a bride's bouquet

 Could there have been a more perfect day?

Miss C was marrying Mr P, I was their chosen cake-maker, and the day was glorious!

 

On the morning of the wedding, I woke early and set about the final stages of the cake design - arranging the handmade sugar flowers and foliage on the completed cake. Miss C had chosen soft pinks, whites and greens as the theme for her bridal bouquet, with pink roses and white lisianthus as the main flowers. The cake was designed to reflect her bouquet.

As a wedding cake maker, it is a tremendous pleasure and privilege to be selected from amongst many talented others to create the wedding cake that a bride dreams of. Congratulations Miss C and Mr P! And thank you.

Cake: Callebaut chocolate and chocolate ganache, finished with ivory fondant, handmade sugar flowers and foliage, dove grey grosgrain trim.

ginger cake

Autumn is well and truly here and the weather is gorgeous! So gorgeous that I want to bottle it and splash it around like a favourite perfume on days when things are not so perfect.

But I think all who live in this part of the world agree that, weather-wise, we are well and truly spoilt. The days are sunny and warm, the air clear and clean, the skies azure blue. I feel like doing a twirl just to celebrate the beauty of it all!

But autumn also means cool, crisp evenings, starry starry nights - and ginger cake. Sticky, spicy, fragrant, moreish ginger cake that gets better and better as the days pass. Not that it lasts that long. But it's special and just about the best thing to eat on an autumn evening either with lashings of tea or surrounded by a moat of hot, vanilla custard. My ginger cake contains Guinness beer, black treacle and minced, fresh ginger which I think is superior in a ginger cake to the ground, powder form. And sometimes I like to add stem ginger pieces - glacéd nuggets of ginger, like topaz-coloured sea glass, to be discovered in every slice. Mmmmmm!

la biscuit joconde

Photo M.Robin Cakes

Marcella Robin  makes the most fabulous wedding cakes from entremets and her latest efforts have stirred me into a flurry of sponge-action.

I could wax lyrical about the sponge cake in all its forms, so combining art with sponge cake along with a fruity bavarois, a crunchy dacquoise and a creamy chiboust makes me want to skip with joy! Armed with my Silpats and offset spatulas it was time to renew my friendship with la biscuit joconde.

La biscuit joconde is a sponge cake made with finely ground almond meal and whole eggs (the yolks and beaten egg whites) and can be used for the sponge layers in entremets (gateaux desserts) as well as an outer layer which encloses the entremet - like wrapping paper.  The joconde is often decorated  with an imprimé (design) to enhance the presentation of the dessert.

The first step is to make the imprimé which is made from a cake batter (paté à décor) that you colour. You use the  paté à décor to draw or stencil onto silicone baking mats to create the cake’s design. Next, you make the biscuit joconde which you spread in a thin layer, ever so gently, over the imprimé on your baking tray. Finally, you bake it and the design is cooked directly into the joconde layer. Once cool, the joconde is cut to line a cake ring which you then begin to fill.

To help me brush up on my skills, and to learn some tips from a master, I invited M. Pierre-Antoine  from Private Chef to take me through a biscuit joconde 101. Pierre -Antoine is a trained pastry chef with enormous experience at some very  fine establishments and, luckily for me, is now based in Brisbane. We conferred about the ingredients and equipment we would need and spent a great afternoon together chatting about all things patisserie, experimenting with designs and baking thin layers of almond sponge.

I look forward to sharing some of my designs and entremets with you in my blog posts along the way.

pancakes

I once spent a considerable time in Brittany, France. In a granite cottage facing the Atlantic ocean, near Plouhinec, to be exact.  It was there that I was able to indulge in my love of Quatre Quarts and crepes (and the great American novel Moby Dick by Herman Melville). I don't think anyone can make pancakes like the Bretons. But I try. And Shrove Tuesday - Pancake Day - is the perfect opportunity to get out my trusty French crepe pan, mix up a large bowl of batter, dress the table with copious bowls of lemons and gather my family for our annual pancake-tossing competition.

When our tummies are full with freshly made pancakes served simply with lemon juice and sugar, the pancake tossing begins with great hilarity. The aim is to toss a pancake from the frying pan, as high as you can, and to catch it again in the pan. Needless to say, we step outside to do this. Dropping the pancake means instant disqualification and the pan is passed to the next eager contestant much to the children's joy. Sometimes the pancakes are tossed and fail to return - they end up on the roof, or high in a tree to be devoured by a quizzical possum or the birds at dawn. Once everyone has had a turn, young and old alike, the winner is announced and a 'press release' drawn up to spread the news to those that couldn't join us.

My tips for successful pancakes or crepes (we're not talking the American version here):

Make your batter thin - like pouring cream; have the right type of pan (thin metal base, low-sides); only put enough batter in the pan to spread a thin covering (you are aiming for a crispish-golden outside and moist, tender inside - not a thick, pale, doughy disc); make sure the pan is hot; wipe your pan with a paper towel each time you have removed your pancake; wipe the pan with the tiniest amount of butter before cooking the next pancake. Sound difficult? Not really. And the results are well worth the effort. Serve them warm and as quickly as possible after they have been cooked. And eat them however you like them.

the peony

Today is Miss J and Mr J's wedding. I've been up early putting the finishing touches to a peach and coral pink peony that I've made from sugar paste for their wedding cake.

The peony is a beautiful flower, fragrant and blowsy like a full-blown rose. As I dip my brushes into tiny jars of peach, terracotta and golden yellow, lines from Mary Oliver's poem Peonies spring to mind..with their honeyed heaviness, their lush trembling, their eagerness to be wild and perfect for a moment, before they are nothing, forever?  I want my peony to look as though it has been plucked from a watercolour painting and if you look closely, its petals will slowly unfurl as the sun strokes them with his buttery fingers.

Best wishes Miss J and Mr J. May your lives together be both wild and perfect, forever.

Peonies by Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems, Vol.1 published by Beacon Press, 1992

cake girl finds Cake Girl

It was serendipity that I found Cake Girl. 

There she was, staring back at me from my computer screen with that purposeful yet wistful look, probably day dreaming about cakes and bluebirds and other things that make her heart skip. I know about these things.

Cake Girl was hanging in a light-filled studio in Virginia, half way round the world. She's the creation of Kaarin Nelson, a working artist with a home studio, two children, twelve chickens, a large yellow puppy, a pushy rabbit and a very patient husband. Kaarin says she hopes her paintings express the joy she feels about doing what she loves. They do.

Cake Girl now keeps me company when I bake and the lives of two women - an artist and a baker - are  linked by the joy they both feel about doing what they love.

To view Kaarin's work visit Kaarin Nelson.

PS Kaarin, all your lovely family, friends and supporters are welcome to visit me in Australia. Let me know when you are coming and I'll bake us all a special cake!

vintage rosebuds

The sky has looked grumpy all day and now it is pouring. Not just raining, but pouring. Gurgling and spluttering in the down pipes. When it’s like this, I wish we had gargoyles on our roof, like those I admired in Paris. Anyway, I thought I needed to brighten the day with cake. So here’s a picture. I call it vintage rosebuds on primrose. Impossibly pretty and inspired by my love of vintage wallpaper designs and fine china. The rosebud cabochons are moulded by hand in sugar paste, then when dry, hand-painted and glazed so they resemble porcelain. The rain has stopped!