This cake was an ordeal, let me tell you. I started the entire process at about 6pm and stuck the final product in the refrigerator to harden at about midnight (I saved most of the clean up for a few days). Even though it was very time consuming and had multiple steps, I enjoyed making it.
(picture using my iPhone*)
The three recipes used for this cake come from The Whimsical Bakehouse by Kaye Hansen and Liv Hansen, which my mom got me for Christmas. I've been dying to try my hand at making a cake from their book because the pictures are just too cute. Andrew's mom's birthday is next Tuesday so we went to visit this weekend. This gave me a good opportunity to try one out!
Two of these recipes - the cake (though mine was a tad different) and the glaze - are also on their website, linked here and here respectively.
The cake itself turned out very good, though if I were to make this exact combination again, I would probably leave out the chocolate chips. It was just a bit much chocolate for my taste. The poundcake tasted a lot like my aunt's recipe, just a little less sweet.
The whipped chocolate ganache filling tasted great but started to melt a little after the cake sat, making the entire thing a bit lopsided. But that was mostly due to me letting it sit out for too long and for not following the book's directions exactly.
The chocolate glaze was really my favorite part of making the cake. It was so simple to pull together and ice with. You literally just poured the cooled glaze over top of the cake (making sure that the sides got good and covered), with the cake on a cooling rack or something so the extra glaze can drip away. It set beautifully and looked like it took a lot more time than it actually did.
The polka dots turned out well for a first try. I wasn't 100% happy with the colors or the thickness. I need to experiment more with the available candy colors to get the right shades. The pink and purple were great. The yellow could have been a bit more vivid. The blue was my least favorite because it turned out to be more of a denim color that didn't go great with the other colors. I would have preferred a bright, tealy blue. They were also too thin (you could see the chocolate through them in some places). But these problems can easily be fixed with practice. If you ever try your hand at making these candy decorations - make sure you specifically get oil based candy colors. If you use regular water based colors, the chocolate candy will seize up and not mix.
Overall, I was very happy with how my first attempt from the book came out and I plan on trying out several more cakes from the Hansen's book. I would definitely recommend The Whimsical Bakehouse to anyone looking for a easy, yet impressive cake making and decorating book.
*Side Note: This is going to be one of the biggest hurdles to overcome with this blog. I don't have a nice camera. It will be a while until I have a nice camera (and by nice camera, I mean something along the lines of this or this) So while I plan to drag Katie over as often as possible to photograph my creations, often times I will be using either my iPhone or my Pentax point and shoot (once I have the chance to go buy a power cord for it). Due to this, the pictures may not always be that great. This picture actually turned out okay, just a bit blurry.
*Side Note: This is going to be one of the biggest hurdles to overcome with this blog. I don't have a nice camera. It will be a while until I have a nice camera (and by nice camera, I mean something along the lines of this or this) So while I plan to drag Katie over as often as possible to photograph my creations, often times I will be using either my iPhone or my Pentax point and shoot (once I have the chance to go buy a power cord for it). Due to this, the pictures may not always be that great. This picture actually turned out okay, just a bit blurry.
No comments:
Post a Comment