Sunday, March 13, 2011

more green tea chiffon cake - two birthdays and a baby shower


We were in Tahoe for the past week so I didn't do any baking, but the weekend before we left was a busy baking weekend!  I had two cupcake orders, and two cakes to bake.  The first cake was to celebrate my mom and my brother's birthdays, both of which are in March.  And the second cake was for a coworker's baby shower.  I decided to make matcha green tea chiffon cake for both events, since it was still fresh in my head from my first attempt, and it was also a chance to improve on it.


My mom and brother's birthday cake came first.  I fell back on piping my usual basketweave sides and rope borders (since my experiments with the previous cake didn't go so well).  I'm still new to piping with whipped cream though, and I found that instead of the clean smooth lines I get with buttercream and cream cheese frosting, I get fuzzy wobbly lines with whipped cream.


To decorate the top, I arranged fresh strawberry halves in a flower pattern to keep it simple and clean, and to provide a pop of color.  To finish it off I piped a birthday message with melted chocolate.  Everyone seemed to like the cake, as it was light and airy, and not too filling nor too sweet.


For the second cake, I didn't start on it until 11pm the night before the baby shower!  This time I made sure to time myself, as I was curious to see how long it would take me.  I finished baking, cooling, and decorating the cake by 2:30am, from start to finish.



This time I felt much more comfortable piping with whipped cream, and my basketweave sides came out much more even.  And instead of piping a rope border on the top and bottom like I did with the birthday cake (which I felt made the cake look really short), I did a simple shell border only on the top, and left the bottom alone (to make the cake look taller).


My initial idea was to pipe a duckie or a onesie in the middle of the cake, but it had gotten really late and I was tired, and I didn't feel like mixing colors, so I just decorated the top with fresh strawberry halves once more, and piped the congratulations message in melted chocolate.


Hope everyone enjoyed the cake(s)!

5 comments:

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  2. Wow, your creations and photography are stunning. I just stumbled upon your site while looking for ideas on how to decorate my next cake. I typically pipe with buttercream (reg and swiss meringue) but will be using a stablized whipped cream this time. I can't wait to try the rope border. I had already been planning to use melted chocolate for writing Happy Birthday. I love how neat yours looks in all lowercase...definitely going to try that as well. Thanks so much for the inspiration!

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    1. thanks so much @Kate C ! i'm so happy to hear that my cakes inspired you! :)

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  3. It's very, very annoying that you're making reader click here, here, here to get the actual recipe, which I have yet to find! Very annoying and unprofessional.

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    1. @Anonymous - this is actually not my profession, this blog is merely a journal of my baking hobby. the original recipe was from here: http://www.thecookbookchronicles.com/blog/?p=4505
      and it looks like that site is no longer up. so i'm sorry about that, but if you send me your email address i can send you the recipe. thanks!

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