A Cup of Tea, Not exactly A Piece of Cake

One of my favorite people was having a birthday. Now this person is one of impeccable personal taste, a veritable food and beverage dictionary, and with her self pronounced "life-sized sweet tooth", making an ordinary cake for her would be absolutely out of the question. I needed to make something new and special. It had to taste amazing, look flawless, and be as unique as she is. Have I mentioned that I have a baker who usually does all of the specialty cakes for me? She is talented and does beautiful work, and I have been training with her to be able to expand my knowledge, experience and abilities, and so we can double our cake output. But the idea I cooked up for my friend is more than I had tackled solo as yet. Because my friend sips more tea than could fill the Boston Harbor, I would make a teacup cake. Delicate, feminine, and beautiful, just like she is. I was confident that it would go off without a hitch.

I began with a recipe. My friend and I had recently taken my kids to the lake for a picnic and she had brought some orange cream soda. She mentioned how much she enjoyed the flavor and there I had it. Creamsicle cake. Orange cake layered with orange curd and vanilla butter cream. Now I just had to develop that little recipe and that would be easy...or so I thought.....

My first test cake had burned edges. But it was still completely raw in the center! I threw it away and began again, modifying the liquid content, tweaking this, adjusting that. The end result was nearly identical to the first, but the top puffed up and cooked like a souffle. I pulled it from the oven, proud as punch until it collapsed around the raw batter center like a sweet smelling orange volcano. It was not pretty. The third try, I smartened up, or so I thought and adjusted the oven temperature, moved racks around, and tried yet another test recipe. This time, I got a fully cooked cake, which was dense, but moist and tasty. Unfortunately, it also had the HUGE crater in the center that the second cake had. I called my baker, and we brainstormed quantities, and ratios. We decided the sugar content was too high, and the water to fat ratio was off, so we came up with a recipe that we thought would finally address all the problems. We were right. The cake came out beautiful and perfect for slicing and filling. Moist, sweet, orangey tasting, and perfectly baked all the way through with no crater! I sliced it and filled the layers with the sweet-tart orange curd, and the creamy vanilla butter cream. I carved it into the desired shape. Relief hit me like a wave, and I felt confident as I moved on to the next phase.

Fondant. I think fondant can be so beautiful, but it must be done flawlessly. Perfectly rolled, manipulated so nothing looks like you just stamped out some play-doh with cookie cutters and slapped it on a cake. Now, in my company, we make fresh fondant for each cake. It tastes like a sweet melt-in-your-mouth cloud, and looks like a smooth, freshly fallen blanket of snow on a cake. I had done fondant work before, mostly decorations for my favorite cupcakes, but had not had the privilege of rolling and laying on a cake. It would be a challenge, I thought, but I do love a challenge. I made the saucer and handle ahead of time and let them dry. What fun it was! How beautiful they were! I couldn't wait to do the body of the cake!

I tell you, I rolled that fondant onto the cake twice and ended up with cracks, folds, and flubs. It was not the newly fallen blanket of snow by far. I consulted my baker again. We determined the problem, fixed it, and on my third try, it rolled out and practically formed a fine alliance with the cake all by itself. It was just as I wanted it to be. Smooth, wrinkle and dimple free, ready to adorn with the embellishments. This part went fast. The trim was added. The flowers were molded and cupped, attached without issue, and "tea" was painted onto the top of the cake to make the cup look full. I placed the cake on my pre-made fondant saucer, attached the handle, and held my breath that my friend would like the cake as much as I did.

When I delivered it to her, she beamed and squealed. She loved it entirely, and waited two days to cut into it! The teacup theme was perfect, and the flavor of the cake was right up her alley. I couldn't have been happier to have made a cake, from batter to fondant, completely personalized for my dear, sweet friend. It was a learning journey, incredibly valuable and rewarding. I can't wait for the next cake challenge!