One would assume from my absence on this blog that I haven't been baking lately. You'd think with all this new found free time since finishing uni I would be posting every second day. I wish.
While I have been baking, unfortunately it hasn't been anything new and exciting that I haven't already shared with you. My best friend is getting married in 24 days (!!!) and so I have been busy preparing noms for that. So five lemon curd krummeltortes, 300 baby ANZAC biscuits and a three tiered practice wedding cake later I am decidedly shattered.
I'm also in the midst of finding a big kid job. So if anyone out there needs or knows of someone who needs a food scientist with an intense love of all things food I would be very appreciative if one would 'holla' my way.
Now this post is really an intro to the wedding cake I am constructing.
At first I was rather reluctant to agree to make this wedding cake. There is nothing worse than a dry wedding cake. Especially when they cost so much to have made! It is a big task and a wedding day isn't something you really want to screw up, especially when it is the wedding day of your best friend for the last 10 years. I decided to do a prototype/dress rehearsal/draft/practice run (whichever one best relates to you). I wanted to estimate cooking times, unbaked cake weights and the shelf life of the wedding cake to be. I had also never made a tiered cake before, so this made me nervous.
The cake on the day will be a four tiered monstrosity sporting a lavender ombre effect. I decided to take the white chocolate buttercream route as it was a) cheaper than ganache, b) tastier than fondant and c) a more familiar territory to me. The downside of this however is that the icing hardens but I guess sacrifices must be made in the quest of cake.
We decided to make a chocolate mocha cake as the base for all this buttercream. Its an easy and relatively cheap cake to make that is nice and dense (so it will support tiering) and keeps well. Chocolate is also a crowd pleaser. I am a massive fruit cake fan but unfortunately it would seem I am in the minority.
The prototype turned out wonderfully! Five days later the cake is still acceptably moist and cuts beautifully. My roses up the top need practice and I need to make the colour change between the layers a bit more even but that is easily fixed. My friends jokingly (or may potentially have been serious) offered to get me some Pantone colour swatches to match the colours up with. These same friends of mine are also getting a little sick of chocolate cake and swear that I am out to make them all obese.
I was a bit silly and didn't take any process shots but I will be sure to with the final thing and do a good and proper instruction on how to do it. In my defence my kitchen was an absolute bomb site after making this so it is probably best you don't get to witness that. In the mean time I shall leave you with a wee three tiered preview and continue to think of more delightful treats to share with you here!
Peace!