Destination Wedding

Its been over a week since I've been able to get to this...things would be so much easier, particularly for this blog if I was able to do it from home. This way, I could communicate directly from my kitchen. Someday, there'll be a power Mac on one of my kitchen counters for me to get to you guys faster with thoughts that quickly leave my brain when I'm in cook mode. I promised a rant on Shirataki Noodles last week but didn't deliver. That will come, and you have my word on it, by the end of the week.

This week, unfortunately, was my last week of Cake Decorating classes. For our 'finale' if you will, we needed to bring in two stacked, crumbed, and smoothed round cakes. One 8-inch double layer and one 6-inch double layer. So my baking process started on Sunday night. There's so much, like I've said in the past, that goes into getting a cake from just baked to smoothed that I have to start a few days in advance. Plus, its not like I have time to come home and quickly smooth it inbetween leaving work and going to class.
My idea for the flavor to this cake was a direct result of the cake mixes I had at the apartment. Doing a 'tropical' flavor theme, each round cake consisted of a layer of spice cake and a layer of pineapple cake. The rounds were torted and filled with a coconut filling. Essentially making each round: spice, coconut, spice, coconut, pineapple, coconut, pineapple.
I only needed two 8-inch and two 6-inch cakes for class. Due to the fact that it takes 1.5 mixes to make each full cake, I had alot of batter left over. It was compounded because I made an 8-inch and a 6-inch out of each batter mixture...So all in all, I ended up with two 8-inch, two 6-inch, two 9-inch, and 9 cupcakes. And yes, it may sound really complicated, but its not. I simply had a kitchen table covered in cooling cakes. After they had cooled and I had torted, filled, stacked, and crumbed...this is what the dining room table looked like:
and here's everything individually...

The two 9-inch cakes I decided to leave as is for now. They'll keep just fine, since its not too warm out anymore AND i ran out of frosting...its just as well because one batch of the frosting made just enough to stack, crumb, and smooth the main cakes I needed for class. The 9-inches will get sent home to my sister and her family. Know that EVERYONE loves cake, whether its frosted or not. My particular favorite part of the baked cakes are the tops that get cut off pre-stacking and frosting. Especially when they split a bit on top and crisp around those split edges just slightly.
At any rate, the kitchen was awash in a sea of cake.

The first couple days of this week were unseasonably warm. Infact, we reached 70s. Normally we're in the comfy 40s at this juncture in the year. I would mind overall, if the temperature didn't affect the ability of the frosting to smooth so much. I found myself yelling at the cake to cooperate and not getting the response I wanted. I think there might have been a couple times where I almost threw my spatula across the room as I tried to frost. In the end, things turned out alright. If we had more cake friendly weather, they would have looked a bit better. Then again, I am still in the beginning stages of mastering the smoothing technique. Practice Practice Practice.

Got to my class right on time Wednesday and started to formulate ideas for this wedding cake. Probably something I should have taken into more consideration, but it was hard enough for me to be able to hammer out my idea for flavors and fillings. Baby steps. I pereused through the books that the shop had on site for inspiration, finding myself drawn to floral patterns that vined up and over the top sides of cakes. Then I had to take into consideration my limited resources for decoration. Since I didn't really plan ahead for what the cake was going to look like on the outside, I didn't bring much to class with me to help me put it all together. And I didn't want to have to spend oodles of cash for this. Color on wedding cakes really caught my attention as well. Most 'traditional' wedding cakes are pure snow white. While it appropriate for any ceremony/reception...I think that with the more modern feel to weddings that's been prevalent recently, why not add color and a bit of panache to the design. Fondant would probably have been ideal if I was working on an unlimited budget...but then I considered trying my hand at airbrushing again. It was so much fun the first time, why not give it another go, while I had the tools at my disposal.

Taking into careful consideration my 'tropical' theme to the flavor of the cake...I decided to do a destination wedding cake perhaps for a couple who got married on a remote island. The top tier (6-inch cake) would represent the setting island sun and the bottom tier (8-inch) would be the deep blue ocean.

With airbrush gun in hand, I layered yellows, oranges, reds, pinks, and purples for the sunset. The ocean was a mix of hawaiian blue and violet. After that was done (and i had profusely apologized to the woman directly across from me for unknowingly splashing her snow white cake with a misting of blue...) I set to work on the frosting for the tops and sides. Insipired by vine work, i created a coral-esque orange color and piped it in a fashion around the sides of the 'ocean' to look like sea plants. I then made a sandy beach color out of walnut brown and golden yellow gel icing colors and created a private island that would sit on top of the 8-inch and inbetween the pillar stands holding up the top tier. Once the island was formed, I planted a few palm trees for a finishing touch.
Using the same coral orange, I iced the sun on the top of the 6-inch and completed that tier with a few white birds coasting off towards the setting sun. Overall, this is how it turned out:






I think that if I was ever to do a design similar to this, I might try to cover the pillar legs with a wood look to them. ..or make THOSE the palm trees and decorate the underside of the top tier plate with palm leaves.

Having this cake sit on my dining room table makes the whole apartment smell like sugar. Now that class is over, I'm not sure what my next project will be. But I DO know that tomorrow I'll have the Shirataki review I keep promsing and probably post those miscellaneous flower pictures I have in my files. I may take on a baby shower sheet cake challenge in the very near future. My first paying gig. How exciting! Its just a matter of figuring out how I can fit it into everything else...

Still reading Pepin's autobiography, which I enjoy more and more each page turn. I even emailed Lora Brody to tell her how much I enjoyed her Basic Baking cookbook. Its a possiblity that I have become more nerdy than when I started this blog. And its only been two weeks.