Woohoo - we finally got to make a tall/stacked cake! But first we had to conquer making fruitcakes for the final project of the course. Am never a big fan of food or alcohol and the smell of them really made me want to run as far away from the kitchen as possible. We actually started preparing for the fruitcake during the previous lesson by cooking fruits, tea bags and alcohol on the stove and then sending the mixture to mature for a few days. Today we used the mixture and combined it with dry ingredients into cake batter - enough for 4 cake tins.
After sending the cake tins for baking we then began the very chocolaty part of the lesson. The chocolate cakes from the previous lesson are carefully sliced, stacked and levelled and then carved the whole stacked cake into a cone shape. This was rather nerve wrecking as it is not easy getting the angle and the amount to cut right. After doing this we then covered the cone completely with chocolate ganache.
The chef then explained how to temper chocolate - we didn't get to do this ourselves as it would require lots of practice and time. He then used a pot of tempered chocolate sauce and poured a ladle or two each onto the back of huge baking trays. The chocolate is then evenly spread to cover the whole surface of the trays and put aside to set. Now it is time to make decorate chocolate strips. Each of us were given a metal scraper which we used to scrape the set chocolate off the trays against a wall, whilst taking care not to break the strip. The strip is then used to wrap around the chocolate cone cake - this has to be done as soon as a strip is scrapped off or else it will harden and break. Unfortunately as the temperature of the kitchen was too low and yet again I did not have enough force to scrap off the chocolate without the strips looking badly shaped and broken, I ended up with what you call an......."edgy" chocolate decorated cake.
The rim of the strips is supposed to be.....smooth, not edgy and chipped like mine!
We then moved on to making flowers and shapes using modelling chocolate - this was fun and enjoyable. Finishing touches were done to the cake by paining the flowers, shapes and strips where required and I fitted on top of the cake as many spare chocolate curled strips as possible. It is definitely not your standard elegant/good looking/perfect chocolate decorated cake but I myself am rather pleased with its......"uniqueness"!
Must find time at home to practice how to temper chocolate and make perfect strips!
Sparkling Piggy
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