Saturday, December 8, 2018

An adventure in cake decorating


 An adventure in cake decorating.

   So I decided it was time to start baking again. Diabetes and thyroid cancer aside, life moves forward, if not in a straight line.
   One of the things I love to do—sugar work. Though I’d prefer to work with Isomalt or make fondant flowers, the theme of the cake was the Iron Man competition. Consisting of three “legs”, the race begins with a 2.4 mile swim, then 112 mile bike ride, and finally, a 26.2 mile run, (easy, right?).

   It was the first time I’ve tried to make people figures, and obviously, more practice is needed. Aside from that, the top layer was a coconut cake with a pineapple filling.  The frosting was a cream cheese, which, as I’ve learned, doesn’t set as firmly as my buttercream recipe. (lesson learned – the original recipe called for smaller layers, which would have negated the bulging filling).

  
   Layering cakes is always an adventure for me. If it has to travel a good distance, I usually stake it. Yep, just drive a dowel rod down through the center, down through the cardboard cake circle using a hammer. I don’t usually ding the bottom layer, but it was easily fixed.


   Of course, whenever I bake, my kitchen appears as though a bomb has exploded.
   The “waves” had to be hand cut. I’ve seen a mold for them – to make them much easier, but didn’t have one. They’re easy enough to free hand. If I do them again, I’ll use thicker fondant- to make the strips easier to handle. As far as covering the cake board, I just pulled white and blue fondant together a few times to get the marble effect. A little water on the back makes the fondant stick to the board. If I’d have had the time, I would have covered the cake board at least a week in advance.

   The “grass” on top is colored coconut flakes. I mixed a few drops of color in a teaspoon of water then tossed with a bag of coconut. The plaque on top is actually red candy melts, fixed the day before I needed to use them. I melted 10 oz candy and added a little less than 1/3 c karo syrup and let set. I had to microwave for 10 seconds to get it soft enough to handle. (Red fondant doesn’t taste near as good.)

My support system gave up and went to find more comfortable digs.

  
   The trees are actually brown candy melts (prepared the same as the red). I figured they’d have bulk and taste better. The “road” is black fondant. The “sand” is brown sugar sprinkled over piping gel (which the sugar absorbs and, surprisingly, stays in place.
To get the swimmers to “stand up” for the long ride, I attached a ball of fondant to the covered cake board and covered with piping gel and brown sugar. Small floral wires through their legs helped hold them in place.
   The bike/figures were the hardest and new to me. They’re harder to do than one might think. They’re made of gum paste.



   I added the shark’s fins (actually, they’re curved in the back, which makes them dolphin fins. However, that slight curve in the back made them look much better, and I figured if the partier’s knew the difference, they’d laugh.

   All in all, it didn’t turn out too bad considering the limited time available to put it together. I’m told it tasted delicious. Whether that was because of the alcohol consumed or the late hour, I’ll never know…lol. At least no one tried to eat the figures. I had nightmares of a phone call from an ER declaring a not-so-sober party goer decided to eat a wired decoration.



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