Our new church plant (now no longer so new) has just celebrated our first anniversary last weekend. I volunteered to make the anniversary cake so that I had the opportunity to try making something different and unusual to what I normally do. This is not really the first time I played with fondant but the first time that I used it to decorate the entire cake. Decorating cupcakes was much easier!
I spent 3 days, a total of about 6-7 hours in all making this cake(s). I also had the advice of my SIL W who has much more experience in making beautiful cakes for weddings and birthdays. Day 1 was spent colouring the fondant and cutting out the numbers (1 hour). Day 2 was spent baking the cake and cupcakes, making the buttercream and chocolate ganache (2-3 hours) and covering the cake with ganache. The final day was spent on purely decorating the cake to something that was in my mind (3 hours).
The final cake
The picture on the main cake was inspired by this picture. When I was thinking what to have on the cake, this picture came to my mind and I thought that it was really appropriate - Jesus, king over the world and of 5:17 church.
I made a 'ribbon tag' for the side of the cake, which was not really successful as 2 of the letters kinda slipped down. You can tell that it is not a great job. It was difficult to put the red fondant tag onto the side of the cake. It almost broke into 2!
The anniversary cupcakes. I figure that cupcakes are easier to eat and they are cute!
There is so much knowledge and tricks when it comes to ganaching a cake and putting the fondant on. It was not an easy thing to do but I do certainly enjoyed the entire process of making it. Baking the cake(s) was the easiest part. It was just my trusty chocolate cake recipe but I added some Kahlua into the cake and also a little of it in the chocolate ganache.
Some commented that the cake tasted nice (I think the kahlua gave it a different but nice flavour as supposed to the normal chocolate cake), sufficiently moist (I am glad because I added less butter but it was still nicely moist). I am glad it tasted good even though it did not look the way that I imagined in my mind. I have a long long way to go when it comes to cake decorating.
At the same time, I also made some cupcakes for E, whose birthday fell on the same Sunday. It was the same cupcake base with different decorations. I am glad that these cute cupcake boxes that I bought from Phoon Huat came in handy. I shall buy more of such boxes on my next trip... and possibly to sell some of them ;)
Birthday cupcakes for E
I shall attempt more cake decorating in future... when I have the mood and motivation to do so :)
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