Here Comes the (Product Developer)... All Dressed in ... (Hot Glue and Icing Sugar)

Winter means home time, which means, I better have a project or two up my sleeve to keep me out of the shops on the weekend; and with our great friends' wedding, why not volunteer to hand-make their gifts? What did I sign up for? Well, originally only a bespoke cork-board for the wine-loving couple. However, I also managed to rope myself in to making the cake. I'm not complaining (when I'm fed up of hot glue or egged-petals sticking to my fingers or for sweeping up lemon zest from the floor for the fifth time in a day)... "You do it to yourself" Thom Yorke.

Outcomes of my endeavors will be presented in two ways: 

1) A mix of business and pleasure- some scantly written details of how I scaled up a wedding cake.

2) A self-explanatory pictorial montage of cork-boarding.

1) Scale up exercise: 

First: Determine the number of consumers in which you are serving product; which makes me giggle because "serving product" is not terminology of the normal person, rather of a Product Developer; and off topic, it super makes me giggle because it reminds me of how upon winning a box of *!gasp!* Celebrations, we dissected the contents to count how many "units" of each flavour were in the box. You know you work in Product Development when... In any case, I found a super-handy website to help me estimate portion numbers for this endeavour. http://www.icedjems.com/2012/08/cake-servings-guide/ 

I know I need cake for 65 people. I don't want to be shy with the portions/ account for waste, so estimate for 70 portions; furthermore, the "portions" are certainly NOT to be the typical 1" square servings that are expected at a wedding. I opt to follow the "Party Cake" guidelines.

Next: up-scale your chosen recipe: 

Lemon sponge. Sandwich style. Normally for an 8" tin.

Earl Grey Creme Patissiere

Apricot Jam

Lavender infused (set) Chantilly cream

I will make 1x decorative round three-tiered cake: 6" on an 8" on a 10" (should serve 40-ish) + another 8" on a 10" to dish out. Below is what it looks like in my head? And as you see,I mean the recipe, NOT the finished product (I'm not that visionary and will "deal" with whatever monster I create).

It looks like 5 sponges, 2-kilos of Creme Pat and 35 freaking eggs, that's what it looks like! 

Starting somewhere, I got stuck-in early in the week with the Creme Pat. The more I get out of the way leading to the big day, the more I can relax the day before. This being said and the cake being a sponge, I opted to take Friday off as holiday to ensure the sponge would still be spongy on the day. My wedding guest pet peeve: $#!+ food- meaning dry, bland cake... (and the traditional cold finger buffet that the UK is renowned for... barf! But that's for another blog).

 Earl Grey infused Creme Patiessiere 

Line them up! Friday came and I got busy. I know you don't see 35 eggs, but I can assure you the missing 16 are in the 2kg of Creme Pat in the bowl on the right. 

Two other notes I'd like to make: 

1) I cheated out on making the jam. Get over it. Another time. (yes, that is tired sarcasm you detect). 

2) As there was one vegetarian (of course), my moral code kicked in and I decided to test out the VegeSet. A little red devil on my shoulder wanted to stick with gelatine, but as it is my job to make sure that food is fit for purpose and safe for consumers, I invested in the vegetarian suitable option. Comment- stick to gelatine, it works better :) Just kidding. I need to play around a bit more with the substitution, but a straight swap for liquefied gelatine for liquefied VegeSet was not as effective as the standard preparation.

 Ingredients out.

 Mix it up.

  

Pour it in and let it bake.

(Apricot) Jammin'

Stack it up and spin it round. Note: Fantastic Christmas prezzie from my Sister-in-law: a cake turntable. It seriously beats the dish on the bowl trick.

Pestled lavender buds into the Chantilly cream.

I was tasked with a vintage, natural look to decorate the cake, and crystallised flower petals were on the top of the list of ways to decorate the cake. "You do it to yourself, you do". But really, I do honestly LOVE a challenge... and these challenges in particular. 

Straight to the Internet to figure out how to crystallise the flower petals. 

Suggestion #1: use organic flowers (to avoid pesticides)- and thank goodness Valentine's day was around the same time as this task. I managed to get some discounted leftover roses (about the same cost as fresh conventional ones). 

Suggestion #2 (and in line with the moral nature of my job): use reconstituted powdered egg whites (they are pasteurised) as they are safe for the immuno-compromised.

And so you know, this is what you do:

1) Paint flower petals with egg wash.

2) Dip flower petals in fine grained sugar

3) Place onto baking paper and let dry. Some websites say 6-8 hours, others say "overnight". The petals in my house really needed 24 hours (and the room is heated with a log burner).

I can say the task took about as long as I expected. It is tedious and pernickity, so good tunes will bring you along. One more Top Tip: don't be heavy handed with the egg wash nor the sugar to allow for crisp drying. Some of my heavily egged petals didn't fully crisp. On the other hand, insufficiently egged petals wilted by the time the cake was cut and served. And, apparently you can freeze petals that you haven't used...good to know.

And how did it all come together? See for yourself.

Voila! I can definitely say that the time was worth it! I felt chuffed with what I accomplished- it was a freaking tasty cake, that's for sure! I can also say that I am my own worst critic. I was disappointed how small the cake looked when it was in a big room rather than my kitchen. And in hindsight, I would have scaled back some of the piping (two lines vs. three- but I needed the third line on the day when I assembled the tiers on site). But most importantly, the bride and groom were super happy with their present (and perhaps most-most importantly, so were the mothers).

 Touch up kit on site.

And to wrap this entry up, below are the photos of the other present that we (with much help from Craig and also from my friend Ollie and his saw) constructed. I'll take orders, if you see what you like! It would be nice if this hobby will make me money by keeping me out of the shops on the weekends!