The purple butterflies cake project

If you have been following my misadventures on my recent cake decorating course that I took, you would have known how stressed out I have been over my final cake project. There were only 5 lessons that we had to take in this basic cake decorating course, but it was enough to ‘stress’ me and Germsy out. In between all the cake talk, I guess we bonded even more with a glass of wine in hand. Fun times indeed!

In order to ‘graduate’ from this course, we each had to assemble a two-tier cake and decorate it with fondant. We were told to select a design by the end of lesson 2 and this was the cake that I chose – a gorgeous Anna Sui cake adorned with black fluttering butterflies.

[Image taken from http://www.hannahgracecakes.co.uk

Looks mighty challenging huh? And it was! I was told by my teacher to bake 2 X 6-inch cakes and 2 X 8-inch cakes and have them stacked one on top of the other. I honestly thought I had a 8 inch cake pan at home but it turned out I baked 2 X 7-inch cakes instead. I only realised the error when I stacked the 2 different sized cakes together and they look abit odd. But I was simply too tired to whip up another batch of cake batter and begin the process. So I chose to live with the mistake.

A lot of prep work was needed in order to make this cake. Besides covering our 2 cakes with fondant, I had to make the fondant butterflies a couple of days before, make sure they harden and bring them into class for the final decoration.

I made a total of 20 big butterflies and 14 small ones. 10 odd or more butterflies were broken in the process. Total time taken kneading of fondant plus making of the butterflies: close to 3 hours.

After settling the fondant butterflies, the next step was to cover our chocolate cakes with the fondant of your choice. Since mine was a purple-based cake, I had to tint my fondant which took me 1 hour to tint 1kg of white fondant. This was really getting to be quite time-consuming. Thereafter, I had to transport my cakes to Germsy’s place to have my fondant rolled out and covered there. Thankfully, Germsy’s daughter was a whizz at rolling and covering the cakes with fondant. So the sweet gal helped us with all our cakes with us taking a supporting role. Total time taken to cover 6 cakes : approximately 2.5 hours. Of course it’s not all work and no play, the wonderful host poured out some drinks while we worked.

Covering the cake with fondant is truly no easy feat. You have to make sure that fondant is rolled out to the desired thickness before laying it on the cake and slowly covering the gaps without breaking the fragile sugar piece. Well, didn’t have much luck in that department for a part of my fondant cracked really badly while covering the cake. So in order to ‘rescue’ the cake, I cut out a piece of fondant and covered the cracked part. This became a joke in the class for my cake looked like it had a stamp over it. I guess that’s my signature then.

Okay, now to the very last part – assembling the cake.

At our last lesson, we were taught how to stack our cakes and making sure that it had the right support without collapsing.

Next, we were given about 2.5 hours to put the finishing touches and decorate our cake.

The mother-and-daughter team doing a far better job than me in their cake decorating.

This was me, initially, working on my cake.

Towards the end, the rest of the gals chipped in and helped add the sparkles to my black fondant butterflies, simply because I added way too much cornstarch and the white specks couldn’t be removed. Yikes! But I guess it was good fun!

And just like that we’ve ‘graduated’ from cake decorating course 1! Don’t you think the pals’ cakes are also very lovely? I absolutely adore Germsy’s white cake with neon pink bows! Classy and funky all rolled into one!

And here’s a shot of us gals with our teacher.

My Anna Sui Butterflies fondant cake – it ain’t pretty but I guess I’m really proud of the cake that I’ve put together.

Of course, there’s room for improvement and hopefully if I ever do get the chance to make one of these cakes again, I hope to do a much better job at it.

Till then, we will be eating loads of choc cake here at the loft!

This has certainly been one pretty ‘mammoth’ and fun project that I’m glad to have done with friends on my career break. Doing this project has also opened my eyes for I’ll never look at any fondant cake the same way again.

Related articles

• My very own Tiffany cake! (j0annesim.wordpress.com)
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Tiong Bahru Bakery

Been hearing/ reading a lot about Tiong Bahru Bakery, so decided to make a trip and see what the hype over chocolate croissants/ croissants were all about.

The latest brainchild from the Spa Esprit Group, Tiong Bahru Bakery boasts French celeb baker Gontran Cherrier who not only has a popular boulangerie in Paris, is the host of two baking shows on TV and author of baking books as the consultant chef.  Set in Tiong Bahru where sister outlets, 40 Hands and Open Door Policy also reside, this area is fast becoming one of my fave places here in Singapore.  Other delish bakes to try include the superb Almond & Chocolate Croissant and the squishy Green Bun with ground rocket leaves.  Oh and I hear that there’s another branch opening soon at Raffles City come August, so yay to that! 

Now back to bread-talk, I guess one of the advantages of not having a job is having the time to check out these places which may be way too crowded to go to over the weekend or during rush hour. I’m glad I have a couple of like-minded friends who are just as adventurous and willing to go suss out these places with me as well.

I arrived at Tiong Bahru Bakery a little after 1.30pm. Think we managed to miss the lunch-time crowds but having said that, the bakery was pretty busy with people coming in and out just to get their hands on the buns.

Famished, I made by way and queued patiently for the bread. Don’t be ‘put off’ by the long queues, it does move pretty fast.

