My roommates were getting married in late April and had asked if we could make their cake. Wow! A wedding cake...what a scary thing! We all know that people only remember three things at a wedding: 1) whether the bride's dress was ugly or not, 2) the uncomfortable conversations between strangers at your table and 3) the wedding cake.
That week, the bride-to-be was so stressed out about the wedding planning that she was just a big, hot, crying mess the night before. It was a Saturday and she got ready to go into work that morning. Gin and I decided to do a mock up of her wedding cake so that we could get an idea of how to construct one and also bring the bride-to-be at ease. What an excellent surprise! We got to work as soon as the bride-to-be left the house.
Whenever we start a project, 9 out of 10 times, Gin wants to 'test a new recipe'. This was a three-tier cake and each layer was a different flavor. The bottom was what we call 'Death by Chocolate', the most intense of our chocolate recipes. The middle layer was 'Pistachio'. The top layer was 'Classic White'. We pretty much made a huge batch of cream cheese buttercream and used it for all three. We learned that it tasted best with the Classic White, but didn't go too well with the Pistachio or Death by Chocolate. In the future, I'd probably use Chocolate Ganache for the DBC and a Vanilla Buttercream for the Pistachio.
Baking these suckers and covering each one wasn't so hard. I felt like I was getting better at the fondant thing. Although, I did have a harder time covering the bottom tier because it was so large. But when all was covered, we were met with the task of stacking the cakes.
We never stacked a cake before. How the heck do they do it without the cake collapsing? Well, thank goodness for YouTube videos! We spent about an hour watching a bunch of them on cake stacking and followed the instructions accordingly using wooden dowels, cut to size, and cake boards. We did make a minor mistake...we cut the dowels too short on the bottom tier so the middle tier was weighing down on it a bit. :( But alas, the cake was stacked and centered!
Our next step was to roll out ribbons out of chocolate fondant and wrap them around each tier to conceal the bottom cake edges. What a task! Not only did we have to roll them out long enough to wrap around the diameter of each cake, we had to get the pattern on them pressed consistently without cracking. We must have rolled and re-rolled those things 10 times before getting them to how we wanted them!
The flowers completed the final touches on this cake and we set it up minutes before the roomie came home from her work shift. Our first wedding cake mock up was a success! And we learned alot of lessons along the way:
1) Make sure you cut all your dowels evenly and to the exact height of each cake layer.
2) Knead out your fondant thoroughly to keep it pliable and moist. If needed, microwave it for 5 seconds only before kneading with your hands. the warmth of your hands keeps the fondant from drying out and cracking.
3) Be sure to roll out your fondant a little larger than your cake surface, otherwise your dirty icing will peep through.
4) Test out your cakes with your frostings and fillings to figure out the best tasting combinations.
Determined to master the art of fondant! In light of the Cherry Blossom Festival, I decided to test my abilities in gum paste flower making while making a 2nd attempt at working with fondant. I call this cake 'Sakura Petals Falling'. The branches are made out of molding chocolate (no, not molded chocolate!) and the blooms out of gum paste (pastillage or candy clay).
I made the gum paste flowers the night before because they need 24 hours to cure or harden into munchable little candies. At first, I rolled out the gumpaste about 1/4" thick which in the end was OKAY...but later I found that rolling it out as thin as I possible could made for more fragile and delicate flowers. For the larger blossoms, I doubled up on the blooms and glued them together using piping gel (cake decorating medium made mostly of corn syrup). Once cured, I dusted all 70 blooms with Poppy Red petal dust (powdered food color) & Super Red luster dust (edible fine glitter). You can find these at www.lusterdust.com.
I rolled out my white fondant large enough to cover the entire cake and quickly laid it on top and began smoothing with my paddles. This was a fairly short cake so I didn't have the issue of pulling and tearing at the corners from the weight of the fondant. I decided to roll out a ribbon of fondant, stamp it with a geometric Japanese pattern and wrap it around the edges of the cake. I then pressed divets into the pattern and attached pearl dragees with more piping gel.
After molding the branches onto the cake, I attached the blossoms with more piping gel and dotted the larger blooms with pearl dragees. I must say, I was actually proud of this one. It was perfect and free of mistakes!
So, since we are starting this blog a little late, we thought we'd share some of the projects we've done the past few months. We started cake decorating in mid February of this year. In fact, the first time I ever handled fondant was for a small 5" round cake for our friend's birthday.
I didn't know anything about handling or smoothing fondant so when I draped it over this small cake, I got all these folds and wrinkles! You better believe I was in a panic, but luckily I was able to hide them with flower fondant decorations that I made. :)
Lessons learned:
1) Don't get too excited about working with a medium (in this case, fondant) until you have learned the ins and outs about it!
2) Mistakes are sometimes a blessing in disguise...DECORATE!
3) Instead of rolling the fondant out on a counter dusted with cornstarch or powdered sugar (which will dry out the fondant and cause cracking), roll it out on a self healing cutting mat. It won't stick, it's wonderful!
4) You need to work FAST, especially in colder weather.
5) Make sure your cakes are dense, completely cooled otherwise you will get airbubbles between your fondant. The weight of the fondant presses down on your cake pushing all the air out of it.
Happy rolling!
-Lei
Hello Everyone!
Finally, we decided to start a blog site! This blog is going to be a proper introduction to Cake Flower Cakery. :)
We are simply two bonded sisters who found a hobby that allowed us to express our creativity and make people happy. My sister, Gin works at an entertainment law office and I am a fashion/graphic designer. One day, Gin decided to enroll us in a professional culinary course that held sessions every weekend. It was a perfect means of escape from the hustle and bustle of our corporate jobs and a great way for us to spend our weekends together catching up. During the process, we discovered our growing interest in dessert making, and even more so, the art of decorating them. The more we sought out to learn and train in the craft, the more we felt that it was something we could pursue together.
Although we are both well rounded in different aspects of cake decorating, there is a distinct difference in our work ethics...a chemistry that makes for the perfect match! Gin is more the business-minded one who handles the bulk of the paperwork and pretty much keeps us running. She also has a natural talent and sense of preciseness in the art of baking, perfecting new recipes and mediums for us to work with. My name is Lei, and although I'm Gin's older sister, most mistake me for the younger one because I'm more of the fantastic thinker, while she is the realist. My contribution to our operation is my design sense and ability to bring our collaborations to life. I enjoy the creative side of our business and infuse my fashion and graphic arts background into our designs. In the end, you have Gin "The Chemist" and Lei "The Artist".
As of now, we are still in the process of professional and non-professional training, so this blog site is going to be an interesting documentation of our endeavors! We'd like to thank all of our friends and family for their support and encouragement in pursuing this new dream.
