I know, I know, I'm sorry. Worst blogger ever. Honestly though, I have been pretty busy with other things lately, and even considered giving up the blog altogether.
Instead, I have decided I am going to try very hard to post something more often - even if it's just a picture of the latest thing I've been baking (or sewing!). If less wordy = less time consuming, then that's the way those posts will be. At the end of the day, you'd probably rather just see pictures of cake than listen to me ramble anyway, right? :o)
So anyway, this is a cake I made for a little girl's 6th birthday recently(ish). She wanted a Dolly Varden style Snow White cake. I've never done a Dolly Varden cake before, so it was quite interesting and fun for me to try it out. Here's what I ended up with:
Snow is wearing her classic outfit, all made from sugarpaste (ie rolled fondant icing), including the bodice and sleeves, which I stuck directly onto the doll. The only things that aren't edible are the doll itself, her hair, and her crown (this is a plastic one that came with the doll, so I figured why make work for myself when the plastic one is just as cute anyway - plus the birthday girl can keep it for her other dolls afterward). You can't really see it very well in the photo, but the little apple next to Snow was completely covered in red cake decorating glitter - it was super sparkly and looked pretty cool, if I do say so myself! :o)
The cake underneath the skirt was chocolate Madeira cake, and I baked it in two sections - one in a pudding basin (for the shape), and the other in a regular round eight-inch cake tin. I then stacked the pudding basin one on top of the round one and trimmed them to become one cohesive skirt shape. This gave the cake a good amount of height. If I had just used the pudding basin alone, she would have been a very short and stumpy princess! There is of course such a thing as a proper Dolly Varden cake tin, but I don't have one, and I've also heard that they're quite difficult to work with. Anyway, I found this method worked just fine.
Not sure if the method I chose for covering the skirt was the best one, as it was a lot harder than I had expected. But I think the end result was pretty good for my first try - and the birthday girl and her mum were Thrilled, which is the important thing!
3 comments:
Looks fantastic. Wish you'd have taken a close-up of your shiny apple.
It is always very hard to post regularly, don't beat yourself up. Would love t see your creations when you can
Your cake looks fantastic and I am hoping to make one just like this for my daughters birthday in June. Could you pass on the recipe for your pudding basin and 8 inch maderia cakes please?? I have been trailling the basin cake but keep getting a dip in the middle. albeit i am using a sponge recipe.
Would be a life saver!!
Thanks
Hi Karen G - unfortunately I'm not really comfortable with posting this recipe, as it is out of a cookbook (and therefore copyrighted). However, if you Google "madeira cake" or "butter cake" you will find lots of suitable recipes. For the pudding basin, I used a recipe that would fit into a 20cm (8") round (the basin was not as wide, but deeper). To make it chocolate flavoured, simply substitute some of the plain flour for cocoa powder (I used 50g for each mixture).
For most cakes, a dip in the middle would usually indicate that it is slightly undercooked. You did mention that you were using a sponge recipe though, which I am less familiar with. For this cake I would not recommend using sponge; a heavier cake is easier to carve into shape, and less likely to collapse under the weight (as it's quite tall). I hope this helps - I'd love to hear how it turns out! :)
Post a Comment