Emergency Cake Surgery

(Finished cake)



So a few weeks back my former English teacher had a birthday and he is so awesome I decided to make him a cake. Its a very simple cake with stenciled words I cut out myself and chocolate frosting. Just so all of you know, making your own stencils is a pain in the butt. First you have to find what you want to stencil, then adjust the size on the computer, print it off, and finally cut it out. If it is small its not so bad, but apparently cutting out "Happy Birthday" in fancy font is no easy feat.

(Stenciled words made out of sugar sprinkles.)

(Homemade stencils.)

The first attempt at the cake did not go so well. I had tried to make it a chocolate cake with delicious whipped ganache filling and a chocolate buttercream icing, however I accidentally over mixed the ganache (at least I think that's what I did) and it didn't quite turn out correctly. I tried to salvage it and make it work and, even though it tasted just fine, it refused to stay between the layers. I quickly iced the cake trying to trap it in but still the ganache found a way out by pushing the icing off. I quickly stuck it in the fridge to try to firm it up, however my attempt were futile and I was left with this:

(Whipped ganache pushing icing off the cake)

 

After realizing my original plan would not work i tried to use what I was left with by pulling the layers of cake apart and scraping off the ganache. It was important to get all the ganache off so that the cake wouldn't absorb it and become too moist. I then re-iced the cake and stenciled on the words. The chocolate buttercream frosting (recipe page) was a huge hit. I received multiple compliments on it and some people said that was their favorite part. After everyone got through with the cake I was left with only leftover icing to take home (pictured below). However my friend Shelby later got a hold of the cake carrier and when she was done it did not look like there had been a cake on it at all.

(The cake after the party was over)

First

This is my first post. I've never blogged before so please excuse me for any amateurishness that appears on here. Well I have to catch you guys up on a year. A year and a month ago I began my baking career. The most i had ever baked was chocolate chip cookies. I had been watching an anime called "Yumeiro Patissiere" Yumeiro meaning dream-colored. It really inspired me and i learned a lot, surprisingly, from the show. Anyway, it was the end of the school year and my teacher, who had been out on maternity leave, was coming back for the last week of school. I decided i would make her a "Welcome Back" cake. I couldn't decide whether to do chocolate or yellow cake though, so finally i settled on both. I started the cakes on the Sunday that would signal the last week of school. I was in the kitchen for 9 hours of non-stop baking and decorating. Add on top of that, it was 90 degrees outside, our air conditioning was off and all doors and windows open plus i had the oven going. i was so worn out when i finally went to bed. Now the cakes didn't turn out very good. The candy flowers melted in the heat, the recipe i used made the cakes really dense, but for my first try they were really good. For the one cake i did a simple, but beautiful, basket weave on the side that is really quite simple. For the second I did lines to look like ribbons coming up to the top of the cake with candy roses on top. The second cake was terrible.

How to Make a Basket Weave:
          All you have to do is pipe lines vertically on the cake with a good amount of space in between them. Then you just pipe lines horizontally over the vertical lines to the crease between the two bordering lines and you continue to do this in an alternating pattern to create the illusion that the icing was woven.

cake 1cake 2

Basket Weave