I had the pleasure this week of making a halloween pumpkin birthday cake. It was a carved cake which is such fun to do. I made a double-height 8" round madeira cake to start with. Madeira is really tasty, as its made with real (merveilleux françaises) butter and loads of real vanilla extract. A match made in heaven to my mind. Madeira is also nice and firm (without being dry) so it holds up to carving really well and does not sink under the weight of sugarpaste, which is important when doing taller cakes. Regular sponge, when stacked up tall and covered with sugarpaste, will compress over a time, leaving ripples in your initially perfect sugarpaste finish. So go for madeira. Its yummy.
I also made a wedding cake this week. Unfortunately I do not have a pic of the fully assembled cake yet, but here is a photoshopped version to give you the basic idea. It was a cake that was a bit of a race against the clock, which is how it sometimes is when making lots of handmade flowers. They are very, very time-consuming but worth it once finished I think. One of the decorators on the Food Network's Planet Cake which was on this morning said that making a cake can be like childbirth. Hurts like hell at the time but as soon as you have the result in front of you (cake/baby) you forget the pain and smile at the sight of your creation. I like it. Its right.
The finish to my working week, at the close of this Saturday, was the run. Up at The Edge. In the sunshine. With Toby the dog. Up the long, steep hill, in one go. A big triumph for me, but sadly nobody there to grin at or giggle with. Just a quiet, breathless trot up to the final lookout point. Elation inside, sweaty panting outside, but nobody knows. It was gorgeous today. Sunshine but cold.
Orignal From: Halloween, Roses & Sunshine
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