I have not blogged in a while as I had my mother and father staying with me for the month of April, I was made redundant at work and then had 10 uni assignments due last month!
What I did do cake wise since my last blog was my very first 2 tiered cake for my engagement party! I was so proud of it – it took 10 hours and I did bite my mother’s head off a bit and it isn’t perfect but the I was so chuffed that I managed it without paying $100s on a cake course!
The imperfections that I could see were that the fondant was a little wrinkly if you looked up close. That was because I worked it too hard. It took me 5 goes to get the circumference of the fondant large enough to cover the bottom tier, meanwhile drying out each time. The ribbons are also a little cracked as I wasn’t working at a professional speed. The bottom tier must have been a little wonky as there is a slight gap between the tiers but I tried to hide it with some ribbon. Also the rip isn’t quite as good as in the Planet Cake book but better then my last 2 attempts!
The bottom tier is carrot cake with white chocolate ganache – the cake was perfect and moist – no shrinkage at all making it very hard to ganache! The top is chocolate mud with dark chocolate ganache. Both tiers were a great hit at the party. As my fiancé and I were cutting it I remember saying we should keep the top tier to eat later as that would be too much cake but it all went – in minutes! 10 hours of work in about 10 mins!
But it was worth it.
I am looking forward to the time in my life when I have no uni or a full time job and can practice lots and let our kids and school friends be the tasters!
After this I didn’t make a cake for 2 months due to the stressful time of the redundancy and uni, but then I had a baby shower with the theme ‘Cupcakes & Champagne’ and I thought I MUST make some cakes!
I tested the waters again with the white chocolate mud cupcakes with lemon butter cream which I hope to use for my wedding favours (more on this woe later...) and I tried 2 new ones – raspberry cake with white chocolate butter cream and a chocolate sponge. I had planned to make a chocolate icing for these but it was 10.30pm at night and there was plenty of white BC left so on that went!
So that night after work I made and iced 34 cupcakes – the icing wasn’t my best as I gave up trying that late at night so I took no photos. However, they were all a hit and now all I have to do is work out what will be best for the wedding!
Oh AND.... I did all this in my swanky new pale pink Kitchen Aid which I was very lucky enough to have been given on my 27th birthday thanks to my very thoughtful fiancé and lovely family!!!
