Stencilling a design on a cake

I'm enjoying my wedding cake decorating class even though we are already in week 5 and haven't actually been near a wedding cake yet (even a fake one). My main issue with the course though is that it was described as "intermediate level" - i.e. for people with some cake decorating experience - but we have been doing really basic things I would describe as beginners' level. Take stencilling, for instance - I'd never done it before so it was useful having it explained and having the chance to practice. For me, part of the reason for taking the class is to have a couple of hours set aside a week to focus on practicing cake decorating, which I wouldn't find time for at all otherwise.

 

But to spend half a class aimed at an intermediate level being taught stencilling was a bit disappointing. Do you want to know how to do stencilling? Well, mix some royal icing, colour it, place a stencil on your cake, and spread the icing over with a palette knife. Then remove the stencil - ta dah! Hardly rocket science - and hardly an intermediate level class. We could have covered that in 20 minutes and then spent an hour working on decorating a covered dummy cake so even if the technique was simple, by the end we would have a nicely decorated cake.

Place the stencil on the covered cake or board

spread over a thin layer of royal icing using a palette knife

remove stencil

Instead, we continue to work on a covered board, using the same board we'd used in previous weeks as you can see from the picture. I had my own set of stencils though I'd never used them, so chose a leaf pattern and added some green to my royal icing. I used a bit of masking tape to fasten the stencil to the board, as you don't want it to move, and spread the icing over the top. You want to spread the icing as thinly as possible. Carefully remove the stencil and you can see it does look good.

After the class I tried stencilling on an actual cake and unsurprisingly found it was a lot more difficult than doing it on a cake board, so I wish we had done it on a cake in class! You can see how mine turned out here.

We spent the second half of the class being shown how to use a Garrett frill cutter, which I already owned and had used before but not correctly as it turned out, so I will do a separate post on this.

Chocolate Brownie Valentine's Cake with Stencilled Hearts

It feels like it's been ages since I've made a proper cake so I decided to make one for my fiancé for Valentine's Day - I also wanted the chance to try out one of my cake stencils with a heart pattern that I'd never used before.

We'd just covered stencilling in my wedding cake decorating class and I'd written the blog post but forgotten to publish it so you'll have to hang on to read more about the technique - for this blog post I will concentrate more on the cake itself.

I used a recipe from the Great British Bake Off Big Book of Baking, for a "classic chocolate fudge sandwich cake". I filled it differently and decorated it differently, and both layers of the cake did sink when I took them out of the oven, which was odd as my cakes don't usually do that and I followed the recipe exactly. I thought the cake reminded me of a chocolate brownie in texture which is why I've given it this name; it was kind of chewy (in a good way) and tasted very good - I had a small slice just to try it, and think I will pack the rest of it off to my fiancé for his work colleagues (some of whom are coming to the wedding so there's no harm in trying to win them over!).

You can find the full recipe online here, so I won't repeat it. I didn't split my cake into four layers and instead just used chocolate buttercream to fill it and to spread over the top and around the sides, as I only wanted a thin layer of coating as I was covering the cake with fondant. I found that half the amount of the quantity in the recipe was plenty, and I actually used milk chocolate rather than plain as I generally prefer it, but I decided afterwards that plain would have been better in this recipe.

So I followed the recipe for the cake exactly and then for the buttercream used:
150g icing sugar
75g milk chocolate, melted
75g butter, softened
which I beat all together to make a buttercream consistency.

Melting chocolate and butter

 

Beating the mixture

Two pans about to go in the oven

And after baking - both sank in the middle

I covered the bottom layer with buttercream

The two layers stacked very neatly on top of each other - this is a good-sized cake

Crumb coating of buttercream around the sides and on the top

Covering with white sugarpaste

Mixing some royal icing with gel colour and getting ready to spread

Here's the stencil I used - it fits neatly onto the top of the cake. You have to stick it down with tape or it will move.

Spreading the icing over the stencil

And here it is! The icing was a bit thick in places because the top of the cake wasn't completely flat, which means there were some small gaps around the edge of the stencil shapes but I don't think it's too bad for a first attempt.

I added a pink ribbon and tied it in a bow around the front of the cake

 

And finally placed the cake on a heart-shaped cake board I already had. My fiancé thought it was cute and thought the chocolate cake was particularly good.

Do you fancy a slice?

I'm sharing this with We Should Cocoa, hosted by Choclette at Tin and Thyme, as her theme this month is butter.

I'm also sending this to Love Cake, hosted by Ness at JibberJabberUK, where the theme is "the month of cake".

And also to Simply Eggcellent, hosted by Dom at Belleau Kitchen, as this month "anything goes".

And finally I'm sending this to the Food Year Linkup, hosted by Charlotte's Lively Kitchen, as it's Valentine's day of course.

Summer Berry Cake with Stencil Decoration

I made this cake for an afternoon tea team-building event at work, based on a Peggy Porschen recipe I found online. It also gave me the chance to try out some cake stencils I got for Christmas.

Peggy Porschen has a cake shop and baking academy in Belgravia near where I used to work - I often used to walk past the shop, which is pink, though I never really found an excuse to go inside and have cake on my lunchbreak or the way to work! Peggy also featured in the finale of the last series of the Apprentice, giving advice to aspiring baking business owner Luisa Zissman. I thought it was quite funny that "Peggy Portion" was trending on Twitter; a lot of people seemed to think her name was spelled that way and that it was perfect for a cake maker!

The recipe that I used is here, though my cake unfortunately turned out nothing like the picture!

You need:

200g butter, softened

200g caster sugar

pinch of salt

seeds of 1 vanilla pod or 1 tsp vanilla flavouring

4 eggs

200g self-raising flour

For the buttercream:

250g butter, softened

250g icing sugar

3 tbsp mixed berry jam plus extra to fill the cake

Preheat the oven to 175C and grease and line a cake tin. Cream the butter and sugar with the salt and vanilla. Then mix in the eggs.

Fold in the flour.

Bake in the oven for about 30 minutes until a skewer comes out clean.

You're supposed to slice the cake into three - or make three separate cakes - but I made one and sliced it in half.

Spread one layer of the cake with mixed berry jam.

Make buttercream by creaming the butter and icing sugar, then mix in 3 tbsp of the jam

I got this pack of cake stencils for Christmas and hadn't used them yet. There are a selection of designs and you just sprinkle cocoa powder or icing sugar over the top.

First spread the buttercream on top and around the sides of the cake, using a cake smoother or spatula to smooth the sides. Then place the stencil on top and sprinkle over the cocoa powder.

Carefully lift the stencil off and you should be left with the pattern. I think I used too much cocoa powder here. Also, the instructions said to grease the underneath of the stencil so it would catch any excess rather than letting it fall onto the cake and I stupidly skipped this part - I was doing this at 7am before work, as I thought if I put the cocoa on the night before it might sink into the buttercream. I will follow the instructions properly next time - has anyone else tried to use a stencil on a cake before?

I am sending this to the No Waste Food Challenge - I don't eat jam so whenever I buy a jar it's usually for a cake, and then I have to find something else to use it up in, so this cake saved me from having to throw the jar away! The challenge is hosted this month by Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary on behalf of Turquoise Lemons.