For the love of Basketball

It has been a great start to the year 2014, where many orders have been coming in for Shi shi creations. My chocolate cake being the most sort after.

Most of the orders have been for the cake alone without any special decoration. Then came an order for a customised cake. As always the requests become more and more interesting.

 

This time the order was for a basketball jersey with a basketball on top. Easy it seemed, but my question was how was I going to get a  miniture basketball model on top of a cake. So I went through my options, should I make another cake, or should I cover a plastic ball with fondant. Then, thanks to the many cake shows on television I decided to make the ball with rice treats.

For those who haven't heard about rice treats, it is cereal bars made combining sugar, butter and rice bubbles. Instead of sugar I decided to use marshmellows to combine the cereal together. It is the perfect solution to creating models which are edible. 

For the Jersey, I baked a 4lb rectangle chocolate cake which I cut into the design of a Jersey. The cake was covered with chocolate ganache and then covered with vanilla fondant. The colors used on the Jersey (Blue, Yellow and White) are the colors of one of the big boy schools in Sri Lanka,
St Peters College.  

 

 

Another successful cake and another happy customer...Thank you for ordering from Shi shi creations

Trial an Error

So this post is about, the challenge I had with working with fondant icing. Yes, this may seem strange, when I have worked with fondant before. However previously, my work has all been in the cool temperature in Australia, but returning back to my home country came with it the challenge of the warm tropical weather.

Thhe order was for a friend who wanted to surprise her big sis with something special for her birthday.  The cake was my usual chocolate cake with chocolate ganache. So to explain the story behind the fondant....my first batch of fondant unfortunately due to a lack of too little binding ingredient (Glycerine) the consistency was not of rolling ability, therefore the batch had to be discarded.

The second batch was a success, as the fondant was of roll-able consistency (Tip- the quantities of each ingredient has to be exactly correct). Then came the next challenge of coloring the icing, at the same time I was running against clock to make sure the cake was done in time. In Sri Lanka, as the day goes by the humidity increases therefore the fondant begins to melt, which makes it a challenge to roll. To avoid this it is always advisable to scatter some corn flour/ starch on the rolling area. The reason for not using icing sugar on the table is because it can easily melt and also can cause the fondant to dry out. So with a lot of kneading and many sticky moments the cake was completed.

The cake was covered with Sky blue fondant and Teale luster dust was brushed on top to give it a sheen. Then it was decorated around with colored flowers and topped off with a large Dark Pink fondant "26". The edging was covered with pink butter cream icing to add the last bit of girliness.