Some say tempering chocolate is easy. It's not.
At least not at the first time.
I have once before tempered (milk) chocolate successfully, so I decided to make a hand-made chocolate wedding gift for my cousin.
I bought a silicone swan mold earlier this summer for possible future wedding cakes, and wanted to try it now in action. And although it took me ages to get the tempering right (doing it over and over again), the finished result was pretty good. Although I think I still need practice piping the texts...
Congratulations Satu and Jani!
A few months ago I got a request for a cake or two for "a party" around the middle of December. I was excited, of course. I love making cakes.
When after a while I was told that it was going to be a wedding (although a very small one and a surprise to all the guests), I got even more excited. I was also very flattered. A wedding cake is - after all - a wedding cake, no matter how small the party.
I had about three months time to design this cake, and every so often wanted to just start bringing my designs to life. I wanted to make a tiered cake - partly because I've wanted to try making a tiered cake, and on the other hand because it was going to be a wedding cake,
I also wanted to make this cake personal but elegant at the same time, so I ended up just personalising the decoration.
This couple both seemed enthusiastic about kettlebelling, so I wanted to incorporate that into the cake one way or another. With this theme in mind I made three different designs of the cake (or more like of the ornament), of which the couple decided on this bride holding the groom - even the groom himself liked this one! :)
Because the ornament needed time to dry really well, it was possible (and necessary) to make it beforehand. So I made this bride and groom ornament a couple of weeks ago already, and all started from a wire skeleton which I shaped according to the model picture.
Filling the wire skeleton with sugar fondant proved to be a difficult task at first, as the fondant was reluctant to stay on the smooth wire surface. You learn by trying, so after a while I managed to get the bride done. The groom was an easy task after having practiced the correct technique with making the bride.
Despite the original design, the groom got a top hat on his head. That also solved my problem of how and what from to make his hair. In the end the hair was left "hidden" under the hat :)
For some reason the bride became sturdier than intended (sorry about that ;) ), but otherwise the ornament turned out as planned. And the result was - above all - personal!
The colour theme for the cake was black and white, and the desired flavour of the cake was chocolate, so I made a chocolate cake with a chocolate mousse filling.
CONGRATULATIONS
MINNA AND TOMI!
