Cakes II!

In cakes dos, we were able to build upon what we learned from cakes uno (go figure) with more focus on decorating techniques. Decoration ain't really my thang, despite it being my means of gainful employment. Sure I want it to have eye appeal, but I would rather spend more time making that shit taste good. It was fun anyway.

Yule log. I didn't know people made these anymore. I think it's a throwback to French hotel dining back in the day. That's the only setting I can see someone pulling this off. Ye Olde Yule Log is essentially a roulade cake. For this one we used a simple sponge, soaked in booze, with a cranberry meringue buttercream and chestnuts. It's wrapped and chilled, then cut and assembled to look like a log in a forest. We decorated it with chocolate buttercream, meringue mushrooms, and marzipan Holly. I thought it looked mad corny, but later in my life when I am a housewife in the suburbs, I can pull this one out at my annual Christmas party and really wow the husbands. <--- That was a joke. Yule-icious!

Lemon chiffon cake. This was VERY similar to a cake we make at Mags. A lemony cake, with lemon curd between the layers. But we used a plain buttercream to coat the outside. It was buttery and delicious. I practiced my basket-weave in buttercream on this one, something I hope I never have to do in my professional life. So tacky!

Chocolate-pistachio roll cake. I know this cake doesn't look at all interesting from the outside (we were practicing covering cakes with rolled marzipan) but it was BOMB on the inside. A chocolate roulade cake with pistachio cream! I LOVE chocolate and pistachio!

Fraisier cake. This was pretty tasty and rich. Vanilla cake layers soaked in champagne, with moussaline and strawberries. Note how I spelled "Fraisier" wrong on the top.

Hello. I am a Black Forest cake that stepped out of the 80s.

Ah, and the grand finale. This baby was my pride and joy! This was for our midterm exam, and we had to draw from a hat out cake, filling, and covering combinations. I got Biscuit Cuillere (lady fingers), Bavarian cream, and fondant. To do this successfully, I had to pipe my lady fingers into discs, and make a buttercream barrier to my white peach Bavarian cream. The chill the whole cake for awhile to get it nice and solid before covering it with fondant and decorating.

We had to choose a celebration theme for our cakes, and because I make birthday, anniversary, and congratulations cakes all the time, I wanted to choose something different. Adam was going to go crabbing soon, and wanting to do something pictoral, I decided on "Happy crabbing!"

How I made it: I tinted my fondant a light blue and covered the cake, squaring it off. I then painted the water, seaweed, and a couple of fishies on. While waiting for that to dry, I made all of my fondant decoration parts - I made the crabbing boat with the figures, and a bunch of little blue crabs. Once it was dry, I piped the beading on the bottom - coloring the royal icing to make it look like pebbles on a river bed. I then piped royal icing on the border of the water and sky to emphasize the frothiness of the waves. I stuck all the fondant pieces on, piped a royal icing trap, seagulls, and inscription, and VOILA! A crabbing cake! I was impressed with how much detail I was able to pull off in the about 2 hours of decoration time I got. I know it's hard to see, but in between the 2 crabbers, there is a crabbing basket with a claw sticking out. That's one of my favorite parts!