Canon 5D Mark II Camera Cake

Hello! It has been a few months since my last blog post. However, I am back and hopefully able to keep up some regular posts going. I thought I would start the first post of 2014 to be of my most recent cake creation venture. 

This cake was for a 21st birthday of someone special. They love photography, and as a vow, I said that one day I would make them a camera cake. The day finally came. It was my first 3D sculptured cake, in terms that it required carving, layering and different aspects for it to look like the real thing. As I wanted to get as much detail as I could, I had photos of the camera to use as a reference point.

This cake was the first time I had ever written on fondant using edible paint. This was scary as I was using white paint on black fondant. If I produced any major mistakes, I was doomed! 

A few last things, the weather was humid which meant that anything could have happened for the cake to be ruined. Furthermore, this cake was going for a drive down towards Jervis Bay (2.5 hours away). This was my second biggest fear. I was afraid the cake wouldn't make the journey. To make sure the cake didn't collapse, I placed some fondant rolled in plastic in between the top of the lens and the front of the camera. I was very glad that it made the journey with no damages *sighs in relief*.

Overall, the cake has to be the best fondant cake I have made to date (despite staying up until 2am finishing off final details). I was surprised that I didn't fall asleep while writing on the cake. I was very happy with how it turned out, especially since it consisted of a lot of firsts. I was too scared to cut into the cake, so the birthday boy did all the cake cutting. 

Things you'll need:

• Thunder Cake Recipe times 3 (1 batch for square, and 2 for rectangle)
• 1 Large rectangular spring form pan (Like this) 
• 1 Square cake pan (21cm x 21cm)
• Camera template : I enlarged the image in a word doc of A4 paper to the size I wanted. For a Canon camera, I extended the front grip of the body. 
• Toothpicks
• Serrated knife
• Circle cookie cutters
• Offset spatula
• Chocolate ganache recipe (I used 300g dark chocolate, 300g milk chocolate and 600ml of thickened cream)
• Black fondant: 1.5kg to be safe Available here
• Red fondant: You don't need much, so you may be better off colouring white fondant red using red gel paste. Available here
• Silver edible paint Available here
• White edible pain Available here
• Other colour fondant to cover cake board (Optional)
• Rolling pin
• Corn flour (can also be substituted with tapioca or rice flour)
• Thin paint brushes
• Fondant tools: If you don't have fondant tools a small sharp knife will suffice
• Various icing piping tips: This was used to get nice clean cut circles of various sizes using different ends of the tips 
• 12" Cake Board + 12" cake box  Available here
• Water to stick fondant together
• Unfortunately, I have no photos of the cake cross-section as the camera body was cut the following day and I didn't get a photo of it. 

Rectangle Pan: I used toothpicks to pin the template to the cake. Using the serrated knife I cut out 2 of the templates.

I used cake offcuts to the create the top part of the camera. I stacked them on top of each other to make sure I got the height and shape to my liking

Photo reference point

I used ganache to stick the cake offcuts to the body. I wasn't happy with the grip component of the cake from the template. Therefore, I added an extra bit of cake so that it was longer and more square than round at the front. I did a ganache crumb coat of the 2 halves separately. 

I then realised I forgot the part that sits above the lens which contains the camera brand. Therefore, I roughly cut something to the shape I wanted and attached it using ganache. Refrigerated for 1 hour.

I  carved the camera body so all the edges were smooth and even. I carved down where the shutter button is located. I added another light crumb coat to the newly carved area. Refrigerated for 30 minutes.

Final camera body done!

I stacked the cakes together and did a final ganache coat. This was then refrigerated until fondant work. 

Square pan: I was able to get 4 circles (2 large, and 2 slightly smaller). Using the cookie cutters, I chose the large size I wanted for the front of the lens. I went one size smaller for the body of the lens to give it some shape.

Lens completed!

1 crumb coat (refrigerated for 1 hour) then a final coat (refrigerated until fondant work). For the lens to fit on the cake board, roughly 3cm had to be cut from the end.

For the fondant work, I called my sister for assistance. There were no cuts or gaps in the fondant! The fondant was kneaded together and rolled out (using corn flour so it didn't stick to the table or rolling pin) then placed on top of the cake.

After the fondant work was done, I carefully transported the camera body to the cake board. The lens was attached to the body with some chocolate ganache. Decorations begin! 

