So, Alan and I have gone back and forth over the idea of someday having a bakery. In this bakery, we thought we would make fancy cakes, German style bakery items, vegan pastries, etc. We were hoping for a real specialty kind of line. This all stemmed from our creative genius when it comes to the girls birthdays. We keep learning new techniques and improving on our skills. That is why we volunteered to make the graduation cake for Jenna's preschool graduation this year. There were 44 kids graduating. That means we had to plan for upwards of 200 mouths to feed. We've never made so much cake! There were three classes involved: Baerengruppe (Bears), Loewengruppe (Lions), and Tigergruppe (Tigers). We wanted a way to represent all three groups, and have enough cake, and not be too difficult, AND be delicious to boot! Well, after scouring the internet for ideas, I drew up some rough sketches, showed them to the preschool director, and we were off and running. The cakes cost a small fortune to make, because we used almost all organic ingredients, and we used Valrhona chocolate, which is quite expensive, but excellent tasting. We also bought five new cake pans, a large fondant roller, a special spreader for the dirty icing, posts and divider plates for multi-layers, and the learning curve continued to expand.
Day 1: Make fondant in several colors and different amounts - white, black, orange, gold, yellow. Start cutting out pieces from fondant. Time so far - 4 hours. When Alan came home from work, baking commenced. Baked six 12" rounds, six 8" rounds, and four ramekins. Time for baking - 8 hours. A nice long 12-hour day. Cakes were stored unstacked in our fridge and our neighbors.
Day 2: Make Oreo cookie buttercream filling for cakes. Retrieve all cakes and begin stacking layers. Make regular buttercream frosting for dirty icing. Dirty ice the cakes that needed fondant. Roll out the fondant and cover cakes. Time - hours!!! When Alan came home, he rigged up the posts and plates. Made chocolate and orange-colored buttercream frosting. Put small stacked cakes on top of large cakes. Continued with icing decorations, and began applying all the details. Finished most of the details. Time - 7-8 hours. Another long day.
Day 3: Redo tassels I had done a week in advance, because the licorice snapped from being bent. Reengineered a solution for graduation tassels. Rolled out gold fondant and made mortarboards for graduation caps to rest on cakes. Put everything back in refrigerator, with plans to assemble mortarboards and tassels at graduation site. Time: roughly 3 hours.
Pre-delivery pictures:
Post-delivery pictures:
End result: Most of the bottom tier of the lion remained, but that was all. The mortarboard, tassels, and everything but the posts and divider plates were devoured. The feedback was that they looked fantastic and were delicious! We even captured pictures of people taking pictures.
Our prognosis: Way too much time and money for this effort, although it was fun. It would not likely be a lucrative business. Better we just stick to doing it for our kids. Sigh...
Day 1: Make fondant in several colors and different amounts - white, black, orange, gold, yellow. Start cutting out pieces from fondant. Time so far - 4 hours. When Alan came home from work, baking commenced. Baked six 12" rounds, six 8" rounds, and four ramekins. Time for baking - 8 hours. A nice long 12-hour day. Cakes were stored unstacked in our fridge and our neighbors.
Day 2: Make Oreo cookie buttercream filling for cakes. Retrieve all cakes and begin stacking layers. Make regular buttercream frosting for dirty icing. Dirty ice the cakes that needed fondant. Roll out the fondant and cover cakes. Time - hours!!! When Alan came home, he rigged up the posts and plates. Made chocolate and orange-colored buttercream frosting. Put small stacked cakes on top of large cakes. Continued with icing decorations, and began applying all the details. Finished most of the details. Time - 7-8 hours. Another long day.
Day 3: Redo tassels I had done a week in advance, because the licorice snapped from being bent. Reengineered a solution for graduation tassels. Rolled out gold fondant and made mortarboards for graduation caps to rest on cakes. Put everything back in refrigerator, with plans to assemble mortarboards and tassels at graduation site. Time: roughly 3 hours.
Pre-delivery pictures:
Post-delivery pictures:
Our prognosis: Way too much time and money for this effort, although it was fun. It would not likely be a lucrative business. Better we just stick to doing it for our kids. Sigh...
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