This week saw our friend, family member and all round cool chick, LEE LEE turn 40.  To celebrate COUSIN planned a surprise party.  It’s the first surprise party that I’ve been to since my Father turned 40 when I was 18.  It was brilliant!  COUSIN did an amazing job and LEE LEE had no idea that it was happening. In fact, she’d spent all week calling all of us bad names and cursing our existences because we’d all declined her party invitation.

When the party was originally being discussed it was going to be a big bash at a restaurant in town, but due to personal circumstances the girls ended up calling it off to save money.  When we first started talking about it the girls had been to Cakes of Your Dreams to order the birthday cake.  Unfortunately the cake shop was closed over June.  At that stage I was trying to enroll in a cake decorating class at the Canberra Adult Education campus.  I didn’t end up doing the course, but that didn’t stop me from volunteering to make the cake when the canceled party became a surprise party!

When COUSIN and I talked about it I’m sure I uttered those famous words, “How hard can it be?” and “It’ll be a piece of piss!”

So once we’d agreed that I’d make the cake, COUSIN sent through the requirements:

Ok, the cake challenge if you’re up for it…LEE LEE’s dream cake is a cherry ripe mud cake from Cakes of Your Dreams (closed till the 24 June) and it would be beyond her expectations if you were able to craft a long rectangular cake i.e. 15cm wide by 50/60cm long with white frosting and black lines to represent a timeline that has figurines/toys/cake bling to denote significant events along the timeline as follows:
·        birth (plastic naked baby of some sort) at the very start point
·        sports (cricket bat, balls, wickets etc – she was always into sports and women! (maybe a weenie gay pride flag?)
·        houses & travel – like a little toy plane and house (i.e. 20’s and 30’s)
·        a big ‘4’’0’ (possibly the actual candles)
·        and then a gradual decline to old age…not sure if it could be summarised as a walking frame or just a few dot dot dots (i.e the gradual fade – I thought a coffin may be a little too morbid).

So that’s what I started working towards.  What did we end up with… well there were no houses, planes, cricket bats or babies on the cake! But I thought it still rocked!

I now have a new appreciation for cake artists!  I had originally planned to make and decorate the cake on Friday night for the party the next day.  Through some good fortune that didn’t happen, here’s how the week played out:

I thought I’d best google some cherry ripe mud cake recipes as I’d never made one before and had no specific cake recipe books at home.  I found a few versions but in the end I went with the recipe I found on Cakes and More. 

Cherry Ripe Mud Cake

Est Prep time: 35 minutes
Est Cooking time: 1 & 3/4 hours
Oven Temp: 150C
Serves: 9″ round

Ingredients
250g unsalted butter
1 tablespoon instant coffee powder
1 & 2/3 cups coconut milk
200g dark chocolate chopped coarsely
2 cups caster sugar
3/4 cups self raising flour
1 cup plain flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla essence
2 x 85g cherry ripe bars chopped coarsely

Instructions
Preheat oven to 150C and prepare cake tin.

Combine butter, coffee, coconut milk, chocolate and sugar in a large saucepan and stir over heat until butter and chocolate melts and sugar dissolves. Cool to room temperature.
Whisk in sifted dry ingredients, followed by eggs and essence.
Stir in chopped Cherry Ripe.
Pour mixture into prepared tin and bake in slow oven for approx 1 & 3/4 hours.

Additional Info/Comments
This cake tastes best if cooked a couple of days in advance.

After reading through the recipe I thought it might be best to make the cake a few days before the party.  So I thought I’d give it a try that night so that if anything went wrong I had time to “fix” it.  So that afternoon after work I ran around and purchased the ingriedients and hired the cake tin.  (I also went to about five different places chasing figurines, candles and fimo alternatives to making fondant figurines!)

I hit the jackpot with the store (Annie’s Cake Place) that I hired the cake tin from.  They sold premade fondant, which was brilliant!  I was so worried about having to make fondant.  I talked to the lady at the store at length and she advised me that I’d need about 3.5kg of fondant to ice the cake.

When I’d picked my jaw up off the floor I ordered 4kg of fondant (just in case!) and hit the road with cake tin in hand.

I got the ingredients on the stove at 6pm.  By 8pm they’d cooled enough for me to stir in the dry ingriedents.  (I broke the whisk trying to mix it all together!)

To fill the cake tin I had to make double the mixture, which was amazing.  Nothing like mixing in 4 cups of sugar to make your arteries harden!

