakes, so the kids could have a choice. I baked a chocolate-orange pound cake and a lemon one (pound cakes are easy to shape without excessive crumbling) in a loaf pan, cut the clouds out of them, then sliced each cloud into three layers. I filled the chocolate cake with a Sicilian orange marmalade, and the lemon one with an apricot jam. For the frosting, I made a batch of Swiss buttercream with a generous addition of fresh lemon juice, then divided the cream in half and added a bit of lemon oil into the first half (to frost the lemon-apricot clouds) and some orange oil into another half (for the chocolate-orange clouds).
The decorated cakes can be both fun and delicious (I mean the part that is under the fondant), and can have a far more interesting taste than most of the decorators suggest.
This is my attempt to recreate a girl’s favorite toy in a cake form for her 3rd birthday. I don’t exactly know why this creature turned out looking so sad. Maybe the fact that I was making it at 2AM is the reason… I didn’t want to incorporate too much coloring into the cake itself. So instead I covered the cake board with green fondant grass and planted some bright flowers.
Inside is the rich chocolate pound cake filled with seedless raspberry jam and Swiss buttercream.
Happy Birthday, Isabella!
Behind the camouflage is this month’s Daring Bakers Challenge – flourless chocolate cake. I needed to put a batch of fondant to some use (I made the fondant earlier for another project that was cancelled). So, I turned the cake into a box full of chocolate. First, I spread the cake with a thin layer of strawberry jam, covered it with sour cream ganache, and then decorated with the fondant. By all means, don’t get me wrong – I’ve never believed that the fondant is a tasty addition. It’s always been considered as a pretty and quite effective storing container (way more air-tight than a cake dome). The fondant was peeled off later and never eaten.
As for the cake, it was good; not great, not the best one I’ve had, but definitely – pretty good. I think, the cake would benefit from more delicate water-bath baking.
The optional part of this challenge was an ice cream to accompany the cake. And I did make a frozen dessert (not exactly the ice cream) to go with the cake. It was roasted strawberry and thyme sherbet. But I have to apologize here, since I’m not posting this recipe now. I’ll do it within a couple of days.
This challenge was hosted by Wendy at wmpesblog and Dharm at Dad - Baker and Chef and the recipe used is an adaptation of Chef Wan’s.
