We were told to bring a square cake to the class with us, so I used a Jamie Oliver recipe which I found here. Unfortunately the cake was quite flat - probably only 1.5 inches or so thick - so I ended up making two, and sandwiching them together with buttercream.
At the beginning of the class, I was told to spread a thin layer of buttercream around the sides of the cake. It hadn't occured to me to turn the cake upside down so the top was perfectly flat until Lorna told me to!
Some people in the class had already covered their cake with buttercream and fondant but I didn't see the point of doing that in advance when I wasn't entirely confident about doing it and would rather Lorna showed me how - I'd only ever done it once before, whereas I got the impression some of the other people had done it countless times.
I used Dr Oetker's roll-out icing in chocolate flavour as I thought it would go nicely with the chocolate cake.
Next we made the ribbon to go on the top. Below is Lorna's ribbon cutter which I borrowed, on a piece of green rolled-out fondant. You could just use a knife or a pizza cutter would work quite well.
A piece of 'ribbon'
Cut out two and lay them across the cake.
These are bow cutters - again I borrowed Lorna's. You could just cut the shapes out with a knife but this way made sure they were the same size and shape.
Take the bottom two pieces of the bow - which are angled at the end - and fold over the tops to make them look like a fan. Stick those ends onto the centre of the ribbon. Then fold over the top pieces so you have a loop. Stick the loop on the cake, standing up, to make the top part of the bow. Finally fold a small piece of fondant over the knot in the middle of the bow.
I think I will also enter this in We Should Cocoa as the challenge from Chele this month is "something green".
this look beautiful!
ReplyDeleteThank you! A lot of the other women in the class used white fondant for the cake with a pink bow, which looked really pretty, but I wanted to do something a little different!
DeleteYour cake decorating class looks fun - I am tempted to sign up to one. Love this parcel cake and would be great for birthdays or celebrations.
ReplyDeleteYou should definitely do a course if you can find one - an adult education evening class is government subsidised so 8 weeks cost about the same as a one-off class in central London - and you learn lots of different things too! You do have to buy all your own equipment and make a cake to take each week though, as you saw in my earlier post!
DeleteWhat a perfect celebratory cake! Are you enjoying your course Caroline? I'm really hoping to do a course later in the year!
ReplyDeleteYes, I'm really enjoying it! As I just said to Baking Addict, adult education classes are government subsidised so really good value and you learn a lot of different things, though you do need to buy all your own equipment. This class I'm in has a range of abilities as it's not aimed at any particular level e.g. beginner or intermediate - it's a 'novelty' cake course so you need to know a few basics but it will be interesting to see how everyone's turns out when we come to the more advanced stuff! I think there are definitely some women in my class who will leave me for dust!
DeleteWhat a lovely cakey gift, all wrapped up in a bow. It looks very impressive. I'm looking for a course on a) chocolate tempering b) piping - no foodie type courses of any description around here though :(
ReplyDeleteThanks for entering this into WSC :)
I'd be interested to know if you find classes easily offering those things - most tend to be cupcake decorating, or sugar flowers and so on. I'd love to know how to temper chocolate properly though - often I can't be bothered with a bain marie even so just melt it in the microwave!
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