Making a cake for a chocolate buff whilst keeping it simple, classy, elegant, and decadent especially when running short on time. Here is what I came up with.
This is the cake I made for my husband's birthday. My third attempt at decorating cake. Challenges were different this time. He is a die-hard chocolate fan who will never deviate to any flavour other than chocolate be it ice-cream, mousse, slices, desserts, dipping sauce, icing, or cake for that matter. His birthday fell bang in the middle of the week, a busy working day. So, obviously, I had very little time to bake and decorate the cake.
Hence, the chocolate cake was with chocolate ganache icing. Yeah, same as the first cake (Butterfly Island themed cake) I made for my daughter. But me being me, I wanted to do something different. A more grown-up, mature, and sophisticated decoration that I can put together quickly.
Tempered chocolate shapes for decoration were my instant thought. However, tempering chocolate and setting them is time-consuming and tricky. So that idea went straight out of the window. So, in search of inspiration and ideas, I went foraging through my cake decoration items, kitchen cupboards, pantry, and fridge. Guess what? Items that stood out beaming were strawberries, kiwi fruit, and cachous (edible sugar) pearls. Just these 3 things and these were enough to get me going. Don't they say less is more and I am certainly sticking to this saying for this cake decoration?
Top View
This cake is my Chocolate cake - Vegan. Instead of a regular circular cake, I decided to bake it in square baking tin to make it different than the previous cake I made. I leveled the cake to make it can sit flat on the cake board with clean lines. Here's a link on How to level a cake.
Side View
I doubled the cake measurement to get more height in the cake. Note: the baking time increases due to an increase in cake batter quantity while the baking tin remains the same. In this process, the cake does get a little dry. So, I moisten the cake by drizzling a simple syrup over it and allowed it to sit for a few minutes till the syrup was soaked in. Later glazed the cake with Chocolate Ganache. If you want to know how I glazed the cake then follow the link How to glaze a cake with Chocolate Ganache.
Angle View
Using a pair of mini tongs, I carefully placed cachous (edible sugar) pearls over the ganache glazed cake in evenly spaced rows and columns giving a matrix look. I extended this layout down the sides of the cake as well. Doesn't this pattern look simple yet grandeur?
Strawberry Rosette
Finally, I used only one strawberry in spite of having the entire punnet at my disposal. Adhering to simple and less is more theme. Instead of plonking a strawberry onto the cake as is, I decided why not carve it into a beautiful rosette and make a statement.
Cake Cutting
To keep the cake safe from candle melts, I used halved kiwi fruits to hold the tall candles and placed them behind the cake. Look at how moist and spongy the cake is.
Made this cake in a short span of time, from baking, to cooling, to leveling, to preparing ganache and decorating. So not only within 3 hours you can pull off a classy looking cake, but also do a million other things while it is baking and resting.
You see, how quickly and easily you can please anyone with an elegant looking homemade eggless cake. Go ahead and give it a shot.
I will be back with more cake decorations. Watch this space.
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