Cake for Olympics torchbearers

Posted on September 8, 2012 by Deepali Gandhi

At the recently concluded London Olympics, 8000 torchbearers carried the Olympic flame across the country. One of my friends, Sara, had the honour of being one of them. As you can see from her story, she is highly respected in the local community and is truly an inspiration for all of us.

To celebrate this occasion, my friend threw a party at her community centre this afternoon. It was a great opportunity for everyone to hold the torch themselves and get themselves photographed with it. The Mayor and Mayoress of Woking attended as did the local press.

She wanted to have a very special cake for her big party … something involving the Olympics as well as a depiction of her holding the torch.

Keeping this brief in mind, here is a picture of the cake I designed for her.

The cake was a rich chocolate cake with dark chocolate ganache. The sugar figure was made keeping her torchbearer uniform. The colours used can easily be identified as the ones seen in the venues, tickets and signboards of the 2012 Olympics. The London skyline was widely used at the venues and TV coverage, so I decided to throw in an icing silhouette of the same.

The cake was on display throughout the party and almost all of us who attended took photos of it together with Sara.

Those of you who attend her parish will get a taste of it tomorrow.

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Shoe box cake

Posted on August 31, 2012 by Deepali Gandhi

This is one is for all my shoe crazy girl friends.

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Ordered for a customer who loves pink shoes, this was one fun girly cake to make!

As recommended by several fellow bloggers, I referred to the excellent tutorial by PinkCakeBox for instructions.

For a start, I went down to the shops and bought a pair of high heeled shoes. The straps of the left one were cut off to give me the base I needed for shaping the shoe.

A paper template was made from this shoe and was used to cut out the pink and black gumpaste to the right shape and size.

The gumpaste was then left on the base to dry out for about 3-4 days. The strap around the toes was placed around some crumpled clingfilm and stuck on to the base with royal icing. The strap was left to dry in this shape for 2-3 days.

The heel was made from gumpaste using the measurements of the shoe. A barbeque skewer was passed through it and the structure was left to dry on a cake dummy for a week.

Shoe and heel left to dry

The cake was made from 2 halves of a 10″ square chocolate cake stacked up to give the correct height.

Chocolate cake

To give it a box like effect, the 4 faces of the box were cut out from very stiff sugarpaste (lots of CMC added) that was left to harden overnight.

The edges were placed alongside the box and gently pressed to stick on to the ganache.

The lid of the box was made from sugarpaste mixed with a bit of CMC to allow it hold its shape better. It was rolled out such that each side was 2cm more than the top face of the box. This allowed it to be folded on top like the lid on a box.

The shoe was assembled just before placing on the board. The heel was stuck under the base using royal icing. The skewer in the heel was cut down to size to help it stay stable on the board.

The shoe is edible as it is made entirely from gumpaste. The next time you say “I’ll eat my shoe” just think of this one and you won’t regret it!

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Cake fit for a toast?

Posted on August 16, 2012 by Deepali Gandhi

A few weeks ago, I was approached with a challenging brief. A customer wanted a cake for his wife who is allergic to eggs and lactose. The cake would have to be in the shape of her favourite champagne bottle. It would have to be standing upright.

I have made cakes without dairy products in the past & although these taste light and lovely but are not as sturdy as regular sponges. This makes them a bit tricky to carve into shapes. Bottle shaped cakes are usually done as laying flat on the board as they are difficult to balance upright and even more difficult to transport. Despite knowing the pitfalls, I couldn’t resist this challenge & decided to take it on.

After a bit of research, I came up with a more robust version of a dairy free sponge, which could be carved and could take a bit of weight on it. That was half the job done.

The rest was simpler than I had feared. The bottle was a Laurent-Perrier Cuveé Rosé which is slightly broader than regular champagne bottles. This made the balancing easier to achieve.

Champagne bottle cake

In principle, this is how you would do it for any bottle. (Apologies for having no pictures of the process – forgot to click any in my excitement to get this done!).
– Carve out circles of cake the size of the widest part of the bottle.
– Stack these on top of each other using very little filling.
– Use lightweight dowelling (I used lollipop sticks)
– Leave in the fridge to firm up a little.
– Carve out in the shape of the bottle.
– Apply crumb coat and leave to firm up.

For the neck, I used an ice-cream cone as this would give me the correct shape without putting a lot of weight on the cake. The cone was lightly coated with chocolate on the inside to give it a little bit of weight. The narrow end was cut to the size of the spout. The cork was a ball of sugarpaste stuck on the cone with some chocolate.

Upside down ice-cream cone

The neck of the bottle was then placed on the body, supported by a central wooden dowel.

The labels on the bottle were handpainted and stuck on the covered cake.

Handpainted labels

Here’s a picture of the cake with the original bottle for comparison.

