Showing posts with label 3D cake. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 3D cake. Show all posts

August 2, 2012

Harry Potter!

Hello Peeps!!

Remember when I mentioned in a previous post that I had an upcoming cake that I was very very excited about?? Well I did it!! And for all those who's a bit of a Facebook junkie like me, you would have already seen all the pics plastered up.....

It was my Harry Potter cake!! Most certainly the biggest cake that I have made to date, it was such fun to make! Bradley and Hansen from Anime at Abbotsford contacted me way back at the beginning of the year about this mammoth cake. From the word go I was quite giddy at the thought of making a Harry Potter themed cake (because I am such a secret HP nerd fan). At first I thought that they meant they needed a 300-400 serve cake for a little boys' birthday who was having a Harry Potter themed party, I was thinking omg thats one popular kid...but then upon clarification I realised it was to celebrate Harry's birthday for a cosplay event.

The inital design was meant to be a Hogwarts Castle but we then decided to change it to something smaller. I was given free reign to do whatever I wanted, which was awesome because I really did go all out trying to incorporate as much HP stuff in the cake as possible.

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I decided we needed a trunk, Hedwig, the sorting hat and some books. To add to the over look of the cake Harry's glasses and wand along with the Snitch and some potions were also a must. What is a kid that doesnt like sweets? So I incorporated all the funky gadgets and lollies from the movie for the final touch. I had Bertie Botts every flavoured beans, chocolate frogs and of course a Weasley & Weasley naughty gadget! - The Jinx Off.

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Everything on this cake was edible. The hat was sculpted, even the box of Bertie Botts was made from edible gumpaste. I loved making this cake because of the amount of detail I could put into it.

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The day went really well, Wobbles and I were dressed as Gryffindor students and ready to rock and roll!! It was such a great turn out and was such a joy to see little kids running around "attacking" the dementor hehe. There was a raffle organised where the prize was to be on TV with channel TVS cutting the cake and they also got to keep the snitch. In the end, one woman won and she had the hard job of to choosing between her 3 boys for this task.

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The cake was the centre piece of the whole event and it was quite funny to see people ooo and ahhh over it. There were constant crowds surrounding the cake and through out the day you could hear people say .. "GO LOOK AT THE CAKE!!"& "OMG the cake!". There was one girl who forced her brother (who was not too interested). It was awesome to see such a positive reaction :)

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When the time came to cutting the cake, I swear it felt like I was in a mosh pit. There were so many people and so many kids around that I just could not move!! Eventually, the 3 little winners of the raffle cut the cake with the TV crew exclaiming it "would be easier to film in a war zone".

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I dismantled the books first, which were chocolate flavoured with chocolate ganache. Then moved onto the owl which was vanilla flavoured with white chocolate ganache. The suitcase was a hazelnut flavour. The cake served at least 450 people and there was still half of the suitcase left and the whole sorting hat left. Im sure Bradley and Hansen are still having cake for breakfast, lunch and dinner!

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It was awesome to be apart of such a fun event! A big thank you to Anime at Abbotsford for organising and to Suiyi and Victor of Suictor Photography for the photos!

I'm actually currently at the airport waiting for my flight to London for the next 3 weeks... just trying to get this post done before I leave lol! So.. there wont be any cake updates for a while. But stay tuned for some London & France highlights when I get back! :)

x


Anime at Abbotsford
318 Great North Road
Abbotsford NSW 2046
(02) 9712 1418


Suictor Photography
http://www.facebook.com/Suictorphotography

January 26, 2012

Australia Day

I love Australia Day, besides the fact that we get a public holiday and all. Its a day where you can get together with some mates for a BBQ, have a few drinks, soak up some sun (except this year the weather started out pretty poo but fortunately cleared up later in the day). Its kinda cliche but I do feel really proud to be Australian and it makes me realise everything I love about my country and how lucky I am to be living in such an awesome country.

When I was in the US, I was constantly surprised at all the things I was talking about, assuming that they'd know what I was going on about only to find that they didnt most of the time. LOL an example is, for some odd reason I was craving Curly Wurlys... but they had no idea what they were! It was a little frustrating because I'd turn to make a comment or share a thought but they couldnt relate! It was then that I realised that I assumed nothing was actually Australian and that it had come from the rest of the world or I assumed they'd have been exposed to what I have. They do say travelling broadens the mind hehe. So anyways, this started me thinking, there's the obvious Vegemite and Fosters beer thats typically Australian, what else? It really opened my eyes that I took so many things for granted! Tim Tams, Milo etc. Couldve been the homesickness setting in but I'm glad it made me think and for that I'm so much more appreciative of what is "Australian".

In keeping with tradition, this Australia Day we had a BBQ... but we also had a special little extra BBQ too!
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I made a cake based off an Australian classic, the lamington. My cake, as I like to call it, was "inverted" lamington flavoured, i.e. chocolate cake with vanilla coconut icing.
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Still had the 'snags'
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Chicken wings
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Shish Kebabs... gosh thats another thing I found out! Americans call kebabs, kebobs LOL! Made me laugh
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The stereotypical stubbie holder and BBQ .... see peeps no "shrimp on the Barbie"
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Our lovely Australia Day lunch spread

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Hope everyone had a great Australia day! ♥

(ps if anyone listened to the top 100 on Triple J ... what a disappointment! No.1 was predictable and the lead up was kinda shameful.. what happened to the FOOIES????)



