nothing in particular

It's cake lessons again and today we are doing two cakes:
1.) Pistachio Slices (foam type cake)
2.) Choconana cake (butter cake)



Took a pic of some of the ingredients prepare for us beforehand. Hmm~ later we realised that flour was missing! -_-'



Today, K will do the folding of one cake by himself. Ok, today he's more stable but I think cake foundation lessons are darn important >_> cos it makes one more familiar with the amount of strength to use for folding in stuffs. The batter made it to the oven..now let's wait for 25 minutes.


Starting the other cake, heating up the water+ sugar to get sugar syrup.



This cake is mainly folded by me. Above pic melting the butter together with chocolate using double boiler method. Meanwhile, K was whisking the eggs and we added in the chocolate mixture above, then flour and the sugar syrup. This cake is a watery butter cake O.O , so off it went into the oven for the next 40mins.



Meanwhile, K's cake is done. Hmm~ it sunk in the middle but hey it happens to many tables too. Mixing problem according to Judy ..hmmm o.0



Cooking custard cream *same as those you get in fruit tarts* for the pistachio cake filling.
From clockwise top left: Heating the sugar, cream and milk together; cooking the starch and egg yolk together with above mixture; Once mixture is smooth, remove from heat and add butter when mixture is below 40 degrees then STIR LIKE MAD; the final custard cream.



Making of German Buttercream for the Pistachio cake filling. The above is on mixing of butter and icing sugar which is combined with the custard cream later.



This green slimy looking thing is Pistachio Paste o.0 Add 3 tsp to the mixture above.



Now the buttercream filling is done with toasted grounded pistachio in it.



40mins later the chocolate cake is out~ Some cracking but it seems to occur at every table.



Now time to spread filling on the Pistachio cake. The cake is sliced into 3 layers.



Final product, Pistachio Slices. K piped his cream vertically while mine is slanted. K got pissed about the piping bag cos the auntie cut his queue LOL~ Anyway, we got it piped and placed two nuts on each slice of cake.



Now the tedious work on decorating the choconana cake.
Clockwise from top left: Spreading chocolate over the bubble wrap; once done, put into chiller; after the bubble wrap has hardened, tear away and the remaining chocolate are filled with holes; holes are then filled with white chocolate *with yellow coloring*

We were quite amazed at this idea of using bubble wrap XDD



Holes are randomly filled.



Yet another task..using marzipan to make BANANAS, cos the decoration is supposed to reflect what's in the cake..right? In the top pic, we added some yellow coloring to the white marzipan "dough". Roll into round balls, then rub them into long-ish shapes. Use some water to join them together. For the banana stem, mix the marzipan with choco powder till desired color. Next, use chocolate paste and a delicate brush to make finishing brown streaks-> ripen bananas LOOK.

K made two bunches of bananas while I made the one on the right bottom.



Using sour cream and melted chocolate, mix well (top right). Spread on top of cake (3 layers), place banana slices and cover entire cake with the mixture.



The one on the left is K's and mine on the right. We had some difficulties covering the cake cos the chocolate mixture had hardened zzz~ The holey chocolate was used to cover the sides , on top of the cream.




We nearly had to carry two boxes home, luckily we managed to squeeze the cake in..now they are packed like sardines lol~

During the lesson, Judy talked about some people close to her being down with cancer and she mentioned sadly that she lost people so close to her. Also how the disease torture those people around those down with it. And Judy said,"Sometimes also duno we work so hard for what. Haiz..when you are young, you want to be famous, want to be rich ..at the end of all these, what's left? At the end of the day, we come with nothing and go with nothing. Sometimes ah..really friendship and kinship is more important than all these."

Update on cross section of Choconana Cake:



I still think K had the bananas sliced too thick as the result we had not enough bananas -> got lobang in the cake ._.''