My 24th Birthday Cake
As I mentioned in my last cakey post, Easter weekend was my birthday. I ended up making three cakes that weekend, which is probably some record for me. This was the one I made for my birthday.
I seem to have such a lack of inspiration for cakes lately. The month leading up to my birthday, I just could not figure out what I wanted to do. Even as I began making it, I had little direction. It's those unplanned cakes that usually come out the worst for me, so I wasn't expecting great things.
The first thing I decided on was steering away from fondant. Some people love it, some hate it, so I'm trying to broaden my horizons practise gateaux. Getting a cake that looks as clean and professional as fondant cakes look is something I find difficult. Less is often more, and I'm not good at restricting myself to less.
In the end I decided on chocolate flowers, so I set about making the petals. I'll post a tutorial for this later.
The best part about making your own birthday cake is getting away with pitching it to your own tastes. I rummaged through the fridge and found a couple of punnets of strawberries, a batch of leftover ganache that has to date made it through 4 cakes so far and still has some to spare, and some unopened cream. Perfect. Time to fill her up.
And a few more of your fav-ou-rite things...
It was admittedly difficult for me to not grant myself an early birthday present right then. Strawberries, cream and chocolate, oh my.
I filled the centre bud with yellow-tinted cream and piped swirls on choc transfer sheets for the stamens.
I covered the cake with chocolate buttercream, and used the leftover chocolate to make a base for the flower. I was going to emboss the buttercream, but I used melted chocolate in the buttercream so it didn't crust.
Candles!
Nom nom nom. This cake didn't last very long. My boyfriend's mum asked me if there was alcohol in it: there wasn't, as I dislike boozy cakes. It was just the cut strawberries reacting with the sugar in the chocolate and cream that gave off a strong strawberry flavour, and became almost syrupy in parts.
My dad, who is not much of a sweet tooth, even asked if he could take some home. That's a first.
