S2E1 Showstopper: Celebration Cake

For the second time this week, my bake is commissioned. I have been asked to bake a cake for a bridal shower! 

This challenge is meant to be a tiered celebration cake, but I decided to only make one tier since it was commissioned for a 9-person gathering, and more than one layer would be excessive for a smaller crowd.

I wanted this cake to be delicate, elegant, and a crowd-pleaser, so I decided that I would make a vanilla and fruit cake. The plan was to make a simple vanilla sponge layered with lemon curd and vanilla swiss meringue buttercream. I was sent a photo of one of the bridesmaids' dresses for inspiration, and I chose to try to match the buttercream to the light blue tint of the dress. For decoration, I decided to make macarons with blueberry jam, and position them among fresh berries on the top of the cake. Five hours seemed like more than enough time to complete all that! 

I started baking just before 11:30am so that the cake would be ready by 5pm. I needed to deliver it by 6:30pm. 

Let's do this.

I started by lining my tins. As a bit of a joke, I decided to make an extra mini cake for myself using two miniature loaf tins so that I could still say that I made a tiered cake.

The recipe I was using called for cake flour, which I substituted for all-purpose flour sieved with cornstarch, as was recommended by the author.

I whisked the rest of the dry ingredients into the flour mixture and set it aside, then I creamed together my margarine and sugar.

I separated my eggs, adding two egg whites plus two full eggs to my mixture.

I added my dry ingredients, mixed until smooth, and then added in my milk. 

Writing this post now and looking at the pictures, I am upset that I didn't stop at this point to try to fix this batter. While pouring it into my tins, I noticed that the mixture had split, meaning that my eggs were too cold when I added them, causing the fat in the margarine to re-solidify (in the next two photos, you can see that the mixture looks grainy). I chose to ignore it because I didn't know how to fix it, but I have now done some research and this could have been fixed at this stage. 

I'm upset.

Anyway, I divided my batter among my tins and placed them all in the oven.

Next, I made my lemon curd. Last week I used a double-boiler method when I made curd, but after doing some research I discovered that it is safe to cook it straight in a saucepan as long as the heat is low and the mixture is whisked constantly. This makes it so much easier. 

Once the lemon curd was thick, I poured it into a wide dish and placed it in the fridge to set. Meanwhile, my cakes came out of the oven. 

Because of the split batter, the cake was not able to trap enough air to rise properly. This was disappointing. It means that the cake is going to be dense, but it will still taste good so there's no point in starting over.

Onward!

Next, I got started on my macarons. I separated my eggs and started whipping them while I sieved my dry ingredients. Once my meringue had formed stiff peaks, I gently folded in my blue food colouring and my dry ingredients.

As I had done in biscuit week season 1, I added extra egg whites in small spoonfuls to adjust the batter consistency and then piped the batter onto my tray.

I tapped the trays to remove excess air and let them sit out for about 40 minutes to form a skin.

Next, it was time to get started on my swiss meringue buttercream. I was so excited to try it for the first time! I whisked my egg whites and sugar in my mixing bowl over a pan of simmering water until the sugar was completely dissolved, and then transferred the bowl to my mixer and set it on high speed.

The meringue needed to whip for about 15 minutes, so I left it running and put my macarons in the oven.

While they were baking, I started adding my butter to my buttercream one tablespoon at a time. I got very nervous because the mixture became quite runny. I was worried that I hadn't let the meringue cool down enough and that the butter had melted as a result. I stuck the whole bowl into the fridge, hoping that the buttercream would firm up.

12 minutes later, the macarons had become a complete disaster. Some of them had formed proper feet, but every single one cracked horribly. I figured that this likely meant that the batter had been too wet and there was too much air still in them when I piped them. I decided to start over.

The same idea again but with a hand-held mixer, since my standing mixer was still whipping my meringue. I had to open a new bag of almond flour for this batch, and I was a little worried that the flour was too coarse, but I was in a rush. I piped them out and let them stand (for an extra 10 minutes this time).

