I've decided to recognize Tessa's 23rd birthday in cake form, which, I realize, is not any sort of groundbreaking or innovative idea. "Birthday" and "Cake" are words that are often placed next to each other. I know this. But what if the birthday girl stays a minimum of 150 miles away from her cake, and said cake is enjoyed by people she has never/has briefly met?
Innovation.
To that end, I've created this aqua-themed yellow-accented cake in Tessa's honor, and while she will never smell it, taste it, or see it in three dimensions, I think that the warm fuzzy sentiments I baked into it will radiate all the way to Providence Rhode Island, where she lives. So here's to a happy 23rd, Tessa. Your cake was delicious, and you're just going to have to trust me on that one.
So here's a confession: The fondant I used to cover/decorate this cake is the leftover fondant from a baby shower cake I made for my cousin a few weeks back (same with last week's - you may recognize that yellow fondant on the left). So color scheme-wise, I didn't have much of a choice. To be fair, they were colors that I had originally chosen. Just for a different cake. Anyway. To cover a 6 inch cake that is four inches tall, you need to roll out the fondant to be about 16 inches in diameter (6" for the top, 8" for both sides, 2" buffer) or, if you've got a scale, 18 ounces. When I started this cake, I had a whole lot of blue, a decent amount of yellow, and just a bit of that teal color you see on top. I knew that I wanted to use the majority of the blue for the teardrop shapes, so I had this big chunk of yellow, the tiny chunk of teal, and however much blue it took to get it up to 18 ounces. I couldn't knead the three bits together - I don't even want to know what these three colors combined would look like. So I put each color in the microwave to soften them up, and started rolling out the yellow. Once the yellow was about half way rolled, I put the blue on top and rolled that out a bit. Same deal with the teal. What started as a solution to not having enough single-tone fondant turned into a pretty sweet technique that I will have to use in the future - but next time: intentionally.
When I rolled it onto the cake, though, I lost all the yellow. That really doesn't matter in this instance, as I'm going to be covering up most of the bottom layer anyway, but I'll have to plan for that in the future.
Here's what it looked like before I decorated it. I was surprised at how easy it was to make those colors into one sheet.
HOWEVER - this week's cake was not all smooth sailing, let me tell you. I looked around last week for a different cake recipe - Kelly's is great but I thought I'd try a little variation. So I researched recipes that are known to stand up well to bulky fondant.
It may have been the recipe, it may have been the fact that I used AP flour instead of cake flour (Jack reasoned that if it's "All-Purpose" flour, then it should serve all purposes), but despite its relatively tasty flavor, it was spongy and weak. It crumbled under the pressure of this most luxurious of fondants and the result was a blobby, misshapen mass. It wasn't the worst thing in the world, but I prefer cleaner, sharper silhouettes to the rounded endges you see here.
But on to decorating, because baking is for nerds.
I used a teardrop cutter to make these droppy shapes, and I attached them to the sides, alternating colors, throwing a yellow in there every once in a while.
Fondant glue is just plain water - rub a drop on the thing you're attaching, and...attach it. Hold it there for a few seconds and it'll stay there forever. This fondant is great because the colors don't really run. Adding water can do that to the cheaper fondants.
Look at how happy I look, right before I destroy this thing. Tonight's occasion was the regular Wednesday night ritual, watch DVR'd Biggest Loser while eating meals of the American's portion. Huge.
Heidi and Mark joined as usual, and I was glad to share this Tessa cake with a guy who has never met Tessa, and a girl who spent a drunken night in Brooklyn in her company, and is fuzzy on the details. And of course, Jack, who slept on her couch once.
Happy birthday, Tessa! Your cake was delicious!
Jack is a little annoyed because he knows that I will never use this recipe again and he claims that the batter was "the most delicious thing he's ever eaten."
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