A Piece Of Cake

I've decided to End with the Beginning

Hello dear readers of the final installment ( I promise) of the Wedding Cake Diary! I've decided to show everyone the sketch or the plan of the wedding cake that I shared with the Bride and Groom a couple of months before their wedding.

With some couples it is the Bride that has all the say in the wedding details and the cake design. With some couples, the Groom throws in his ideas as well. Not to say one is better than the other, every couple is different. Well, with this couple, I only worked with the Bride.

After some time of talking and brainstorming, it was the Bride who had the idea of a park and children for her wedding cake. So I took that idea and thought about it some more and came up with this sketch which I scanned and emailed them for feedback and response. She liked this one so we stuck to it.

Tahda! This is an example of the sketches that I produce for every couple to show them the design of their very special wedding cake.

Of a truth, the reason why I didn't share this on the blog at the beginning of this Wedding Cake Diary is because... I wasn't sure the final cake will turn out the way I planned.

I'll reveal that I am afraid of the Singaporean consumer who is so used to getting exactly what it shows in the catalog that they cannot understand when the final product is not exactly the same way it was planned.

This is a person here who is doing unique designs that haven't been tried before. Not a factory with close to 100% predictable outcomes. Sure, I do practice (as you see from my blog that I do practice) and do as much as I can before hand but it is too costly and time consuming to be making an exact cake. So the actual cake has alot of "artistic impulse" to it.

Sometimes, I have to deviate from the plan because it looks okay on paper but not when I'm making it. So, on the spot when I'm decorating, I tweak the design a little. That's art, I believe, and I guess it will require the customer alot of trust in the artist's choices and taste. I do wonder if it is like that with other bakers?

All this I explain to the couples I've baked for and I've been blessed to have very agreeable folks to work for.

So, you will see from the sketch that the general ideas were all produced, only some changes here and there with the figurines that was all for the better.

See the bride and groom in the sketch? Carol and I didn't give the Bride and Groom figurines much thought at first. But whilst we were making all the other pieces with all their lively actions, it seemed strange and out of place for the Bride and Groom to be just standing there arm in arm like the usual traditional toppers. So we decided they should be doing something so Carol thought of the bicycle, which was more work, but in the end it added wonderful touch to the whole park scene.

That's all folks! Feel free to applaud! :O)

 

We're Back!

Thank You Bestest Baking Buddy for helping me to post the final installment of the Wedding Cake Diary! I had to rush off to the airport from the wedding venue...talk about crazy shedules. I don't think I'll pull off something like that again for a long time.

Thanks BBB also for that very nice album! http://www.imagestation.com/album/review.html?id=2091455425  You did a humongously great job and deserve to buy Sculpeys in a large block when pp start getting custom made toppers from you. :O)

Yup, like I said, it's pretty interesting that I go shopping and bring home bags of flour, sugar, eggs and other odds and ends, and it leaves my kitchen so different from when it came in. :O)

All praise be to God!

Saturday: Wedding Day!

Here's BBB Carol impersonating as Suwei =P, who's gone off on a holiday with her family, but not before finishing the cake first. Thanks to Bro. Alex who helped to take the photos!

Brief cake storyboard (Suwei, please edit as necessary):
This is a wedding in the park, with the groom, his niece, the bride and her 9 siblings doing all sorts of fun activities.
The bottom 2 tiers  are light brown/beige with  cobbled stones and piped grass.
The 2nd tier is the sky with "Sun Wu Kong" inspired clouds.
It's the couple's wedding day, so of course love is in (in this case, on) the air. That explains the pink top tier  with hearts all around.

Front-view of the cake
Here you can see the bride and groom, sitting on a bicycle. The groom is waving and saying "Thanks for coming to my wedding!"

Picnicking girl 1 is eating a hotdog (with mustard, of course), while picnicking girl 2 is reaching for a triple whopper burger (made by Suwei's No. 1).

The west-view
Zuming is falling asleep trying to catch fish. He's taken off his Havaianas to prevent them from getting wet.

The girl beside him is taking a break from her book to have a little daydream.

