Monday, August 25, 2008

First Decorated Cake


After various attemps, this was the cake I baked for my son, who turns 10 today. The cake was presented on Saturday, when we invited some close friends over for a small celebration. He insisted on putting mini oreos on the sides. I had originally wanted to decorate it like Mandy's. But my boy simply refused to let me use the chocolate wafer sticks.

For the cake, I followed HHB's ever-reliable sponge cake recipe and simply replaced 10g of cake flour with 10g of Varlhona cocoa powder. Somehow, when I touched the cake, it didn't appear to be as soft as the vanilla version. I followed a fellow blogger's suggestion to apply chocolate ganache and creme chantilly on the cake. I realised afterwards that I should have been a lot more generous with the creme (non-diary whipping + sugar + a dash of rum).

As this would be my first attempt in covering the cake, the creme was all over! I also made the mistake of using a cake base that was too small! After covering whatever I could all around the cake, I had to think of something to hide the top! Laying more oreo would be what my boy would have liked but it would be an overkill. Nuts were out of the question as the kids dislike having nuts on or in cakes. So, I thought of covering with cocoa powder instead, and it worked.

At the end of the whole exercise, my boy declared that he wanted a store-bought cake for the small gathering. I was devastated! Naturally, I could understand that he was bored from tasting all the trials -- I had been practising Rei's chocolate yogurt cake recipe. The first one failed as I got a real hard but super chocolatey kueh. The second attempt was slightly more successful but the taste of yogurt was a tad too strong. So the boy probably concluded that this cake wasn't up to standard to "face public scrutiny".

However, on Saturday, after he bought his birthday present, a DS Lite games cartridge (and he is now targeting the PSP) he totally didn't want to spend more time looking for a cake. He just wanted to go home! I was like what? Now you want mummy's cake, omg, will the cake be up to expectations as I had baked it on Thursday? ...

As expected, the cake was a little dry and the oreo biscuits were, well, soft. I had placed a layer of Loacker dark chocolate waffers in the middle. I suspect that I should have broken them up as suggested by a fellow blogger. In all, it was a good exercise as I had learnt many valuable lessons for future cakes and decoration. Bracing myself for my girl's cake in two weeks and she has decided on a non-bake/chilled cake, in the likes of strawberry hearts, without the strawberries.

5 comments:

Rei said...

Yuri, kids are hard to please yah.. Lucky ah boy dunno how to complain yet. Ahahah... Dun stress.. you did well. :)

Yuri said...

Thanks Rei! Hopefully girl easier to please since she is abit older and quite specific. How did yrs go?

Passionate About Baking said...

Hi Yuri,
You've made it! At least you tried your best, and follow your heart! Well done! One task is over, now to stress over the other! :p
All the best for the next birthday cake! We'll be rooting for you!

Yuri said...

Thanks J, for your suggestions and encouragement. Yes, will try harder for next one.

KWF said...

Well done on that cake, yuri. sorry, I was so busy tt I haven't pop by for a long time.