This kid rocks! Last year, I made her a Great Wall of China cake (pictures will eventually make their way on here.) And this year, to supplement her Japanese Tea Party theme, she requested a cake made to look like a california roll.
I can't say that I'm a sushi (or sashimi) fan, so a little bit of research had to go into the cake. I pulled up some pictures from good ol' Google and came up with a sketch.
XX INSERT SCETCH PHOTO HERE XX (we'll see if I get to this part...)
The day before the party, I began to create! I work with box cakes when I'm putting most of my work into decorating. Duncan brand has never let me down. I swear, the secret to a great box cake is all in the timing. Bake just up to the moment when the toothpick no longer brings goo out with it and no longer. Usually, for an 8" dark pan, 30 minutes will do it. Take the pans out, and place them on wire racks to cool for about ten minutes. After they've cooled (or have at least lost the power to scald skin) release the cakes. You can either let them cool further or go straight to leveling. Purely a preference thing. I tend to level first (with my cake leveler,) because once the cake cools the top edge gets a little jagged. Sometimes this causes the edges to pull and it gauges a chunk out of the side...
After the cake was leveled, I torted the middle with buttercream (see recipe if needed) then iced all around the top and sides.
I leveled the top well, but the sides don't need to be perfect. If you're trying this out, you'll need to prep some modeling chocolate (or fondant) ahead of time. Modeling chocolate is simply some melted chocolate wafers and light corn syrup. Roll out a thick, stubby log (dirty) and make sure your pastry mat is good and greased up with shortening. Grease your rolling pin too. Then flatten out the log so that it's a good few inches wider than the height of the cake.
Trim one side of this mess to make a level edge to match up with the bottom of the cake. I used a pastry something or other to help lift the chocolate off the mat. Apply it to the cake smoothing as you go. I had to roll out another piece as this one didn't reach all the way around.
After I applied the pieces and smoothed them down, I trimmed the top with scissors and left about half an inch above the cakes surface. I then folded the top over inside and used the end of a thin paint brush to tuck it in to leave a smooth rounded edge.
I probably should have mentioned that I used about 3 batches of buttercream for this cake (2 thin, 1 medium.) But I'm just going to assume that someone would read through my gibberish before attempting to make this... Anyway, I grabbed some of my thin consistency icing and coconut and began applying it to the cake. I didn't cover all of the chocolate as I wanted some of the "seaweed wrap" to show through, and I found that clean fingers worked better than anything else to apply the coconut.
Ta-da!! At this point, I was getting really psyched at how the cake was turning out. I had decided at this point, though, that base was looking a little boring, and I wanted the cake to really pop. So I took some of my brown food coloring gel and some water and started slapping it on the cake board. My intention was to make it look like a wood prep board...
Then all I had left to do was fill my california roll. I made some "crab meat" out of icing, coloring, and coconut. Then piped the rest of the decorations on.
Since I had some modeling chocolate left over, I also rolled out some chopsticks. Yes, I realize they're not exactly proportionate...
What do you think? I love feedback!
No comments:
Post a Comment