A colourful cake with a bow and stripes
As I mentioned in the previous post, I am interested in trying some fancier looking cakes as well as different flavours. This cake is made from the second half of the recipe that made the first Golden Cake.
Inspired by reading the Ace of Cakes book, I wanted to try something colourful and not so measured. I also really wanted to try to make a bow of fondant. As with many of my cakes, I will most certainly take some of this cake away as a learning experience.
During the decorating of this cake, I learned that it’s not ideal to try to stretch your leftover fondant to fit the cake. I had to roll out the bottom blue layer really thin in order to cover the entire cake. In doing this, you see every crumb that is sitting on top of the cake. If you left a large crumb on your crumb coat, it shows as a bump on the outside of the fondant.
Second, carving a warm cake is not as easy as you want it to be. I tried to flatten out the edges of my cake since I baked it in a slightly sloped dish (which makes it easier to remove from the pan). In doing this, I accidentally carved off some of the corners and made it look worse than it would have if I had just left it alone. A little butter cream icing allowed me to fix it up, but it was awkward to say the least.
Third, I found that making large looping bows didn’t work as well as I wanted. You see the fancy bow loops on all of the really good looking cakes, but my just wanted to cave in. To disguise it, I put a large glob of orange right in the centre. That glob also helped to mask the seems I had made right in the middle.
In all, I’m not disappointed in this cake. It does look good, even better in the photos actually. It was still a good learning experience however.
Jenn 