March 20, 2011

Winnie the Pooh

Chelsea

About a half a year ago I was asked to be the God Mother of a beautiful baby girl - Chelsea. I remember I felt very honored and touched that out of all people, my dearest cousin asked me. Thrilled and excited I accepted :) She is a bright shining light in my life and I absolutely love her to bits! :D

So cometh her 1st birthday, I wanted only the biggest and best cake there ever was… thus begins my ultimate journey to make a 3D Winnie the Pooh cake hehehe


Initially I was a little overwhelmed, true to my nature (Queen of Procrastination) I left everything to the last minute…. But to my defence I had another cake order for the same Sat and life always calls at the most inconvenient time.. so what free time I did have was spent on this behemoth project.


The WHOLE of Pooh bear was edible, the head, legs, belly, ears - the lot! I was originally going to carve the head out of Styrofoam (like many other sane cake makers would do), however I couldn’t find a styrofoam ball big enough to fit properly so about 2 days before the cake was due I decided to make the head out of cake too!


My choice for the type of cake recipe used was limited because it had to be dense and firm enough to stand upright and be able to withstand my hacking and sculpting away at it. I opted for a pound cake recipe because when you cut it, it still holds its shape, is firm enough not to collapse yet it is still fluffy and tastes awesome! Buttercream was also used for its dense, shape holding properties.


I made 3 x 10 inch round cakes and 2 x 8 inch round cakes for the base/body. In hindsight I should’ve probably used all 10 inch round cakes.

Pound Cake (1 portion is enough for 2 x 10 inch round tins)
2 cups sugar
2 cups plain flour
¼ tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup (225g) unsalted butter, softened
5 eggs
1 ½ tsp vanilla extract
1 ½ tsp lemon extract

Preheat oven to 1650C, line 2 x 10 inch round cake tins (or you can use a Bundt cake pan).

Whip butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

Add all dry ingredients (flour, salt, baking soda). Then incorporate eggs one at a time. Mix in the extracts.

Bake for 60 minutes or until it springs back to the touch.

Strawberry Buttercream Frosting (I made like 3kgs of this stuff – Ohhh sooo damn good!)
3 cups icing sugar
225g butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 tsp strawberry essence
1 drop red food colouring (optional – I didn’t use this because mostly kids would be eating it and I didn’t want them eating artificial colourings, lol that was my bit of ‘health’ awareness)

Beat the butter until light and fluffy.

Gradually add the sugar and whip until smooth. Add essences and colouring (if using).


NOM NOM NOM

First assembly, I sandwiched the body and cut out the legs from a 20 cmx 20 cm square tin.


This was originally how I was going to do the head and arms - i.e. cover the styrofoam with fondant and shape it into features.

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After contemplation that the styrofoam head would be too small I decided to bake some extra cake for the head. If you are wondering how I managed to structurally keep the head up ... I didn't. If you notice from the earlier photos Pooh actually slumps forward. This is because his head got a little too heavy and having the cake at room temp softened the base causing the top part to become as my cousin adptly calls Rhonda's leaning Tower of Pisa effect (I made his wedding cake about a year ago, it was a whoopping 5 tiers .. that started to lean forward too :S lol) But I did try... I put skewers in the base and stuck the head on top. If I were to attempt to do this cake again I would definately invest in using 2-3 mm dowels and a board underneath the head. That would solve the problem of the head falling forward.

This is how the cake looked after I carved out the features.


First crumb coat.

Managed to cover the body with fondant. I did this in 2 stages. I covered the belly first by wrapping the fondant around the cake and patching it together at the back. Then I drapped a second lot of fondant over the top of the head (as if it were a normal cake) and smoothed it down.


Used extra fondant to create features like the arms, ears and I built on the face by adding extra fondant where the cheeks and nose were. It was pretty thin where the eyes were so I also added extra fondant there and pushed it back to create hollows like Pooh bear has.


I covered the legs in fondant separately then I stuck it to the body.


So this was what a naked Pooh bear on the day before the party looked like. He was standing up so proud and tall and was just 'perfect'!


The next day when I came back to dress him and add the proper features he had already begun to get 'lazy' and his head was slumping. I was pretty crushed that my cake had done this but I altered my design to suit what was happening. Lucky for me, Pooh is quite lazy and he usually nods off so I thought at least it looks like I 'meant' to do that and if I put a cake infront of him it'll just look like he is leaning forward to eat his cake! lol



The delivery of the cake almost gave me a heart attack. It was a miserably humid yet rainy day. I had the cake on my lap and the destination was about 1 hour away... but wait for it ... we got pulled over by the cops and it turned out that the Log's (brand new) car rego had expired. As a result... I had to wait in the car with the cake whilst he went back to get the other car. I had the aircon on full blast to stop the cake from melting anymore than it had to but as the minutes ticked by, temptation of the strawberry cake was too much for Pooh and he just kept inching closer and closer :S


Alas, we made it in one piece, Pooh got a taste of his cake before the birthday song was sung though lol!


The cake was a hefty 12-15 kgs and approx 35 cm tall.... it was bigger and heavier than Chelsea!!


hahaha look at her face... "mummy I dont want to cut Pooh bear!"

Yes my heart sorta broken when I had to cut up the cake... oh but ah wells... tasted yummy!!

Look at that perfect layer!!!


BRAINS!!!


Poor Pooh!

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Phew, what a feat!! There was enough cake to feed a 200 guest wedding! But I'm glad I attempted it, lets just hope next time I wont take short cuts on the structural stability of my cakes LOL!



♥ HAPPY 1ST BIRTHDAY CHELSEA! ♥
xox

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