The ‘must-have’ at Tiong Bahru Bakery is apparently the crisp and flaky croissant. There were only four of the chocolate ones and two of the plain ones left. I should have just grabbed everything and pack some of them home as the kitchen stopped baking pretty early and closed at 3pm for a company function on the day that we were there. Arh well, gotta come back here again then!

Other items that looked really good included these yummy focaccia topped with bacon/ tuna and hearty serving of rocket greens.

They also had a good mix of sweet tarts if you fancy something to go along with a good brew.

The lunch spread of buns and tart! We shared all of these of course! Verdict? The tomato bun with bacon and cheese felt like a hearty way to kick-start the raging appetite. I read somewhere that the squid ink bun was a must-order as well. I liked it for it was a little salty but the pal thought was a novelty gimmick for you couldn’t really taste the squid ink except for the black coloring.

Now the chocolate croissant! Was it really as good as what it proclaimed? I thought it was flaky, buttery and just enough choc chips for my taste-buds. The friend, on the other hand, thought the choc croissants from Maison Kayser were much better. I wouldn’t know but guess where I will be heading soon? And to end the meal, we shared the lemon tart which I thought was just passable because of it’s ‘cakey’ texture. The creamy lemon tart would have been a better choice.

And since we were there, I couldn’t resist packing some of the buns and sweets home for the rest of the family to try. Was shocked by the bill – S$40 for five pastries and three desserts – but I guess this was a ‘once in a blue moon’ type of treat.

Would I come back? Probably, to bag more of those croissants that I failed to bag this trip. ;p Are the crowds really that bad? I guess we were lucky but for the 2 odd hours that we were there, people just came in waves so it really depends if you wanna pack those bakes or sit around for a cuppa.

Tiong Bahru Bakery

Address: #01-70 Eng Hoon Street, Singapore

Closed on Tuesdays

 

Keep calm and eat cake..

Yes, keeping cool is needed while making chiffon cakes.  That plus making sure you read the instructions and kinda memorise them before making the cake helps as well.  This was my second attempt in making the cake.  The first ended up tragically (ie: it was flat)!  I was too eager to remove the cake from the tin and that was my ‘downfall’.  The cake went from almost fab to flat within seconds.  After the failed baking incident, I was obviously upset with myself so I began to re-read the recipe again.  Turned out I was supposed to invert the cake tin immediately after taking it out from the oven and then let the cake cool before attempting to remove it.  *face palm*  Arh well, lesson learned and thankfully, cake number 2 turned out almost perfect!  Phew!

Presenting my very first Yuzu Chiffon Cake.  Yes, Yuzu!  As you know I’m crazy about all things Yuzu.  So with some Marigold Peel Fresh Yuzu Juice and a teensy weensy bit of Yuzu concentrate left, I decided to whip up a light chiffon cake celebrating my love for Yuzu! 

Taste test?  It was really, really good!  I believe this might just be a breakfast staple on our table at the loft in time to come.  Looks like I gotta stock up on more bottles of Yuzu concentrate then.  Hehe.

Yuzu Chiffon Cake (Recipe adapted from Happy Home Baking)

Ingredient A:
(makes one 18cm cake)

• 3 egg yolks
• 20g caster sugar
• 90ml of Marigold Peel Fresh Yuzu Juice
• 10ml of Yuzu Juice concentrate
• 40ml vegetable oil
• 70g plain flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Ingredient B:

• 3 egg whites
• 50g caster sugar

Method:

1. Sieve flour, baking powder together, set aside.
2. Separate egg yolks/whites and bring to room temperature. (It is easier to separate eggs when they are cold.)
3. Place egg yolks in a mixing bowl, add in sugar, and with an electric whisk on low speed, whisk till the mixture becomes very sticky and turn pale.
4. Drizzle in the oil, whisking at the same time till the mixture is well combined. Repeat the same with the Yuzu mixture. Sieve over the flour mixture and using a manual whisk this time, whisk until flour mixture is fully incorporated into the batter.
5. In a clean, dry mixing bowl, beat egg whites with an electric mixer until mixture becomes frothy and foamy. Beat in the sugar in 3 separate additions on high speed until just before stiff peaks form.
6. Add the beaten egg white into the egg yolk batter in 3 separate additions, each time folding gently with a spatula until just blended.
7. Pour batter into a 18cm (7 inch) tube pan (do not grease the pan).
8. Tap the pan lightly on a table top to get rid of any trapped air bubbles in the batter.
9. Bake in pre-heated convention oven at 170 degC for about 40mins or until the cake surface turns golden brown.  Instead of using a skewer, E from missus C’s reverie taught me to press the top of the cake lightly.  If the cake bounces back (ie: springly), then you know it’s done.
10. I thought this step was really important!  Remove from the oven and invert the pan immediately. Let cool completely before unmould. To remove the cake from the pan, run a thin-bladed knife around the inside of the pan and the center core. Release the cake and run the knife along the base of the pan to remove the cake.

And if you love anything with Yuzu in it, why don’t you give this recipe a try?

Personally, I think it’s just the kind of cake that helps to keep me calm so that I have more energy to shop on! 

 

take a break.

 

Take a break.  Have a Kit Kat.

Reaching out for that bar of dark chocolate to soothe those stressful moments away at work.