Wednesday, December 22, 2010

{Birthday Cake Project} A 'Summer Passion' Cake


** First stop.. don't forget, CHRISTMAS GIVEAWAY is still OPEN [<--click], so please help me to present the beautiful gift I selected for you foodies soonest possible. ;).

The past weekend was a busy weekend for me but a good weekend indeed. In fact it was a great weekend. I started celebrating my birthday on Thursday, where my colleagues gave surprised me with a Caramel Cheesecake, then on Friday {my actual Birthday}.. I had a wonderful breakfast with my best buddy, and then come Saturday evening my best buddy and the rest of the ladies took me out for dinner and then presented me with a Chocolate Ganache Cake called Four Seasons baked by another local blogger. What a sweet sweet weekend for me. I'll definitely try to post some shots of the lovely dinner we had.

me, myself & I making a really long wish
Apart from all the minor dining, I had my very first cake order to deliver which I hinted in my past posts. {Yeayyyyyyy!!} To be honest, I was filled with nerves as this cake that I'll be baking will be for my best buddy mom's birthday which happens to fall on 20th December. OMG.. talking about the chances of screwing up the recipe, the decoration etc.. There were 1001 things going through my head.

Luckily, my best buddy, Steph told me in advance. She gave me pretty much approx. 2 weeks notice and it's definitely a great head start for me. Coming up a with the cake flavour that I would think suit their taste buds was no different than coming up with a cake for my mom's 55th birthday., I knew they love citrus flavours. All I could think of was the island of Capri in Summer. That was my inspiration. To tie my whole cake together, the buttercream frosting and cake has to be white in colour, summer yellow curd and winter snow mascarpone cream and to decorate with lemon yellow pearls.

After much thought,the cake itself was a dense White Vanilla Poppy Seed Cake sandwiched with Lemon Curd and Light Whipped Mascarpone Cream and frosted with Limoncello Buttercream. I'm calling my cake Summer Passion Cake. What do you think?

Okay..you may think that there are lots of flavours but to my surprise it worked out really well. Firstly, I made a white vanilla cake and toss in poppy seeds. The sweetness of vanilla cake was balanced with tangy lemon curd and whipped mascarpone cream. Instead of using Limoncello Cream Cheese Frosting which I made previously, I've decided to change it to a buttercream with limoncello liqueur.







To decorate the cake..that was the tough part as I've never taken up any cake decorating class before. However, I did try my best to make it look as pretty I possibly can. I whipped up some royal icing and piped all sorts of sizes of pearls and left it out to dry. To bring out the lemon yellow I placed some fuchsia white chocolate pearls.

Summer Passion Cake
Most importantly, the end result is what counts. I've got a confirmation from my best buddy's mom that the cake is beautiful in and out. {Awww.. she's too kind.. brought tears to my eyes} So overall, the cake is DELISH and definitely worth having seconds or third helpings.

For dessert and cake order inquiries, please write to
chicgorgeousdesserts {at} gmail {dot} com

xx

4 comments:

  1. Hi Jo-What a wonderful birthday you had, with not just one cake, but made your very own. Such a beautiful cake, but most of all, very unusual, not your average cake. Love the poppy seed, the mascarpone, and the lemon curd.
    I would love to attempt to make this cake, myself. Will copy and print it out.
    Happy Birthday, again, and hugs, and kisses to you, my dear friend!

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  2. Hi Elisabeth! Yeayyyyyy!! You're back! Welcome back my dear friend. Oh.. what a lovely Christmas you'll be having. Please send loads of my virtual hugs and regards to your family and beloved sister. Lol.. yeah I believe I had cake overload. A cake from colleagues, another from my best ladies who I adore to bits. You should try out the combination of the cake, e-mail me if you like for the recipe.;p The cake I baked was an order my best buddy placed through me, and her mom LOVED the cake. What a relief. Well, till then.. I can't wait to see you get into cooking and baking action. Merry Christmas and thanks for your well wishes. Huggggsssssss.. Jo

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  3. Wow, I love all the flavors you threw in there. It came out so pretty, I would have been delighted to receive it. Sounds like a fun birthday.
    Wishing you Happy Holidays and a Happy Belated Birthday!
    -Gina-

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  4. Hey Gina. Thank U for your wishes. Happy New Year to you and your family too! Any plans for the New Year? Can't believe end of year 2010 is just this week. Time is flying..I'll try to post up a couple more postings for Dec. Lol.. Take care. Huggss, Jo.

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Hey foodies! THANK YOU for leaving me with sweet comments. I hope to inspire you like how you inspire me. Cheers~