Fireman Sam Cake

I am a few weeks behind on my blogging because I have been really busy with 2 big cake projects. I got 2 orders for fondant decorated birthday cakes. One is a Fireman Sam birthday cake for a 2 year old girl and another was a Transformer cake for a 6 year old boy. 
Both cakes are to be delivered on the same day! I had to make sure I organise my time very well to be able to deliver both cakes on time. 

I had about 3 weeks to plan for the cakes. Fireman Sam! Ok, who is this Fireman Sam? I have no idea. I am not familiar with kid's cartoon. But fret not, there is always internet. I am so happy that I live in this time and era where everything can be found on the internet. 

Even though I am doing a patisserie course now, we only have 1 lesson on fondant decorated cake and it is a really basic lesson. The class was not even on until after these cakes has to be delivered. So I had to do my own studies on this. I have to thank all those bloggers and people who shared their photos of their cakes because I looked at so many photos when I was researching on Fireman Sam cake. On top of that, I also watched a few episodes of Fireman Sam on YouTube to know more about Sam and his fire engine. I watched till I could sing the Fireman Sam theme song. Ha Ha Ha. 


I started with Fireman Sam figurine. I thought I should give myself ample time to make sure he looks like Fireman Sam. I took so long to make Sam. I don't even know how many hours. Yes hours! but it was worth it when I saw how cute he was. I only wished I made him a little taller. hehehe.... but I guess he is a young Sam so he is cuter with shorter legs. haha. 

Fireman Sam's head

Blue eyes

Sam needs a smile

I wanted the ladder to be resting on the fire engine rather  than be part of the truck, so I made the ladder and let it harden as well. Made all the small bits and pieces such as the logo on the truck, the siren, the lights, the safety cones and birthday girl's name, Ellie. 

Head lights

Logos and other little bits and pieces

Birthday girl Ellie

Then came the cake itself. This project is a really big cake. The size of the truck was 12" x 7" x 4 1/2". I baked a chocolate mud cake and filled it with chocolate ganache. Shaped the cake to look like a truck.. It was tricky on how to cut the cake and pile it up to form the shape. I had to draw templates before cutting the cake. A wise one told me, measure twice and cut once and so I did. Glued each piece together with chocolate ganache. I feel like I was building a house, brick by brick. Finally it looked like a fire engine truck.

Building a truck

Do I look like a truck?

Smoothing out the ganache

The day came for me to wrap the cake with fondant. Now how do I make the windscreen look like it is not protruding? hmm.... I have to do the windscreen before wrapping the cake. I actually had a workflow plan as to which piece goes on first and which is next. The time used for planning was worth it because it made the process of wrapping the cake much easier and it wasn't as complicated as I first thought it would be. 

Windows :)

I look like a truck now

I wanted to have Ellie's name standing on the board to have a 3D effect and the "Happy 2nd Birthday" on the logo. I used royal icing to pipe the words. The result was simple and sweet. 

Birthday logo

I spent one whole day from 9am till 9pm covering the 2 cakes with fondant and finishing all the detail works. I wonder if other people take that long. Maybe I am still an amateur and I admit I am a little pedantic. I nearly broke my back at the end of the day but felt really happy when I saw the end products. 

Happy Birthday Ellie!

Now this is a really big cake and I had it on a 16" square board. The cake shop didn't sell any box that big, which means I had to make my own box. Well, I didn't make the box, Andrew my box engineer made it for me. heheh... The box was a perfect fit because it was tailor made for the cake. I tied it with a ribbon to make it a little prettier and also to make sure it is opened at the right side. 

Tailor made box

Now Fireman Sam Cake was ready for collection. I am anxious to know what they thought of the cake. Did Ellie like the cake? Did Ellie's parents like the cake? I hope I did a good job.

Happy birthday Ellie

 Finally I got an email from Ellie's mummy saying that they loved the cake! Yay! I am so happy to hear that. They were so kind to send me a photo of Ellie with the cake. Unfortunately Ellie was a little overwhelmed by the attention that she got and they couldn't get a photo of her beautiful smile but she is just adorable. Happy Birthday Ellie! Thank you Ellie's mummy and daddy :)

Strawberry Mousse Cake

This cake was an experiment for me. It was made when strawberries were in season and they were considerably cheap. By the way was a few months back. I made a 5" mousse cake with a layer of chocolate sponge cake as the base and then a layer of strawberry mousse and the top was fresh strawberries with jelly poured over it. It then was placed in the fridge to set overnight. 

My experiment was a success! and I decided to use this recipe again for a friend's birthday. But this time, I made a chocolate topping with Lindt chocolate and had huge strawberries on the cake. The strawberries made the cake look really small. I dipped the strawberries with some white chocolate and drizzled some milk chocolate to give it a nicer look. 

Oh! There were some raspberries hidden inside the mousse cake. As you can see, the raspberries were bleeding out some juices. It kept the sponge cake moist though, so it was good. 

