I made a "finding Nemo" Birthday cake for my son's birthday and decorated it using marzipan to make sea weed, coral and sea creatures. I am pretty pleased with the way it turned out, but next time will color the marzipan before forming it, rather than painting it with food coloring. This is only the second time I have worked with marzipan, and although I am pleased with the results, I felt it could have been a little more moist and pliable than it was - I didn't have time to hydrate it more, so just used it as it was. I also am thinking of taking a cake decorating course to learn more technique, as I am sort of flying by the seat of my pants. Here's a photo for anyone interested:
On Sun 22 Jan 2006 11:06:20p, Thus Spake Zarathustra, or was it -L.?
Thanks! You did a *super* job! I could not have done that. I can bake a great cake and do a beautiful frosting job, but decorating? It would be horrible. :-)
Thanks, Wayne. Next time I would make the sea life more delicate and intricate - I was sort of hurrying between nap time and dinner to get it done so it would be dried and ready for Friday when I finished the cake. I used to be a potter so working with marzipan isn't a lot different from clay.
I have so many "creative" things I'd like to do if I had more time. Cake decorarting is one of them. :)
Very cute! You did a really good job. I bet everyone loved eating it.... after saying "It's too pretty to eat."
Have you tried making Chocolate Clay for decorating. I find it fun to work with. In the summer sometimes transporting a cake some where can be tricking, because of the possible melting problems.
Lynne
Chocolate Modeling Clay You can choose to either mold or munch on this unusual recipe. For sticky and sweet sculptures, shape the chocolate clay into animals, people, cars, or any toy your heart desires.
For delicious pastry decorations, form the clay into leaves, flowers, baskets, and vines-they make great cake toppers!
1)In a shallow medium bowl, melt the chocolate without heating it above
100°F. This may be done by placing the bowl of chocolate over another bowl that contains hot-but not boiling-water.
2)Once the chocolate has melted, add the corn syrup. Using a rubber spatula, stir and fold the mixture, scraping the sides and bottom of the bowl well, until no shiny syrup is visible and the mixture forms a thick ball. Do not overmix.
3)Turn the clay out onto a sheet of waxed paper. Using the rubber spatula, pat it into a 7-inch square. Let it sit uncovered at room temperature until firm, about 2 hours. Use the clay at once, or store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to one month.
I use white chocolate and then color it. I also buy the colored chocolates and make it. It starts our really sticky and gross and then with enough kneading it suddenly turns into this wonderful easy to shape chocolate clay. The only summer problem I had was when I made a giant sunflower for a friend who loves what eles sunflowers. The stem was in direct sun light and I was driving and couldn't do anything about for about 20 minutes. It melted and dropped off onto the plate. By the time I got to her house it had cooled off I reshaped it and pressed it back together and no one but me knew what happened.
Looks great. I have not worked with Marzipan myself. I think your cake looks terrific. I've taken a few cake decorating courses and loved them. I'm one of the least artistic people I know so cake decorating is a huge challenge. In one of my classes I spent lots of energy baking the cakes we were to decorate - that was the easy part for me. Then I'd sweat buckets over the decorating. Some of class mates picked up all kinds of prebaked cakes and made them look beautiful with no effort at all! Wendy
----- Original Message ----- From: "-L." Newsgroups: rec.food.baking To: Sent: Monday, January 23, 2006 1:04 AM Subject: Re: Birthday Cake report
My philosophy is that it needs to taste better than it looks! :) This one was pretty tasty - lemon cream cake filled with a strawberry-apricot filling.
Agree with the taste/beauty relationship. But sometimes you luck out.
My daughter is taking French in school and I'm not above helping her suck up a bit - good grades are good grades. Over the past two years and this, we've made baguettes a few times. Brioches. A couple pissaladieres. Fougasse. Croquembouche (She walked into class carrying it and one kid who didn't see her come through the door and was standing with the teacher finally saw it and blurted out, "Holy shit." Teacher laughed so hard she fell into her seat.) Madelaines. Choux swans (filled with Bavarian cream). A tall Eiffel tower in gingerbread for X-mas that was wonderful and that she gave to her teacher. Smart kid.
Last evening we made the layers for a dacquoise and assembled it this morning. Two different meringue layers - one with ground almonds like an Italian amaretto cookie, the other with cocoa and orange zest. Fillings were orange mousse and chocolate mousse, finished with mousse on the sides, ganache on top with finely chopped pistachios sprinkled through a paper doily onto the chocolate.
She ought to get about 150% for this one. It's gorgeous. Should taste very good, too. She piped the layers out and, as you'd expect from a kid, got them all bumpy and irregular. Tried too hard to make it perfect and, of course, got them spluttery and uneven because of trying too hard. Showed her a wet spreader/spatula and what a wonderful tool it is. She made them more or less even and we dried them in preparation for this morning. Perfect texture, still a bit less than perfect-looking. But wait, here come the mousses and see how splendidly they mask all those imperfections. I pointed that out to The Kid and she laughed at all that worrying. She did the assembly while I made the ganache. I even peeled a bunch of pistachios, rubbed the skins off and chopped them. How good a daddy is that?
She beamed when it was done. "It's pretty good, isn't it," she said. I laughed out loud. Many bakeries I've been in wouldn't have done as pretty a job as that. Did I remember to take a picture? Why do you ask? Of course not. Not until we were halfway to school and remembered that we hadn't. Not that we were giggling like, well, schoolkids or anything...
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