MAKING BOUTIQUE CAKES

Sun, 23 Mar 2008 08:55:00 PDT

This cake started out as a Candybox Cake and evolved into a Treasure Box. The main cake was a candied orange and almond cake which was deliciously moist and orangey. The flowers are fondant cut outs which I painted with edible lustre powder.The design idea was based on the elegant formal outfits worn by Asian ladies.

This orange and white basket weave cake is slightly different from my usual ones. The main cake is flavoured with homemade candied orange peels and covered with a thin layer of vanilla buttercream. The truffles were replaced with little candied-orange cupcakes, decorated with fondant(sugarpaste) flowers. The orange and white weave was dusted over with orange and pearl lustre powder to give the cake a slightly pearlised sheen. Altogether, it was an easier cake to work on as the marzipan layer has been done away with. Makes for a lighter cake too!

Decided to do something different with the Candybox Cakes. So I painted the sides of the main cake with Koi and filled the center with rum truffles. The top edge is decorated with Chinese coins made out of sugar paste. The Koi and coins are symbols of prosperity and luck for the Chinese. The painting on the sides took a bit of time to do, but then, it was a first attempt. Gong Xi Fa Cai!

These are my Candy Box Cakes! Each one lovingly created for the people in my life. This red-fondant one, my first, filled with hand-made brandy truffles, was made for a friend's wedding night! The cake itself was chocolate peanut-butter fudge flavoured. I tried to pipe rosettes with royal icing around the edges but it came out as little blobs which looked alright, so I finished it with silver dragees to complete the look.

This next one was an experimental cake. It was a chocolate fudge cake, with chocolate fudge filling. I covered the sides with dark chocolate fondant (first attempt; invoked all known and unknown divinities!). The top, is covered in white-chocolate fondant and filled with Chivas Regal-flavoured truffles. The edges were lined with gold and silver dragees. Opulent? Well, I made it for my brother's birthday, so I wanted something special and masculine.

This one had my hands looking bruised for a week! Kneading the the colours into the fondant, to get the exact shade of blue, took ages! Real muscle work. Really got those triceps and biceps going. Made this chocolate (again!) fudge cake for my uncle's birthday, hence the more masculine colour scheme. The fillers this time were my first attempt at making liqueur chocolates. They were ok but tasted best when eaten soon after making. Great excuse to polish them off ASAP!

This is an orange marmalade flavoured cake. The colours were chosen as a complement to the flavour! I covered it in butter-yellow fondant and this time, my royal icing came out right! I managed to pipe rosettes around the edges which I then decorated with the dragees. The fillers were citrus-flavoured, white chocolate truffles to complement the flavour of the cake. Do note the beautiful yellow roses I have used to decorate this cake. They were made by my 11 year old daughter, using yellow fondant.

I tried something different with this cake. Taking fondant in two contrasting colours, I cut it into strips which I wove to resemble a basket weave pattern. This time I played around with coloured dragees. The fillers were hand-made rum truffles, standard issue! The base was an almond-flavoured cake this time, a bit of a departure from the routine chocolate fudge cake.

Another basket-weave patterned cake. Made it for a friend who used it for her son's birthday, which was on the next day. Again an almond-flavoured cake. I made chocolate-covered marzipan sweets for the fillers. But found it a little too sweet. This is a picture of the cake without fillers as it gives some idea of what the cake itself looks like. I guess lettering can be iced in the center instead of filling it up with truffles or chocolates.....

I had such fun decorating this castle cake! Made it for my daughter's 11th birthday. I found this castle cake in Carol Deacon's "Party Cakes", a wonderful and 'friendly', cake-decorating book and changed the design alittle, to what my daughter would like. Following the clear and easy instructions in this book, I first covered the main cake in fondant. For the towers, I used gum paste which I rolled out, molded around cardboard tubes and then left them to dry overnight. Stuck all the towers to and on top of the cake using royal icing.

I piped the trellis using green royal icing and stuck on sugar flowers and dragees of differe

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MAKING BOUTIQUE CAKES