Maggie has such a unique and amazing personality. So I think that the theme of "yin and yang" fits her perfectly. Plus, she came up with the idea herself, so I think that definitely says something of the appropriateness of this cake. Not only did she come up with the idea, but the execution of the cake as well.
One word: ganache! Ganache, ganache, ganache; that's all she wanted. And who can blame her? That super chocolate cake that I made for my dad was delicious! So, honoring the birthday girl's wishes, I made ganache! And boy, did that ganache give me problems. Maybe because it's July? Or maybe because I didn't have a buttercream base coat this time? I bet that's it.
You see, I make a pretty thick ganache recipe, so I figured that I could skip the base buttercream layer. Unfortunately, I don't think that I waited long enough for the newly-made ganache (isn't that such a cool word?) to cool, and when I spread it all over the cake, it just kind of drooped. And I couldn't get the ganche to adequately (my new favorite word) cover the space made between the two layers (because of my cake pan woes, but more about those later!). So, frustrated, I just stuck the cake in the fridge for a while and went to cool off myself.
When I came back to the cake, it was much easier to spread the ganache around as icing, so I'm inclined to think that it was just too warm. I used the left-over ganache that hadn't made it on the cake the first go-round, and covered up any holes that I had and smoothed everything over.
As you can tell by the picture, it's not completely smooth. Oh well, that's something I need to work on. Can you tell that the white buttercream isn't smooth either? Maybe you can, maybe you can't. But to my critical eyes, that's unacceptable. To the eyes of the "laity" though, the cake was perfect. At least, that's what everyone (especially Maggie) kept saying.
Overall, I really think that this was a wonderful, chocolately cake and I know that I couldn't have done any better because Maggie really loved it, and when you get down to it, the only opinion that matters is that of the birthday girl (or boy).
8 comments:
looks yummy to me :)
It looks great. One tip about smoothing the icing, get an angled spatula warm and then run it across the icing. In between strokes, clean the spatula completely. It works really well. I use hot water and then dry off the spatula.
Looks great! Another way to smooth the icing is to put wax paper over the icing after it hardens just a bit. Smooth with your hands.
My dear.. won't you try to use Sugarpaste..or Rolled Fondant? It'll be really smooth. Or try Royal Icing! :)
In my Cake dec class, we usually smooth Royal Icing with a Straight Edge (a long metal ruler).
Kelsie!! I think it was absolutely sweet of you to bake that for yr sis..loved the ying, yang concept.
i like this cake!
The cake is perfect. (I say this all the time about your cakes. XD)
Maggie's lucky to have a sister like you. :))
Thanks for all of the smoothing tips!
I would try the fondant but I'm afraid of using it to cover the entire cake. Fondant is just too chewy for me; it's good for accents but I don't know how much I'd like it for the whole deal.
However, I will try the other stuff in the future: warm spatula, wax paper, etc.
Thanks again!
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