Claire's 4th Birthday - Hello Kitty cake

We celebrated Claire's 4th birthday yesterday. I made two cakes for her; one to bring to school and another for the party that night.

She requested for Hello Kitty cakes, so I made one with a 3D model of Kitty and another with an appliqued Kitty.


I baked two 9" round chocolate fudge cakes. I used the recipe from The Cake Bible and I think this is the yummiest one so far. I iced and filled the cakes with a light chocolate ganache.


This time round, I got the rolled fondant recipe just right. It's texture was wonderfully soft and pliable. It was a delight to work with. There wasn't a crack in sight; just a few air bubbles. I made the 3D model and the flowers a few days ahead of time, so that they would be nice and dry when I needed them.


All in all, I think this is my best work yet, so far.

70th Birthday Cake

We celebrated my Father-in-law's 70th birthday on Saturday night. I baked a two tiered cake. The top tier was a 7" round butter cake filled with peaches and fresh cream. I reduced the sugar for the cake and that made the texture a bit harder and drier.

The lower tier was a 9" round chocolate butter cake filled with fresh cream and whole Oreo cookies!

I made the fondant number 70 a few days earlier. This time round, my fondant was off. It was very dry and cracked easily. I think it has something to do with the fact that my gelatine just did not want to dissolve into a clear liquid when I was making the fondant.

Anyway, since I had no time to make a new batch, I worked with what I had and covered all the ugly cracks and tears with green fondant and also a green ribbon!

Then I just topped it with the numbers and real vermilion gerberas.

Happy Father's Day

I got a new book from Amazon.com, "The Cake Bible", by Rose Levy Beranbaum. It's a great book with a complete range of cake recipes and what I like most is the detailed explanations of the science behind cake-making. It tells you what every ingredient is for; in the physics and chemistry of the cake.

Anyway, I made the 'All Ocassion Butter Cake' from her book, for Father's Day. The cake was great, it had a good texture and lovely taste. I levelled and torted the cakes (I made two) with the Wilton cake leveller which I also recently purchased. It's a very useful tool indeed.

I filled the cakes with lemon curd which unfortunately didn't go down too well with the children! I iced it with the lemon curd then a simple buttercream. I was going to use my leftover fondant, but found that it's texture had gone off and I did not have time to make a new batch.

Since I was short on time, I just tied a red ribbon round the sides and wrote a simple 'Happy Father's Day' on top.