Half and Half Wedding Cake

For my first order as an official business I was asked to make a 4 tiered wedding cake in a half and half style. This is that one side of the cake is white and the other is chocolate. The common explanation of this is that the white side is for the bride and the chocolate side is for the groom so they are often called bride and groom cakes. However, my couple described the white side as the dress and the pleating come down from the dress .

Maybe the pleat is from the dress

I was asked to make 4 different flavours of cakes, the bottom layer was a 12" rich chocolate cake filled with chocolate ganache and crumb coated in ganache. The next layer was a 10" lemon cake which was filled and coated in lemon butter icing. The 8" layer was a vanilla madiera cake covered and filled with vanilla butter icing. Finally the 6" top layer was carrot cake covered and filled in vanilla icing.

I had to get the timing of the baking correct so the cakes tasted at their best at the wedding on Saturday, so I had to bake most of the cakes on Wednesday with the exception of the vanilla which I made on Tuesday. This put quite a lot of timing pressure on me because for wedding cakes I like to double ice to get a much better finish on the cake. This means that the cake needs to cook, cool then be covered in the first layer of sugar paste. Ideally this is left overnight and then coated in another layer of sugar paste. Again ideally this is left to dry and then the cake is decorated with the piped detail. However, as you can probably guess, there wasn't enough nights to do this so I tried to spread things out as much as possible by doing things early in the morning and as late as possible to make the days longer.

Each of the cakes, for the top layer of sugar paste, was covered half in white sugar paste and half in chocolate paste, to create the half and half look. The chocolate paste is more difficult to work with so I only did 1 layer of this rather than both, it's also more expensive and the cake would have a structural problem if the bottom layer wasn't one piece.

I hand piped, using royal icing, detailing on the white side of the cake, this is the first time I've done this and I haven't yet done the diploma on this but by the end of October I expect to much better at this particular skill.

On the chocolate side I carefully covered it in chocolate ganache and left a little drip over the sides. The problem with the ganache is that it never dried solid so it got everywhere, it was very difficult working with the dark chocolate on the pure white icing.

I then dowelled up the cakes, again the first time I've done this but it was very straightforward and the cake seemed to hold very well and stuck the bottom 2 layers together and the top 2. Finally I edged the cake with some white beading and created a pleat down the joins.

Top and bottom prepared

On the top layer of the cake I attached the bride and groom topper and carefully made the pleat come right out from the dress on the bride.

I dipped some strawberries in ganache and left these to set and then the car was loaded up.

Car packed and ready to go

I had to get the cake 2 hours across country, which was rather nerve racking and made us think about future car choices!! But it made it in one piece, I then put the cake together and stuck the strawberries on.

Fully assembled cake

Overall I was fairly pleased with the cake, as always there are many things that I'd like to improve on but for a first attempt I thought it came out really well. There are things I've learnt and things I'd change but all I can hope is that it was perfect for the bride and groom.

Chocolate Side

White Side

Moist Carrot and Sultana Cake

For Christmas my husband got a brand new cooking book, "The Hairy Dieters". We saw the TV series linked to it and found it very interesting, we are constantly trying to lose weight and be healthier so he was interested enough to ask for it. Whilst flicking through we found several recipes of interest, which will be documented, but we decided to start with the Moist Carrot and Sultana Cake. 

This cake fitted our requirements as my parents are visiting today and we had 3 carrots in the fridge that needed using up, perfect!! 

The cake states that it's healthier by using oil instead of butter, it's a strange recipe because the cake basically looks like carrots when it goes in the oven. Anyway some details and substitutions, instead of using plain sultanas I used a bag of mixed fruit which also contained some mixed peel. I had this in the cupboard and thought it might add a little flavour. I didn't put any orange zest in the cake, due to adding the mixed peel I didn't think it was necessary, plus we don't have a zester!! Instead of ground cinnamon and nutmeg I used mixed spice. My husband doesn't like cinnamon so I thought this would be a good alternative. 

The cake was very easy to make, firstly I peeled and grated the carrots and placed these to one side. Then it was to make the butter substitute so you beat the eggs together and add the oil and sugar to this mix. Then add the carrot, flour, fruit, spices and some baking powder and mix it all together. At this point the cake mainly consisted of carrot and look most unappetising!! The bikers said to oil the tin rather than the usual butter so I did this too. 

Cake ready to go in the oven

The cake was placed in the oven and cooked for the specified 30mins, as always the cake wasn't done and required further time in the oven, around 20mins but after this time it was pulling away from the sides as the recipe states it should.

Just out of the oven, it's slightly pulling away from the sides

 I then carefully got the cake out the tin, unfortunately not carefully enough as the bottom of the cake had stuck to the tin and so this was left behind!! I was rather disappointed but when I investigate why it looks like the option of oil on the tin was a bad plan but also the cake could have done with a little more time in the oven as it doesn't look quite done in the centre. 

The bottom stuck to the tin :(

Once the cake was cooled we decided not to place the icing sugar on the top, I didn't really see the point and we just wanted to eat it!! This also meant that we left off the orange zest on the top too. 

Ready to eat

The cake tasted really nice and moist, the spices were subtle but strong enough to taste. My mum felt that there should have been more fruit and nuts in it, however, for me the balance was perfect. I didn't think it tasted any different being a healthy cake and I'd certainly enjoy eating it again. 

Lovely moist slice

I got my mum, husband and I to mark the cake this time and we have a slight range. I'm always the generous one and gave the cake 9/10, I thought that the recipe cooking time wasn't correct and oiling the tin didn't work. My husband gave it 8/10, he said it was borderline 9 but he decided to round it down. My mum gave it 7/10 as she thought it could have done with more fruit, as mentioned previously. 

Overall this recipe has got a very good score and is something I'll definitely add to my list, really enjoyed it.