Using varying piping tips I cut out different sized circles for the camera buttons.

For the lens, I cut strips of black fondant and used the knife to put little indents for detail. I brushed a bit of water on each fixture for it stick to the fondant. Other details were different sized rectangles that I adjusted to suit the scale of the camera.

Buttons and fixtures on the back of the camera. I rolled out a thin sausage of black fondant for the area around the view finder.  

Using the white edible paint and a thin paint brush I hand wrote all the camera body and lens details. 

I used one of my fondant tools to indent an area of the lens which has the aperture readings.

As you can see, there are a few dodgy writing on the cake there. 

I cut rectangles for the  various screens and view finder on the cake. I made the flash connector (which is a bit hard to see). To do so, I cut out some mini circles and rolled bits of fondant. I painted them all using edible silver paint. Lastly, I rolled out a thin sausage of red fondant and placed it on the rim of the lens.

Finished Canon 5D Mark II cake (Front)

Finished Canon 5D Mark II cake (Back)

Before serving I sprayed it with a bit of canola oil to remove white marks. 

I printed out photo and just stuck it on the back using a dab of oil.

The real 5D Mark II with its cake counter part 

Birthday Boy with his 2 cameras. You can now clearly see the size difference.

Back of camera comparison 

In a traditional camera sense, the lens was detached first. 

Good food, good times!

Harry Potter Cake + 4th July Birthday Celebrations

Even though I am not American, American culture is a part of my life especially with films and tv shows. One of my closest friends loves the American Culture, and she has always been bugging me to celebrate an American Holiday. Therefore, as a group we decided to take advantage of Independence Day, and threw her a surprise 21st, American Independence Day Party.

 

We created a last minute American themed setting by all things red, blue and white. 

Hagrid Harry Potter Cake

The Feast

Independence Day Menu

- Mexican styled corn

- Fried Chicken

- Candied Yams (Sweet potato)

- Garden Salad

- Hagrid Harry Potter Cake with passion fruit ganache layers

Mexican Styled Corn

Corn on a cob

Japaneses Mayonnaise (Kewpie Mayonnaise)

Shredded Parmesan Cheese

Lime

Chilli Powder

Chopped coriander

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celsius. 

2. Peel the skin off the corn and wrap in aluminium foil.

3. Place on a tray in the oven for 15-20. (on the middle to top rack)

4. Allow to cool for 2 minutes, and peel off aluminium foil.

5. Apply a drizzle of mayonnaise, pinches of parmesan cheese, coriander, squeeze of lime and sprinkle of chilli powder. 

Fried Chicken

1kg chicken tenderloins

2 cups Panko crumbs

3/4 cup Parmesan cheese

3 eggs

2 cups of flour

salt

pepper

cayenne pepper

Method

1. Heat oil in a pan enough for a shallow fry, to 350 degree Celsius.

2. Combine flour, salt and peppers in a large bowl.

3. Mix eggs in a separate medium bowl.

4. Combine panko crumbs and parmesan cheese.

5. Coat a piece of chicken in the flour mix, then the egg mixture and then the crumb mixture.

6. Once oil is heated, place chicken in the pan (no more than 3 pieces at a time). Allow one side to brown, once browned, flip the chicken and cook. 

7. Place the cooked chicken on a paper towel.

Candied Yams (Sweet potato)

3 medium to large sweet potatoes

50g butter

1 packet of mini marshmallows

Method:

1. Boil a pot of water on the stove with a pinch of salt.

2. Peel sweet potato and cut into even sized chunks.

3. Once water is boiled, at the potatoes and place on the lid. Leave until potatoes are cooked through. They are cooked through when a fork or a chopstick can go through the centre of the potato.

4. Drain the water and begin to mash the potatoes and add the butter.

5. Preheat oven to 200 degree celsius.

6. Place mashed potatoes into an oven proof dish, evenly spread out. 

7. Evenly spread the packet of mini marshmallows.

8. Place in the oven for 10-15 minutes until marshmallows have browned

Hagrid Harry Potter Cake

The Harry Potter Cake was made because the birthday girl loves Harry Potter. I first came across the Harry Potter Cake on Diamonds for Dessert. When I showed her, she said that one day I would have to make it for her, and that day had finally came.

I used the Thunder Cake Recipe for two 20cm round cake tins for the cake. As for the buttercream frosting, I followed Diamonds for Dessert recipe. 

