Babs' Bakes: 2014

...but not so much for my cake.

Hello and welcome to the first post on my Babs' Bakes blog! Today I've got a bit of a retrospective post for you. February 14th is a special day for a lot of people. It's a day that reminds them (and me) just how alone they are. It's a day I like to call "singles awareness day". I'm only kidding, of course it's Valentine's Day! And with Valentine's Day comes the hearts and the Cupids and the boxes of chocolates. I decided to combine two of those elements and create a "Box of Chocolate" cake. Essentially it's shaped after the cliché heart shaped box of chocolates, but it's all edible!

Now you might be wondering "why are you baking a cake on Valentine's Day when you haven't got anyone to give it to?" Good question. The reason behind it is charity. Bliss, a wonderful charity helping premature and special care babies, held a "Cake a Difference" weekend running from Friday 14th to Sunday 16th February. Our office decided to take part, and put the Valentine's spin on things. We asked people to bake cupcakes for us to sell and raise money for charity, but the main event was the cake off. People who wanted to enter had to bake a Valentine's themed cake, and the winner would be picked by a panel of esteemed judges, or whoever was free at the time. Pretty simple really. The winning cake would then be raffled off. Time to get planning.

I spent days thinking of what I could do, and in a flash of inspiration my "Box of Chocolate" cake was born. My plan was to make a heart shaped chocolate sponge cake, then somehow create an edible lid to cover it. The pièce de résistance would be when the lid was removed. Inside would be chocolates, just like in a box of chocolates. Genius, no? So now I had the idea, I just needed to execute it. My first hurdle: finding a heart shaped cake tin...

I'd been away with work on the Thursday before Valentine's Day, and hadn't had time to buy a heart shaped pan. When I eventually made it back to Birmingham, the shops where they might have been sold were all close to shutting. A quick Facebook plea gathered me some intel of places that might have one. My best bet was b&m bargains. I googled the nearest one that was still open and rushed over. I made it with about 20 minutes to spare. Probably didn't need to rush come to think about it. Anyway, I got there, found the baking supplies, and was greeted with an empty shelf above a shelf tag that read "Heart Shaped Spring Form Tin". My heart sunk (pun totally intended). I found a member of staff and asked them if they had any out the back. He went away and was gone for what seemed like forever. All I could think about was my precious baking time ticking away. Part of me thought he's probably just out the back killing time and not even looking (I've worked in retail, I know how these things go). Just when I'd nearly given up hope, my knight in a navy blue polo shirt turned into the aisle holding a box of heart shaped spring form tins. I wanted to shout with excitement, but I kept my composure, thanked him and took my tin to the checkout. Result.

Once home I got all my baking equipment out, along with all the ingredients and began. The chocolate sponge was easy. I've done it a dozen times, and not much can really go wrong short of burning down the house. The tricky part was going to be making the lid. A suggestion from a friend at work was to use rice crispies and marshmallow. It seemed like a good idea after I was assured this is what they do on "Cake Boss", so I gave it a go. It was harder to work with than I had anticipated. My initial idea was to coat the outside of the cake tin, so I'd have the heart shape and it would fit over the cake. That didn't really go to plan. Instead I binned the first batch of rice crispy mix and start again. This time I did it in sections. I made the heart shape, then measured out 2 lengths to make the sides of the lid. This seemed to work better and was going well until it came to assemble them. In hindsight I could have done with leaving them to set for longer, but time (and impatience) was getting the best of me and I rushed it. I still needed to colour the fondant and apply it to the cake, as well as make 30+ cupcakes to sell. In my head baking only takes half an hour. In reality it takes a hell of a lot longer!

With the revised lid now semi-set (it's just a heart that will rest on top of the cake) it was time to make the fondant. I say make, I mean roll it out and colour. Note to self, liquid food colouring is not advisable for colouring fondant. It just leaves it sticky and harder work than it needs to be. I soldiered through and got the fondant to a reasonable pale red colour, and started to roll it out. All was going well. I'd put icing sugar down on the surface so it wouldn't stick, and coated the rolling pin. I was firing with all cylinders now! What I hadn't thought about was the icing sugar leaving marks on the fondant. I tried to brush it off but it was being stubborn. This annoyed me a little as it affected the look of it, but it was getting late and I wanted to get to bed so I left it as it was. I cut a heart out of the fondant and stuck it to the rice crispy heart with some butter cream icing. I then rolled out the test and applied it to the bottom and sides of the chocolate sponge. To add a bit of distinction from the brown chocolate cake and the chocolates to go inside, I put a layer of white fondant on the top side of the chocolate sponge. It was starting to take shape now and I felt happy with it. I cut out the squares in the sponge to later add the chocolates in, and put the fondant covered rice crispy heart on top. To finish it off I put a white strip of fondant diagonally across to look like a label. I then put it in the fridge ready for work.

The next morning I bagged it up and took it into the office. Looking at it with fresh eyes the next morning, I started to pick faults with it. The edges of the fondant weren't very neat, and the icing sugar stained fondant was really bugging me. Not much I could do about it now though, so I popped the chocolates out of a box of All Gold inside the cake and took it to be judged.

The work day carried on as normal, and I'd all but forgotten about the judging. People had been impressed with the idea, and told me it looked good, but it wasn't until people started congratulating me that I remembered it was in a competition. Turns out I'd won 1st place! It also turns out that I was the only one who'd done a bigger cake, but that's besides the point... I won! That meant my cake was to be raffled off. I was a happy bunny. That is, until a few unsavoury comments were made about my cake. Granted, it didn't look the best. It had been out all day and had the lid taken off several times to show people inside, but the effort was there, and execution was good. Well, I'm happy to say that the cake was won by someone who appreciated it, and shared it out with people in the office. It's safe to say it went down a treat, especially as it was a Friday afternoon. Below are the pictures of my triumph, hope you enjoy!