Cake Decorating!

Finally! We're getting into making pretty cakes :) Here are my first attempts at icing cakes with butter cream, doing a basket weave, covering a cake with marzipan and fondant. Lets take a look at what they look like!

 This is the Fraisier. It is delicious X 10.

 Strawberry halves are placed perfectly around the inside of a cake ring 

 Filled with layers of soaked sponge cake

 And vanilla mousseline... with strawberry pieces in the centre. I gave mine 3 layers :)

 Level off the top and chill

 Roll out a piece of marzipan and place on top of the cake

 Trim off the excess carefully

 Decorate with white chocolate in a paper piping bag and voila!

 Look how pretty each slice sits on a plate! I loved this.

 Everyone loves a lemon chiffon... inside this cake are 3 layers of lemon chiffon and sandwiched between is tart lemon curd

 Crumb coat the cake to prevent crumbs from mixing into the final icing layer. A good crumb coat should be smooth around the edges and flat on top with nice crisp edges

 My first attempt at a basket weave!

 I thought that the cake with basket weave only on the side looked naked so I filled in the top too :)

 Another first was this cake! 

Done fully in marzipan... The marbling was fun to do :)

First attempt at covering a cake in fondant! Ignore the bumps as it got a little knocked up when traveling home with me~

 Inside was this. Chocolate sponge with pistachio cream... Yuuummm.

 Once the vertical log was crumb coated, it was covered in fondant that I made out of powdered sugar, corn syrup and gelatin kneaded to the right consistency

 

The bottom skirt is then trimmed off cleanly... I used a spackling tool for this ;)

 Once cut into, you get this cool effect from the way it was rolled and wrapped vertically

 Gorgeous.

The Black Forest Cake.

 So delicious. I single handedly ate half of this myself.

 Layers of chocolate cake, Creme D'or (decadent chocolate cream) and sour cherry compote

 Simply frosted in whipped cream, garnished with rosettes topped with brandied cherries and chocolate curls

 Now that is what I call a good looking slice.

 I made the sour cherry compote for the class. Take one huge ass pot and fill it up with sour cherries, a little sprinkling of sugar and 3 vanilla beans... one it comes to a boil, take some of the juice out, cool it and add some corn starch to make a slurry and pour it back to the cherries and boil for 2 mins and let thicken

Now ever hear that expression "Christmas in July"? Well rightly so, as I found myself making a Yule Log in the middle of July last month!

 It started out with a layer of soaked sponge

 Covered in a layer of spiced sour cherry buttercream... mMmmm..

 Next it is rolled up carefully to form a log shape

 From there, I cut off both ends at a slight angle and attach them onto the top of the log with chocolate butter cream and proceeded to spread the chocolate butter cream all over the log to make it look like a tree branch

 After which, small little meringue cones and rounds are piped and baked. Why you ask? 

 

 To make little mushroom and snowmen of course! I dipped the underside of my mushroom heads in cocoa powder to imitate the dark fins on the undersides of mushrooms as well as a light dusting on top to make them look more realistic.

 How do they stick together you ask? Well, a little hole dug into the caps with a little dollop of white chocolate helps the pointed stems to fit and stick nicely! Do you like my double little mushrooms in the background? Cute aren't they??

I hope you enjoyed this post, I'll try to remember to take more photos as I bake~ Its sometimes so fast and busy in class that I tend to forget.  Anywho, next up? Chocolate! But first, my mid-term exam~ That's in the next post so stay tuned!!

xoxox