Monday, December 22, 2008

My 1st birthday cake


Last week, Kak Ina ordered a 2kg Choc Cheese Wave for her husband's birthday - with "Happy Birthday Boss" as writing on the cake. I didn't want to spoil the cake with horrible icing, so I opted for whipped chocolate Ganache. I personally think, you can never go wrong with Ganache - slightly expensive compared to other types of icing.

As written in my previous post, I'm not a fan of decorating cakes but am making some initiative to learn nevertheless. Icing the cake wasn't a problem at all. I think that was the easiest part of the decor. I made a shell border for the bottom of the cake and had to work quickly as the whipped ganache warmed up rather fast in my warm palms which makes it difficult to pipe with. After tossing the remaining ganache to set in the fridge, I decided to make dots for the top border of the cake. Really, I think I should have stuck to shells instead of dots as it made the cake quite bare. My plan of dusting the car (I put a MB SL on the cake as the husband deals cars) with icing sugar to imitate snow didn't quite work out as the sugar immediately dissolved into the ganache! LOL

O dear! I also experimented making rolled fondant for the lettering. I didn't enjoy every second of the fondant-making. The amount of icing sugar used to get the correct pliable fondant is just appalling! I cannot imagine how one person can enjoy eating a fondant-iced cake. I think it is definitely pleasing to the eyes only. Having said that, I did enjoy making the alphabet cut-outs. They were rather cute!

O well, there goes my 1st cake-decorating experience. I have 2 more cakes to decorate by new year. Hidayah's birthday cake for 31st Dec, and Ridayatul & Khairul Anwar's engagement cake for 1st Jan. Wish me luck as I think I would need lots of it. Like Nancy said, the art of cake decorating comes with practice. So here's to practising!

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