Today I want to share the cake I was making last week, you know, the one that had me rambling on about ganache for what seemed like forever?
Anyway, This cake was a lightly carved super moist chocolate cake with a dark chocolate semi-sweetened ganache, Covered in fondant which was hand painted in silver lustre dust, with home made rock candy ice cubes, an edible image logo and a few drinkable cans for good measure.
Here is the finished product:
Now, I wanted to share this cake with you because for me, there were so many firsts in this cake! I had never carved a cake, Never made rock candy, never used an edible image, never used anything like cans in a cake before, never used lustre dust so, this was a biiiiig undertaking for me!
So. I did my best to remember to take photos along the way, and this is my step by step.
Obviously first step was to bake the cakes. The receiver of the cake said that his favourite cake was a Woolworth's chocolate mud cake. (for my American readers, this is a store bought cake that is a super rich, dark, almost black chocolate cake) So obviously the cake had to be chocolate. I then went with the dark chocolate ganache to contrast the sweetness of the cake, but added a few extra ingredients (see my last post for details) to match the flavours.
I used a 7" and an 8" cake tin, and baked one cake in the 7" and two in the 8" Then split them into two layers each (With my nifty new cake splitter! How did I ever do this without one! Will list details at the end of the post) then filled with ganache.
Always put a little smear of ganache onto the board before putting down your first layer, it just helps the cake anchor to the board so it wont move around while you work. I used an offset spatula to apply the ganache, and I also have the cake sitting on an old lazy-susan with a silicone mat on top just to stop the board from moving. Having the cake itself turn has a huge advantage to keeping your layers even and level, and only a thin layer of ganache was added to each layer as it had quite a few layers.
Next came the Carving:
Using a serrated knife I trimmed the edges off the outside to make it a smooth tapered shape.
after this was done and I was happy with the shape, I added a thin layer of ganache over the entire cake, then popped it into the fridge to set up. after about half an hour, I took it back out and used a cookie cutter slightly bigger than the size of the can and angled it on top of the cake to cut out where I wanted the cans to be placed, then cut out the cake necessary. I then ganached that area and put it back into the fridge for an hour to firm up completely.
Next came the fondant. This was super tricky. Because the cake tapers in at the bottom instead of the top, getting it to cover without it stretching/ Ripping or wrinkling was extremely difficult. Because I was frantic, I didn't get any photos of that. I had a lot of wrinkles in the bottom of the cake, so I measured the circumference of the top and the bottom and rolled a second piece of fondant cut to the height of the side and a few inches bigger than my measurements and popped it over the top of the first layer, which made it much smoother and easier to manage.
After it had an hour or two to dry out a little, I mixed the silver lustre with some vodka and painted the sides of the cake and added a medium thin rope of fondant and wrapped it around the bottom of the "pail" then a thicker one for the top and painted those as well. I made the top one thicker as it had to hold the "Ice" from falling off the top of the cake, and it also helped to hide the raw edge from the second layer of fondant on the sides.
Where I made the cut outs for the cans on the top of the cake, I added some extra supports:
This just helped shift the pressure from the cake itself, as it was quite thin between the cutout and the outside edge.
Next came the rock candy. This took a bunch of goes, because I didn't have some of the equipment needed. But I managed to make do without a candy thermometer and corn syrup. This is Just sugar and water. My first batch completely Crystallised:
The second batch got a bit amber in the pot so when i added a little blue colour, it went green:
My third batch (when I was sure I had the hang of it) I poured into an icecube tray. I made those quite a dark blue to combat the green and when they cooled they had a tiny amount of crystallisation which actually added to the effect and made them look just like real coloured ice!
This was the result:
I added the extra can and the candles on arrival to the party, and as you saw at the top, my finished cake!
Now I mentioned at the top I purchased a cake splitter. Best. Thing. Ever! perfectly level cakes, every time! I purchased mine from Ebay and its a simple wire cutter. See mine Here.
I also bought this little set :Decorating set and it had everything I needed. Great tools and good quality. Many fun cakes to come!!
Thats all from me today!
Next im going to talk cupcakes and cake pops!
Thanks for reading as always :)
The Beginner Baker.
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