To take advantage of the lovely passionfruit that are currently in season, in between the cakes was passionfruit ganache. The recipe was guided by Heston Blumenthal's chocolate gateau recipe

Passionfruit Ganache

175g thickened cream

Pinch of salt

Pulp from 6 passion fruits

110g of dark chocolate (broken into pieces)

50g milk chocolate (broken into pieces)

Method:

1. Combine cream, salt and passionfruit in a saucepan over medium heat until it comes to the boil. Remove from the heat and allow to stand for 5 minutes.

2. Place the chocolate in a bowl and melt until smooth. (I used microwave at 15 second intervals)

3. Strain the infused cream and add to the bowl of melted chocolate a third at a time. Making sure to completely incorporate the cream with the chocolate after each addition.

4. Allow the ganache to cool to room temperature and refrigerate until read to use.

Processes

- Split the butter cream to a majority in one bowl (colour pink), and a few spoonfuls in another bowl (colour green).  

- When the two cakes were cooled, I levelled them and then cut them in half. 

- I filled each layer with the passionfruit ganache (the levels weren't as uneven as the picture looks haha)

- Applied a crumb coat of vanilla butter cream

- Top coat of vanilla buttercream. The top coat doesn't have to be that neat since it is supposed to be made by Hagrid =D

- Final touches

The HAPPEE BIRTHDAE HARRY was supposed to be written with green tinted buttercream, however too much red food colouring was added to the split batch, therefore the rest of the white was used for the pink. I then tried to use white chocolate, and tint it with green food colouring which DIDN'T work at all.

Therefore, I ended up using white writing fudge from the tube, which I coloured green. I put that in a ziplock bag, and created a make shift piping bag for the writing. 

This became an issue when presenting the cake, as I did the piping several hours before consumption, the colour began to separate from the writing fudge. However, if you plan to serve the cake straight away, this way of colouring will work.

Just another birthday message for M. Happy 21st Birthday M! I hope that you and the girls enjoyed the dinner and dessert!

Good food, good times! 

Midnight Mayhem themed cake

Another 21st birthday appears and I was approached to make a birthday cake themed Midnight Mayhem. The theme of the party was blacks, dark blues, silver and white, a reason to party hard into the the night. With those cues, and some things that the birthday boy and girl wanted , I created a Midnight Mayhem themed cake.

I wanted to use my new topsy turvy cake tin, and this was my first ever tiered cake.

Notes:

• A topsy turvy cake is hard to make look topsy turvy. If you don't get certain heights, or angles, it just looks like a crooked cake.
• A tiered cake is time consuming, and I only used one cake recipe and had a topsy turvy cake tin. In most topsy turvy cakes, each tier has a different flavoured cake, and several different sized cakes are made to obtain the topsy turvy look.
• Cutting dowels to size and placing them through an entire cake is quite hard when you are going through layers of fondant, ganache and cake.
• Rolling small balls of fondant is extremely tedious, probably won't ever do that for a cake trimming again. (Even with a friends help, it was tedious and time consuming)
• I bought cake boards to sit underneath the cakes when covering with ganache and fondant, but removed the two smaller cake boards when assembling the cake.
• The smaller cake board was used to measure the circle for the clock.
• Edible paint is fun and easy to use. (Wear glovers, or else fingers become sparkly with gold or silver)
• I used various sized cutters for my decorations (cats, bats, stars, moon). Most purchased from Glass House cakes: http://www.glasshousecakes.com.au/
• The Thunder Cake recipe was made 4 times!!!
• 900ml thickened cream, 600g milk chocolate (2 and a half blocks), 250g dark chocolate (1 block) for ganache. Of this remains approximately 2 cups.
• To get a midnight blue colour: 
• 2x 750g blue fondant
• 100g black fondant
• 100g red fondant100g black
• (All Bakels Brand). Those are rough estimations, I kind of winged it to get the desired colour.

The Decorations:

  The fondant balls kind of looked like mochi

The Cakes:

The Assembly:

I did a rough calculation and this entire cake took roughly 21 hours, this was spread over three days and includes fondant colour prep, decorations, baking, cleaning time and assembling the cake. It was definitely a learning experience, and I now know how to make it better for next time. The birthday boy and girl were extremely happy with how the cake turned out and said 'it turned out a lot better than expected'. Thanks guys! xx

Good food, good times!