The cake tin was prepared with butter and flour.   HUBBY and I poured the mixture into the pan by 8:45pm and it was in the stove by 9pm.  Due to the mixture being doubled it took a fraction longer to cook.  The cake was cooked through by 11pm.

As per the advice of the lady at Annie’s I left the mud cake sit in the tin overnight.

I woke up bright and early and rushed to the kitchen like it was Christmas morning!  I turned the cake out on to the cake board I’d purchased at Annie’s Cake Place.  Tapped the bottom of the tin three times and waited.  After hearing (and feeling) the cake hit the board I lifted the tin up.

*holding breath*

The bloody left hand corner had stuck to the tin!  I could have cried.  The upside was that the cake looked moist and it gave us a chance to taste the cake and make sure it was ok.

I’d only hired the cake tin for a night.  So HUBBY was a sweety and returned the cake tin and purchased a cake tin of our very own.  He also got some more sage advise from the cake lady on how to prepare the tin to stop it sticking again.  (Coat it in non-stick spray, then line it with baking paper and coat it again with non-stick spray!)

Due to work commitments I took a night off from making the cake.

I hit the supermarket again and purchased the ingredients for cake 2!

This time the cake was in the oven by 8pm – only problem as it was a different cake tin and I’d tripled the mixture it wasn’t ready until 12:30am.  HUBBY and I were trying to stay awake on the couch while we waited for it to cook all the way through.

When it was done we took it out, left it to cool overnight and headed to bed.

This time I approached the kitchen with trepidation.  I turned the cake out on the board, tapped it three times and waited.  The cake slid out and I lifted the tin…

*holding breath*

Perfect!

I couldn’t believe it!

I managed to get lucky enough to leave work early and head out to The Style Emporium.  I was able to pick up the much needed fondant dyes, shape cutters and some pre-made black fondant (apparently black is really hard to make).  I also headed back to Annie’s Cake Place and picked up a fondant modeling tool set, edible markers and a circle cutter.

I headed home and contacted my cake decorating partner, Alivicwil.   While I waited for her to turn up I prepared the fondant.  The thought of having to roll out 4kg of fondant was scaring me.  Not to mention trying to get the colour in the fondant consistent.  But it’s ok, Alivicwil was bringing her vast talents with her.  Our first job was to cover the cake with a frosting to help the fondant stick to the cake.  Alivicwil volunteered for this task.

I rolled out the first layer of fondant.  After carefully measuring the fondant to make sure it would cover the cake.  Only thing I didn’t factor in would be incorrectly positioning the fondant. Doh! Once that fondant touches the frosting it ain’t going any where!  Alivicwil used her skills with a knife and an angel and managed to patch up the fondant shortfall.

The fondant is supposed to sit on the cake for at least 24 hours.  So while we waited for the 24 hours to pass we set to work on making the figurines.  (Remember that list….)  I’d decided during the battle to roll at the fondant that there was no way I was going to be able to make the multiple figurines.  I thought a good medium would be making a figurine of LEE LEE and their three dogs.

Having never made a fondant dog we decided to google ‘how to make a fondant dog’.  We hit the jackpot with How to Make a Fondant Dog – Part 1 and How to Make a Fondant Dog – Part 2.  Not only did she provide us with a brilliant set of instructions, she also added extra laughs by encouraging us to speak with her accent.

We ended up making three dogs – two for their current puppies, and one to represent their dog that passed away in the last couple of months (we even gave her a halo and wings).  We were so happy with how they turned out, but they took forever to make.  We finished late Friday night and decided to call it a night.

I woke up bright and early and decided to finish the cake off.  I coloured the last kilo of fondant with green, rolled it out and covered the cake hoping and praying that it didn’t crack like the first layer had.  It worked like a treat! Woo Hoo!!!  I wrapped the cake with the ribbon, placed the fondant animals and made some letters to spell out the message.

With the cake done I took the time to relax and then head over to help out COUSIN with the pre-birthday preparations. The surprise party went amazingly well – it was awesome!  The birthday girl was so happy.  Everyone commented on the cake and it even brought a tear to the birthday girl’s eyes when she saw the puppies.

We cut into the cake and it was perfect.  Moist, chock full of cherry ripes and AWESOME!  Alivicwil loves fondant, so I saved her the corner and she loved it.  (See above!)  I’m so glad I made the cake and decorated it, it was an unusal experience but well worth it.  I’m so enrolling in the cake decorating class held at Annie’s Cake Place next year!  Who knows I could be the next Bakerella!