Chocolate Cherry Cake
More baking! Miles and I did more baking last weekend. There was something new that we wanted to try preparing–gum paste.
Similar to fondant, gum paste is a pliable dough that can be easily shaped for cake decorations. As the name implied, the latter has more of a gum texture and it holds its shape better than fondant.
Cake baking, cake cooling, cake leveling, cake icing, cake chilling… all happened on the first night. Fondant and gum paste were prepared on the same day.
The next morning, we moved on to rolling out the fondant and laying the thin sheet (1/8 inch thick) onto the cake. Miles did a fabulous job transferring fondant onto the cake on his first attempt!
While the cake is being chilled in the fridge, we cut out various patterns on gum paste. Then, they cut-out patterns were placed in mini tin foil cupcake liners to hold their shapes. Painting was the next step. We used mainly gel paste food colouring for painting. Meanwhile, home-made chocolate icing was artistically piped along the top and bottom edges of the cake.
Finally, we assembled the gum paste ornaments onto the cake, placed a maraschino cherry on each flower, and garnished cake with milk chocolate curls.
Final results:
It was a heart-breaking moment to have to cut the cake. Oh well, that’s what the cake is for–consumption! More importantly, Miles and I had great fun preparing the cake and everyone enjoyed eating it ;)
Tags: Baking, Cake, Experience, Life
December 3rd, 2009 at 4:31 am
Ah! It’s good to get the man do some baking huh? :o)
December 3rd, 2009 at 10:55 am
Ai Shiang,
It works out well that both of us enjoy baking. It certainly helps, with an extra pair of hands ;)
December 3rd, 2009 at 2:02 pm
It was a lot better rolling the fondant this time because of a higher rolling surface and added expericence from the first time with the fondant. The gum paste was easy, similar idea to fondant but when you let it sit exposed to the air the gum paste hardens, similar to how normal chewing gum hardens after you chew it for a while or you stop chewing it and yes its nice to have an extra set of hands to help, :D.
December 3rd, 2009 at 3:16 pm
You should open a stall in farmer’s market :)
December 3rd, 2009 at 3:49 pm
The Man,
Thanks for all the help and patience :D
December 3rd, 2009 at 3:50 pm
Paul,
That’s a nice thought. Only if I could secure a spot there… lol
December 4th, 2009 at 12:13 pm
sell them online then Girl haha
December 4th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
Mom,
It won’t be too fun to do the shipping, unless it’s close by. That’s a nice thought though :)
December 5th, 2009 at 9:25 pm
How about starting a bake sale at the university. You could get experience and at the same time you could analyze the market. Once you gain popularity, you could probably open a store : )
Good luck,
Pierre
December 6th, 2009 at 12:12 am
Pierre,
Thanks! That’s a lovely thought. It’ll probably have to be done through a student organization. I shall keep that in mind ;)
June 1st, 2010 at 12:00 pm
[...] our first cake with fondant, to creating a Chocolate Cherry Cake, and later on a Festive Birthday Cake, we’ve learned a lot about cake decorations. This time [...]