Flower-picking girl 1 points and says: "Look at her swing!"

There's Suwei behind, tired out from the busy busy week.

North-view
"Swingle" sits atop a handmade wire swing crafted by Suwei's husband.

"Say cheese!" Photo-taking with a classic-design camera.

East-view

Down the slippery slide she goes!

Flower-picking girl 2 attempts to pick flowers off the side of the cake.

Cake-cutting ceremony
After the cake-cutting, Joel makes his thanksgiving speech while Meina steals a glance at the cake. She didn't get to see much of the cake. It was cut up shortly after the wedding ceremony.

Thank God that all went well, none of Suwei's nightmares (of arms and legs falling off into the sea) came true, and all the figurines stuck on very nicely to the fondant.

Kudos to Suwei on a massive job well done!
To the girls, have fun choosing which figurine represents you.

BBB Carol, for Suwei =)

Friday: Actual Decorating Day!

I am pooped. I hope I don't sound like I'm complaining. I started work in the kitchen making buttercream and spreading them on the cakes around 8 am. And proceeded to roll and cover the cakes with fondant. I finished that part only at 5 pm!!!

Meanwhile, my dear husband was helping us make a swing frame from wire for the swingle (say "swing girl" fast... :O)  ) He did such an amazing job! She actually swings!

Then came the fun part of placing on the decorations. :O) This is my corn floury table and me placing on the park cobbles on the third tier, a 14" round carrot cake. (The rest of the cakes are chocolate mud cake.)

I also cut some pink hearts for the top tier and piped on some sun wu kong looking clouds on the sky tier. Slept at 2am. 

Okay. I gotta run and go to the wedding to set up the cake. Stay tuned!

3 Baking days and Sculpeying still!!!

For Saturday's four tier wedding cake, in all there are 8 indiviual cakes to be baked. The base tier, for instance is a 20" square. And in all honesty, I don't have an oven that big. (The largest I can fit is a 14" diameter.) So how am I doing a 20" sq? 4 10' cakes, of course. :OP

So I have to split up the baking load if not I'll be camping in the kitchen non-stop for a day or two.  Yesterday, I baked three rich chocolate mud cakes. They each took 2 hours in the oven. I started in the afternoon and it was around midnight by the time I finished cleaning up and storing the cakes in the freezer.

I was half afraid to show you all this pic of my kitchen in this state of upheaval but here it is, in all it's messy baking maddness- just after taking one cake out of the oven and putting one cake in and preparing the next cake.

In the thick of the action, I don't bother to clean up the spills and whatnot. I do it only at the end of the baking day. Makes sense to me because I'll ineviatbily spill and mess things in the course of the day anyway. :OP But don't worry, the cake itself is immaculately handled with hygiene as top most priority!!!. 

I levelled alittle of the tops so that I'd have more space in my fridge to store all six cakes. So we, my kids, family and I had the chance to sample the cake tops that I shaved off. It was super good!!! It's a thick, rich chocolatey mud cake with a chewey texture. You have to be a brownie lover to appreciate it. mmmmmm....

In the process of making space for the cakes, my family has been having meals made from all the frozen food in the fridge these couple of days. :OP

Why store the cakes in the freezer, you may ask? It's to firm them up so it makes them easier to carve. (Says so somewhere on this page in baking911.com.) I'll be carving the top two tiers and all the cakes need to be levelled anyway.

So here are the 1st baking day's cakes sitting obediently in the freezer. (Next to my yet to be eaten frozen cuttlefish balls.)

Meanwhile... back in the school room, Carol was over to continue the figurines. Lots of work and many (wo)man hours but we love the attention to detail and continue with our efforts to make the tiny figurines.

So, this is one of the items I made from last night's Sculpey session, a beautiful bouquet of dual coloured pink roses with tiny red berries and leaves for the happy bride.

I'm telling you, it's gonna be such a special wedding cake!!! :OD

Monday: Fondant Making Day

Today I used up about half the icing sugar I bought making the fondant that covers the cake. I make my fondant from scratch and it's kinda like making bread, except that in place of flour, your kneading icing sugar.. It's always fun to feel the liquidy gelatine/ glucose mixture turn gummy and then stiff in your hands.

