I'm at a point in my life ("career"; the day one) where I'm not quite sure if I'm staying or if I'm going so this lucky girl (and boy) were extremely fortunate to be able to catch me in town to do their wedding cake. It was a case of 'maybe' for a long time!

4 mega tiers of Vanilla Coconut, Chocolate Peppermint and Mocha Caramel cake sandwiched with lashings of buttercream (a request from the bride.. she really really LOVES buttercream). The waiter who took the cake off to the kitchen where they promptly butchered it (I was livid) carried the cake as though it weighed nothing... hats off to him because I'm pretty sure the whole thing was a good 20 odd kg?!?!

And the flowers, oh they were so pretty: blushing brides with yellow chrysanthemums, billy buttons, baby breaths, lavender and roses. It made having to get up at 5 AM with minimal sleep so worth it!

There have been a few things I've come to a realization with in the past few months. It's probably been simmering on the back burner for a long time but it's kind of come to fruition with my time away from home and not having baked it so long. And the main one that stands out is: I would not want to do this full time and for a living. As much as I love baking and doing it in small doses, I don't think I'd enjoy it if it was anything more.

So this cake was a lot of fun and it made me realize that I still had it in me to pull something out of the proverbial hat. And I still loved (almost) every minute of it. But I was so stressed that the cake would fall over or something would go wrong and I just don't ever want to be responsible for something bad happening to the cake!

In short: time permitting (and that's not a lot of time), I would love to do more but here and now, I have other things I also want to do with my time...

The brief was almond sponge. Some days I am good at following instructions. Other days, I like to do things my own way (which is a skewed way of following said instruction). This is a cake where we sort of met halfway.

I took the basic Japonaise cake - layers of almond meringue sandwiches between rich coffee buttercream and added two super moist layers of almond sponge cake. The result?

This amazingly tall, straight, delicious looking simplistic cake that was SO good. More than one person had a second slice.

I'm going to have to make this one again. Yeah, it's a bit time consuming (it would be a lot quicker if I had 6 racks in my oven!) but the result is just so worth it. 

And the symmetry on the inside... perfection. *cries*

I have to give a 10/10 to the cake cutter. The precision, effort and patience truly deserves an award. 

Beware: this is a rich cake. A cup of black tea or coffee would be perfect with a small slice of cake for tea.

Ingredients
3 T instant coffee, dissolved in 3 T hot water
1 C sugar
1/3 C water
3 eggs, separated
200 g butter, softened

Method
1. Melt 1/2 C sugar and water over medium heat until it reaches the small ball stage.
2. Beat egg whites and remaining sugar until thick and glossy.
3. In a separate bowl, beat butter, yolks and dissolved coffee until light and fluffy.
4. Pour the sugar sugar into the egg whites whilst continuously beating.
5. Gradually add egg white mixture into butter mixture and continue whipping until the mixture increases in volumes and whitens.
6. Refrigeration may be needed to re-stabilize the buttercream.