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

Lemond Curd Meringue Treats

Happy 2014 to all !!!

Meringues a simple treat but a challenging enterprise to make. As always I enjoy experimenting and taking on these challenges, so I decided to make a batch of meringues.

Personally I love to have the meringue crispy on top with a chewy centre, so with a bit of trial and error came up with golden crispy, chewy meringues.

So to make this creation a bit more interesting I made my first homemade lemon curd. Lemon curd
is a thick creamy spread that can be used on scones or to make lemon cream frosting.

So to make these delightful meringue treats I combined the lemon curd with some whipped cream and garnished it with a strawberry. Enjoy !!!

For all the soccer fanatics

This was an opportunity that I couldn't refuse. The order was for a soccer ball on a green field, with the Manchester united logo attached. Simple it did sound but I had no clue how to cake a round dome shape out of cake. It would have been simple for me to have found a cake tray that was a semi circle, however the order was for a ribbon cake.

To all my followers who aren't aware of what a ribbon cake is, it is basically a light pound cake with one layer colored in pink and the other layer colored in green and the frosting is an almond flavored butter cream. 

So after quite a bit of research and viewing many videos on youtube, I got the art of carving a basic round cake into a curvy round ball. 

2 Tier ribbon cake with almond flavored butter cream, covered with vanilla fondant

Ladies VS Musaeus Regatta

For any Ladies and Musaeus girl/oarswoman, past or present this is one of the biggest events in their sporting calendar. Being the sister of the current Ladies' College captain, as a tribute to both teams I created a 1lb cake and two toned mini cupcakes.

I do need to warn that my attempt at making the oars was not a success due to the lack of time and humidity, so they unfortunately did not keep their form.

The cake was a mini rainbow cake, you must be wondering what I mean about a mini rainbow cake, well the fact was this was a four layer cake, themed around the Ladies' College (Red and White) and Musaeus College (Blue and Yellow) colors.  To cover the surprise inside was was a white cream cheese frosting.

The cupcakes were vanilla flavor with with vanilla butter cream, colored to the same theme. The reason for  having all the four colors was because my sister wanted to send the message that out of the water both teams can create a close bond among each other for the future. Congratulations, to both teams on yet another great regatta.  

Bows and Polka dots

This order came all the way from Australia from a dear family member that wanted a surprise cake made for her cousin. I was quite excited to take on this order because it would have been the biggest order I had done. It involved the baking of a cake plus 48 mini cupcakes. Additional to the quantity of baking I needed to create a bow out of fondant for the first time.

The color theme was to be red and white with a bow on top. So after many pictures and ideas being exchanged the final order was placed. So putting my baking hat on I started creating and adding my twist to the cake.

Red Velvet cake and cupcakes with Cream Cheese frosting, covered with Vanilla fondant

Picture taken by Shivani  Kobbekaduwa

Picture taken by Shivani  Kobbekaduwa

Picture taken by Shivani  Kobbekaduwa

Flowers and Rainbows....

One of the most exciting cakes I have done was a rainbow cake  for my sister's 18th. Waking up at 6 am in the morning every day was so worth it when the end result was this;

  
I wanted to go for a more simple look for this cake so that when you cut into it there was a surprise in store.

The frosting was a delicious cream cheese icing that gave it that additional moisture and sheen. It is advisable to keep this cake in the refrigerator and take it out 15 minutes before serving because in the humid temperature such as in Sri Lanka the icing tends to melt quite a bit. So to avoid a pool at the base of the cake it is best to keep the cake chilled.

Strawberry Delight !!!!

So in November last year  for my birthday, I wanted to create something a bit different and because  so many of my friends have already tasted my chocolate cake I decided to change it up a bit. I’am generally not a person who likes the the spotlight to much so I decided not to go for the traditional concept of singing “happy birthday” and cutting a cake. Instead I decided to make a cake that could be served as a dessert and still can be appealing to the eye.

This was definitely one of the less challenging cakes I have made. To start, I baked a simple vanilla sponge which I cut into three layers. Then covered the first two layers with sweet vanilla custard. You can chose to make the custard from the custard powder or make it from scratch. I chose to cheat a bit and went for the pre-made powder which is available in any supermarket. On top of the custard layer, freshly cut strawberries is placed. For the final layer of cake, instead of covering it with custard it is covered with light fluffy whip cream and decorated with whole strawberries.

So there you go everyone, this is my strawberry delight.