Although i haven't been baking every week i did go all out in April for a friends engagement party. I'm not quite sure what you get a couple for their engagement so i opted to use my skills and make a cake for their party.
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| The Finished Product |
After a few weeks of trial runs (some really bad) and people telling me i'd put too much pressure on myself it all ended quite well and i learnt how to make sugar paste roses!
After a chocolate cake disaster i opted for a White Chocolate & Cardamom recipe from my favourite Fiona Cairns book. A proper grown ups cake, sweetened with a rosewater cream filling.
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| Practise Run - White Choc & Cardamom |
Then to decorate it, well i always wanted to try the sugar paste roses so i built my cake around this. Next was the colour, the party was going to be in a Moroccan style room so lots of oranges and my friends support Hull City FC who are amber and black so orange it was, with some amber and yellow too.
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| Sugar Paste Roses |
The roses where a lot easier than i expected and i was pretty pleased with myself so i made loads! These can be made in advance and stored for a while so it's a good skill to learn.
Actually icing the cake was my biggest hurdle, if anyone knows where you can buy pre-rolled Royal Icing for anything bigger than a 20cm cake please let me know. After several attempts the bigger, orange, layer of my cake did look a bit ropey so after a quick visit to Hobby Craft all sins where hidden with the shimmering orange ribbon. Phew! I also picked up a bit of bling with the gold leaves and beautiful butterflies, this really turned it into a celebration cake!
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| Ribbon & Gold Leaf Accessories |
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| The Finishing Touches On Top |
Then all that was left was getting it to the venue, this entailed my dad driving very slowly and me being an extremely nervous passenger! Then i got to surprise my friend and show off for most of the night that "Yes it was me who made the cake"!
