Last week, a lovely lady asked me to make her a cake for her mother’s 60th birthday in August. I immediately said no, because I haven’t made cakes for anyone other than my family and I would be terrified that I would ruin it.  She then suggested if I am worried, to make her a test cake.  She wanted a simple, elegant one tier cake in black and white to feed 30 people.

Initially I though I would make a black and white version of the exploding stars cake that I have made a couple of times, but I didn’t think it was very elegant, so I decided to make a version of the Anemone Cake in Peggy Porschen’s book, Cake Chic.

I was sensible with this cake, doing a little bit every night. On Tuesday night I created my flowers, on Wednesday I made the cake and ganache, on Thursday night I ganached the cake, and on Friday morning I covered and decorated the cake.  No panicking or rushing at all!

I also discovered when making this cake that a good mud cake recipe is hard to find, and that they are quite difficult to bake.   The first cake I baked was quite shallow, and the second cake had deep cracking!  I have a bit more experimenting to do!   I also discovered that dark chocolate ganache is much easier to work with than white chocolate ganache – it sets so hard and so much faster!

I am doing Planet Cake Basics 103 next weekend, so stay tuned for the next update!

xo, Laura