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Party in the park

Posted on July 6, 2012 by Deepali Gandhi

Woking Council celebrates its annual Party in the park tomorrow at the Woking park. It is a celebration for the entire community and there are a variety of family events held during the day.

We will have a stall in the food village selling cupcakes and cake slices . We are proud to be part of this event and hope to bring a lot of festive cheer with our delectable cakes.

If you are out and about, do visit us at our stall on the cricket pitch. There will be a selection of flavours for children and grown-ups alike.

An update:
A big thank you to all the people who braved the downpour and tasted all our cakes. It was lovely to see so many happy customers who kept coming back for more. Our entire stock was gone before the event ended!
Apologies to those who were too late.

Here’s a picture of the stall at
its fullest..

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Picasso never tasted sweeter

Posted on June 22, 2012 by Deepali Gandhi

The Picasso cake

As I mentioned in my earlier post, this cake is based on a painting by Pablo Picasso. It was commissioned by the husband of the artist Rayne Bellinger.

I was debating between painting directly on the cake or creating an icing collage. Ultimately, I opted for the second approach as it seemed more in character with the artist. Picasso was one of the originators of the word ‘collage‘ and used this method in his Cubist paintings. Besides, this painting depicts love as two bodies becoming one – so it is really about two lovers kissing rather than just one sitting on the armchair.

The cake was a rectangular Victoria sponge which was covered in white icing.

The individual colours on the painting were achieved by mixing small portions of icing with different colours to get to the correct shades.

Paper stencils for each part were cut out from a printed picture.

Cutting out parts

Part of the face

Cutouts assembled

The different colours were then rolled out and cut to the correct shape of the stencils.

The main areas were marked out on the white cake using tracings on parchment paper. Using these guidelines, the individual parts were assembled together like a jigsaw.

Icing assembled on cake

Finishing touches such as shaded areas, features on the face and other lines were then painted on.

Finishing touches

Finally, a wood-like icing frame was placed around the picture to give it a painting-like effect.

The finished cake was indeed my masterpiece!

The original painting

The Picasso cake

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Picasso cake

Posted on June 21, 2012 by Deepali Gandhi

One of my most exciting and creatively satisfying challenges to date is coming to a conclusion this week. It’s going to be fantastic.

I have been commissioned to make a cake for an artist. It is based on one of her favourite paintings, a Picasso masterpiece called “Nude woman in a red armchair”. This painting is on display at Tate Britain.

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I can hardly wait for the finished piece and to blog all the design details. Watch the space !!

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Big Bang Theory

Posted on June 5, 2012 by Deepali Gandhi

This cake is inspired by the “Melting” Rubik’s cube T-shirt worn by one of the geeks on The Big Bang Theory.

Melting Rubik’s cube cake

The cube was assembled from an 8inch square raspberry & white chocolate cake which was trimmed to get this shape.  It is very important cut it accurately or you could end up with a thin base giving an unstable structure.

The cake was covered in black sugarpaste and the individual coloured squares stuck on in a random pattern.

The colourful squiggles which show the colours melting away were made by arranging tubes of different colours on the cake board. These were then flattened using a small rolling pin.

I am sure it made one geek very happy!

 

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Pebble beach cake

Posted on June 3, 2012 by Deepali Gandhi

I was commissioned to make this cake for a 40th birthday party for a lady who loves the tranquility of pebble beaches and has a particular fondness for marzipan.

Pebble beach cake

The pebbles, starfish and shells are individually crafted pieces of marzipan. I managed to achieve a more natural pebble like effect by marbling the different colours.

Pebbles on the beach

My biggest challenge was creating a wave like effect on the sea. I considered various techniques found on other blog posts before coming up with a whole new idea. I have often used this technique of royal icing brush embroidery on wedding cakes. I just modified it slightly to suit the effect I was trying to achieve.  The waves were meant to be gentle ones, so thinner lines of royal icing were piped before brushing them inwards.

Sea waves

I am pleased as punch with the overall effect & the customer seemed delighted to see it as well.

 

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Some like it hot – part 2

Posted on June 3, 2012 by Deepali Gandhi

Here’s how the cake looked with the chillies thrown on…

Red hot chilli cake

The cake itself was a rich chocolate cake filled with chilli chocolate ganache.

The chillies were handcrafted from marzipan and painted with various shades of red food colours to give a  more natural look.

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Some like it hot

Posted on May 30, 2012 by Deepali Gandhi

I am looking forward to making 3 exciting cakes this weekend, each with a different theme.

The first one will have red chillies made from marzipan (see photo). All of these have been hand rolled and painted.

The second one is a pebble beach themed cake and will have pebbles, shells and starfish, all made of marzipan.

The third one is based on the melting rubik’s cube tshirt from the popular show “The Big Bang Theory”.

I will post more pictures when they are ready.

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