I get so many comment that the fondant is too sweet. Sigh. It's made of sugar. And it's more of a decorating medium as well as it keeps the cake preserved. I don't actually eat it though it can be eaten. I think it's an Asian thing. Westerners seem not to mind the sweets as much...

I can't wait till Friday to make everything, if not I won't be able to do everything in time! So I do whatever various components I can ahead of time so that I can fully concentrate and give my energy to decorating the wedding cake on Friday.

Since i make my own fondant, I  have the luxury of colouring the gelatin mixture before I make the fondant. This saves me the step of slowly kneading in colour after it's done (like if you buy ready made fondant, which you can, actually). It's faster and less tedious this way to mix colour into large batches of fondant.

So here is the icing sugar well with the strawberry jammy looking gelatin/ glucose mixture poured in the well. Doesn't look like much... blame my photography skills. (Got some icing sugar on my camera even!!!)

And here is the final doughy fondant! As I always say, it's like an edible play dough.

This is the pink fondant that will be rolled out to cover the top most tier of saturday's wedding cake.

The bottom tiers are a very light brown (for the park) and then a blue sky tier, and then this pink top tier... love is in the air! :O)

So, I wrapped all the different coloured fondant separately in cling wrap and in they went into the fridge to keep for Friday, decorating day. It can keep for days without refrigeration and months with refrigeration. 

 

Grocery Shopping I and Completing the Figurines

  Tah dah! Went grocery shopping for the ingredients that I need for now (this is most of it already. Just a couple of fresh ingredients that I get last minute so it's fresh for baking.)

It's pretty formidable, I know, but bear in mind, I'm making a four-tiered cake. I marvel at how interesting it is that I cart home all these bags of sugar and butter and eggs and soon, I will roll out a wedding cake made of all these "odds and ends".

Well, with God's help I pray it will be a successful cake.

I've been busy also making the last of the Sculpey figurines with Carol. And as she mentioned in the comment, it's not all arms and legs only. We choose these two to give the readers a sneak preview of two of the figurines that will go on the cake. :O)

Since we have the bride's siblings in the park, we've thought up different activities for them to be doing. Carol's the real brains behind the actual know-how of making Sculpey figurines. I'm just tagging along. :OP

This is the photographer girl. The camera is about the size of a thumbnail. I made it! *beams* And Carol made the lovely skirt pattern out of miliflori canes.

This other girl I love because I made her hair-do. So happening, don't you think? :OP She has picked some poppies (holding in her hand behind her) and is spying some more flowers farther off.

Gearing up for Next Saturday's Wedding cake!

I'm gonna be busy next week coz there's a wedding on! you know all those arms and legs bestest baking buddy Carol and I have been making? They're gonna go onto Saturday's four tiered cake!

Well, most people don't know how much time and effort go into doing tiered cakes, so I will try to document Saturday's cake for the readers here. Wedding cakes are not done overnight but it actually takes many hours of work spread over many days.

Well, the first installment should have been up sometime ago (like last year!) when I spoke to the bride about agreeing to take on the project. Then came the time when I found out more about what design they had in mind.

Remember, over here at A Piece Of Cake, I don't do catalogs. Each project is unique and custom made for the recipients.

The bride-to-be is a special friend of mine whom I've known since she was a teenager. She's the eldest daughter of 10 children and all the figurines are supposed to be her siblings.  Isn't that interesting?  The bride imagined a scene in the park where her siblings were picnicking and playing, so that's what we're gonna try to create for her wedding cake.

So after designing and fine tuning, we agreed on a design that I proceeded to work on.

And now, one week before the happy occasion, I sat down and planned my work schedule for next week and the grocery list (which includes 20 1kg bags of icing sugar. Shock  Horror. I know. But that's my decorating material.  And you don't have to eat the fondant if you don't want to. :O)  )

Will probably go shopping for some of the ingredients on Sunday. 20 bags of icing sugar is not easy to store away, you know... :OP