Been a little while! Ryan's 21st Bday Cake

Ta-dah!

This is a little late, but in November I built a cake from my very good friend Ryan. She turned 21 so I wanted to create something regal to celebrate the momentous occasion. Red was in order, and I was also feeling orange and gold; warm colors to compliment the Indian motif I'd found in a book about Mughal miniature paintings.



A couple views from the top. Man, that bottom coat of fondant looks really good... This is one of the first times I added dye while kneading the fondant instead of just painting it with powdered coloring and lemon extract after covering the cake. I usually work with marzipan, which tastes about a million times better than fondant, but it was nice to work with an icing that was pure white; I had much more control over how my colors turned out.

I can't get over that creamy orange fondant! This is the Mughal motif; I think it's going to be a recurring theme as I figure out how to smooth it out a little.

Most of the recipes I used for this cake were from The Well-Decorated Cake by Toba Garrett. The fondant came out really nicely, very smooth and not terrible tasting, but I was not happy with the cake itself, which was pretty dry and surprisingly flavorless, even for a vanilla cake (requested by the birthday girl! Ryan, I did the best I could but I gotta tell ya, I'm a chocolate person =/). I can't be too critical though, my dislike was probably mostly a matter of personal taste. I'll have to try the recipe again maybe adding a little, I dunno, extract of something. The icing was okay; I tweaked it a little bit, starting with a vanilla buttercream and then adding white chocolate and a little cream, essentially a white chocolate ganache, to give the filling a little more body. Overall, a very meh tasting cake. I remain a die-hard fan of nuts-n-chocolate; vanilla, I reserve you for fluffy desserts that do not rely on having the integrity to remain intact during a New York City cab or train ride...

Closeup on the inside... man, so blond! But that fondant looks awesome.

I have to say, my favorite part of the whole cake process has got to be watching somebody else cut the final product. It's so perfect and whole, the manifestation of hours of work, days of planning, months and years of learning and experimentation, all for one glorious moment of anticipation before the knife slides into the fondant, the royal icing begins to crack and crumble, and the destruction begins. I have made it a habit of insisting that someone else cut the cake, partially because it can be hard to bring myself to administer the death-blow, but also because I enjoy watching others grapple with the responsibility of creating that first incision. It often takes someone, knife in hand, longer than a full ten seconds to even figure out where the cut should be made. Hilarious! Ryan was pretty good though, she jumped in there and sliced like a pro.

Ryan enthusiastically prepares to dismantle my masterpiece.

On another note, there is something I feel I'd really like to work on with my decoration. My cakes are five-footers, by which I mean they look awesome from five feet back. However, once you get a little closer things get rough. For starters I think my royal icing consistency is consistently off, and I think it's because I over-whip it. I should probably add a little more liquid too.

Also, how do people cover piped royal icing borders like shells so perfectly with luster dust? I always have spaces of white that I can't reach with the paintbrush... Damn it Margaret Braun! With your flawless... everything.

Well, with that said, laterz! I've got some sweet pics of some cake punching that went down at my former place of work the day before my last and I will post them in due time.

Keep caking!