Overall, we all enjoyed the cake very much and now will have to wait till it is strawberry season again before I can remake it. But it also depends if there is a demand for it. 

M Dot Birthday Cake

 This cake was ordered for a birthday boy for the office. I made him an "M Dot" cake. What is M Dot? Well, Andrew (the birthday boy) did his first Ironman triathlon in Melbourne on 24th March 2013. The Ironman triathlon starts with 3.8km swim in the sea, 180km bike ride and ends with 42.2km of running. Yes! absolutely crazy! oops! I mean absolutely amazing! It was a lifetime goal of his and he did it in less than 12 hours! Congratulations!! You did so well!!

M Dot is the logo for the Ironman, so I thought maybe it would be nice to celebrate his birthday with a note of Congratulations on his great achievement. 

Just out of oven

I baked a rich chocolate cake in a square tin and 2 small round tins. The cake was filled with chocolate ganache and chocolate glaze over the cake. Very chocolatey cake. I tried a small piece from the cut out of the "M". I had to try a little to make sure the quality of the cake was good, right? hehehe... that is my justification. 

 Party Ironman logo

M Dot Cake

Happy Birthday Andrew!

 Hope he and his colleagues enjoyed the cake as much as I did making it. Below is a photo he sent me with half the M gone. 

Coffee & Walnut Cupcakes

Coffee Walnut Cupcakes

I thought I should bake my brother his birthday cake yesterday as a little gift for him. It was a simple Coffee and Walnut Cupcake with coffee cream topping. The cake baking didn't take long, the decoration was rather simple too. I made his initials and 2 little badminton racquets and shuttlecocks. He is good at badminton, so is his wife and son! So I thought that racquets would be something he will like. 

Initials on cake

You know how people always say "It is the thought that counts"? Well.... this will have to be the case here because I am in Melbourne and he is in Malaysia. So I cant really post him the cupcakes so he could only see pictures of the cakes. I will have to eat it for him! Ha Ha Ha....

Initials on cakes

Happy Birthday Bro!!! May your dreams come true. Oh! by the way, the cake was YUM! Hehe..  Will bake for you when I return.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRO!

Work experience at Westin Hotel Melbourne Day 1

Finally, after studying for almost a year, it is now time to go see the real world. I was placed at Westin Hotel Melbourne for 3 weeks to gain some work experience. I have been looking forward to this for so long. 

I am scheduled to work on Thursdays and Fridays and it starts from 7am to 2pm. I heard from some friends of their experiences at the hotel and I kept wondering how my day will be. I was so excited and nervous at the same time. I barely slept the night before and was up at 4.45am. I got ready and left home at 6.10am. Met up with a friend and walked there together. Got there around 6.25am and went straight to the changing room and got into my uniform. 

Went into the kitchen and met the Chef. She showed us around, met a few more chefs and toured around the kitchen to familiarise with the environment. Then work begins.

In school we learn how to do things in a small quantity. How to half recipes, how to use a quarter of an egg at times. But here we go by the kilos. Everything was huge. The stand mixer was so big and the bar mixer was as big as a vacuum cleaner. 

I was given the task to make lemon curd this morning. I used 3 liters of lemon juice to make the lemon curd. Then I made chocolate ganache with 4kg of chocolate. It was a tough job trying to cut a big block of chocolate into small chunks. 

Then I was assigned to make muffins. I was taught that muffin batters shouldn't be over mixed and has to be baked immediately but today I am amazed to see how the batter was left beating for quite some time. The batter can even be stored in the fridge for later use. The muffins still rose beautifully. I made mini apple & walnut muffins and mini pear & ricotta cheese muffins for a lunch function. 

Muffins ready to bake

I also made lemon and blueberry muffins , banana and pecan muffin, raspberry and white chocolate muffins. These were big muffins that were served at the hotel lobby every day.

After the muffins, I made 35 fruit skewers. I cut 1 melon and 1 cantaloupe into cubes. There were also grapes and big strawberries. The skewer starts with a melon cube, grape, cantaloupe cube and topped with a strawberry. The skewers were placed on a plate and passionfruit syrup was drizzled over them. One thing that I noticed here is the amount of wastage. In order to get a consistent and firm cube size of the melon, a lot of the flesh of the fruit was wasted. I wish I had a bag to take the scraps home. 

Unfortunately I only have one photo to share. It was such a great experience and I hope I don't forget what I have learnt today. 

Week 32 Plating up dessert

Another week of decorating the plates for desserts. Creativity is a talent and it is quite interesting to see how everyone has a slightly different way of doing the same thing. I learnt from everyone in class. I may not be a very creative person but I really do enjoy playing with decorations. I googled and searched for pictures to see how others did it and try to learn from them. Sometimes, I can get some inspiration from others and come up with my own creation but sometimes I can go quite blank. I have to say this week is certainly not my best week in terms of creativity. 

Well, we baked a few simple items for the day. We had flourless orange cake , choux pastry where we made profiteroles, swans, chocolate eclairs and then there was a cranberry jelly dessert. 