I brought the buttercream out of the fridge and it still seemed runny, but it was firmer than before. It was pipable, and I decided that I needed to get my cake assembled so that I could chill it and decorate it. I spread a thin layer of buttercream over the first cake layer and piped a dam around the edge. I spooned my lemon curd into the centre and spread it evenly over the surface. 

Alright, here we go.

I repeated the process with the next layer: buttercream and lemon curd. I topped it off with the third cake layer, and then the cake started melting. The buttercream was not strong enough to support the weight of the cake, so it started oozing out from between the layers along with the lemon curd. That was when I lost it. 

You know in Bake Off when someone is having a bad day and they start crying and say something like, "I can't believe I'm crying over cake"? This was that day. I started crying. I put the cake in the fridge and then stepped out of the kitchen to have a moment. There are no pictures of the cake at this stage because Evie had to come to the rescue. She calmed me down, reminded me that it was just cake, and then started problem-solving. At this point, my brain was basically saying, "The cake is completely ruined, it's all trash, you're going to have to buy a cake to deliver to the party." 

After taking a break to drink some water and sit outside (it was about 40 degrees C in that kitchen), Evie helped me to scrape the melting icing off of the cake. I quickly made an American buttercream using the same recipe I used for the matcha cupcakes earlier this week. Luckily, there was still enough lemon curd to fill the cake the way I had originally intended. I crumb coated the cake, placed a dowel in the centre to keep the layers from sliding, and put the whole thing in the freezer. While it was chilling, I coloured the rest of the buttercream light blue and prepared my berries.

When I took it out twenty minutes later, it was still intact! We're back. Everything is fine. 

I removed the dowel and covered the cake in a layer of the blue buttercream.

Once the buttercream was smooth, I put the cake back in the freezer just to be safe.

I don't even want to talk about how my second batch of macarons turned out.

I got a third batch going. I pulverized the almond flour and icing sugar in the food processor this time, and the batter looked much better. While they were standing, I made the blueberry jam that I would use to fill my macarons.

At this point, it was well over the challenge time limit, but I didn't want to rush because I was getting paid for this cake and I didn't want to present a cake that looked messy or rushed. Once the macarons were in the oven, I watched them bake for their first 6 minutes. That was enough to determine that they were (once again) not going to work, so I took the cake out of the freezer and got decorating. 

And then, 15 minutes before I needed to leave to deliver it, it was done. 

Time: more than 5 hours

I am very proud of this cake considering the many, many things that went wrong along the way. This bake was humbling. So many bakes have gone perfectly the first time I tried them, making me feel almost invincible, and I think I needed this day to happen to remind myself that I need to stay focussed, do my research and not get cocky. I know that I'm a good baker, but I'm still an amateur and I'm always learning!

I was proud to hand this cake off, and I got great feedback about it. Apparently, it was a big hit and was almost completely gone by the end of the shower!

In case you're wondering about my miniature layer cake, I'm not going to show you pictures because I didn't have enough energy to properly decorate it. However, I still sliced it and layered it with the swiss meringue buttercream and lemon curd (all four layers held together because it was so small) and I tried a small piece for my dessert, just to reassure myself that looks aren't everything. It tasted amazing.

There are a few morals to this story: 1) if you're getting paid to do it, use recipes that you know will work; 2) I am not perfect, but that doesn't mean I can't still make a beautiful cake; 3) macarons are difficult, and I have no idea how I made them work my first time; 4) baking during a heatwave is awful.

Recipes used:

Cake: https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/vanilla-cake/

Lemon curd: https://www.taste.com.au/recipes/lemon-curd/283bfb8c-9679-4dc1-8e5d-a28fee494ce9

Swiss meringue buttercream: https://natashaskitchen.com/swiss-meringue-buttercream-recipe/

Macarons: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eaWk1cjRrc

American buttercream: https://belleofthekitchen.com/the-best-vanilla-buttercream-frosting/