Since last week, I tried to have a linear design to most of the desserts, this week I thought I will use more circles and round shapes. We only had to plate up one of the choux pastry dessert and so my partner and I chose the swans. I have to say this is really the one that I am least happy with. We were taught to keep the decoration simple but I think this is just a little too plain. 

Swans

Swans in love

 The jelly dessert was suppose to be a dessert which is easy to digest. So we were not suppose to use chocolate or cream as part of the decoration. Our trainer was struggling to plate his jelly dessert up because of all the restriction. The jelly was very soft and made it hard to get out of the mould without breaking it. I decided to use a nice little glass to fill it and serve it with the glass itself. That way, I won't risk breaking the jelly and it gives it a good height. So i kept the design rather simple with some fruits and a few drops of couli as decoration. I think this one I am quite happy with. 

Cranberry Jelly

 Last one was the flourless orange cake, I cut the cake into a small round cylinder shape. Dusted it with icing sugar and placed a candied orange peel and chocolate swirl on the cake. I wanted to try free hand chocolate piping on the plate and this was what I did. It looks like an "L" or "S" . Maybe can be a logo for a cake shop. Ha Ha.

Flourless Orange Cake

 The flourless orange cake was quite nice but a little sweet for me. The profiteroles were delicious. I think I ate most of it. Well, it may not have been my best work but still, I had lots of fun plating up.

Products of the day

Chocolate eclairs that we didn't plate up

Week 31 New Term - Parfait

A new term begins and new things to learn. The 2 weeks break has been so much fun and the first day back to school was actually a little drag. But when came the day to do practical work, I was back in the mood to bake! 

This term we learn more about special diets. Baking to cater for different diets such as vegetarian, lactose intolerance, diabetics, gluten free or allergies such as nuts.

The menu for the day was rather simple. We only had macadamia parfait , dried fruit meringues, Scottish shortbread and a flourless chocolate cake. We spent more time with the plating up than the baking which I thought was really fun. 

We started with the parfait first because it needed about 4 hours to set in the freezer. The parfait had no gelatine in it so it was safe for vegetarians. Instead of using macadamias, we were provided with almonds. Hmm.... most apparent reason is that macadamias cost a lot more. Anyway, the nuts were roasted and then caramel was cooked and the nuts were poured into the caramel for a coating. Then it was left to cool on a silicone mat. After it was cooled, we processed it till little chunky and crumbly nuts. 

Then we cooked the eggs and sugar over a bain marie till it reached sabayon stage. The nuts were mixed into the egg mixture and it was cooled slightly and whipped cream was folded in. Then poured into moulds that has been lined with cling wrap. Then set in the freezer. 

Then we made dried fruit meringues which was really simple, basically it was whipping egg whites and raining in the sugar till it became stiff peaks. Then the dried fruits and chocolate chips were folded in. I wanted to play with shapes so I used heart shape and square moulds, then pipep in the meringues. They were baked for 20 minutes at 110˚C. The meringues were still crisp on the outer layer and slightly chewy in the centre. Then left to cool before assembling. 

Parfait with orange & cherry salad

 We had orange segments and cherries to decorate the plate together with the parfait. Then we topped it with the almond praline and had some crushed almonds on the side. 

Heart shape meringues 

 The square meringues were a little browner than the heart shape ones. But I decided to plate up the squares because I like the idea of square meringues.

Square shape meringues 

The scottish shortbread were really nice to eat. We were given freedom to be creative and somehow I felt like more linear designs today... so mostly squares and lines. Me and my partner agreed with using the same moulds that I used for the meringues. 

Scottish Shortbread

Flourless chocolate cake was a gluten free recipe suitable for those who can't have wheat in their diet. We baked them in a square tin and they looked like brownies. The crust had a nice crunch and the centre was soft and moist. It was actually quite nice to eat. I had the most fun decorating this one. I had the picture in my head but wasn't sure if I could execute the decoration. I am pretty happy with the end result. 

Flourless Chocolate Cake

 I cut the cake into 3 small bite size squares and each had a dollop of whipped cream on it and the on the top I placed a long strip of chocolate. On the side we brushed a little chocolate on the plate and placed a fresh strawberry on it. I thought it was simple and nice.  

Flourless Chocolate Cake with strawberry

The shortbreads were dipped in chocolate and some were drizzled with chocolate and dusted with icing sugar. Plating up was kept simple because I think less is more. 

Scottish Shortbread

 As for the meringues , we gave it a lot of height. We used 3 pieces of the square meringues and had some whipped cream sandwiched in between and then had chocolate filigrees on top. On the side of the plate we had some nuts and some orange peel .

Dried fruit meringue

 At the end of the class, our trainer came to look at our work and he was happy with our work. He said "excellent! , very good! " I was so happy to hear that! I am sure I have a lot more to learn in terms of plating up desserts. It was a good start to the term. 

Flourless Chocolate Cake 

Products of the day