I pretty much had a mental battle with myself over this one for weeks. Whether I was even going to take on the challenge cause:

Singapore. Heat. Humid. Melting ganache. No tools. Expensive ingredients. No kitchen space. No oven. Where do I even get the speciality ingredients? What brand fondant do they sell here? 

In the end, I scrapped together this 2 tier cake for my colleague's son's 2nd birthday. It was stressful... like mega.

First off, two tall tier cakes takes a long time to bake. And well, my fridge isn't all the big either so I just didn't have any room anywhere. Then I had to let the AC run pretty much all the days that I was putting the cake together. That's just a waste of money and electricity (as humid and hot as it gets here, I absolutely loathe AC...)

Then I had like the tiniest rolling pin (think something you'd use to make dumpling skins, not huge ass pieces of fondant to cover 8 inch cakes!) that I had to make do with to cover the cake. Oh and I had no lazy susan so I pretty much had to turn the cake manually whilst at the same time not dent the cake in anyway. I had no wooden or plastic dowels to hold up the second tier but I learnt this amazing trick of using thick drinking straws instead. Luckily those are easy to obtain.

I also had to express order cloud shaped cutters and ebay isn't really a thing here so they don't have the cheap options online. I still got them online but it was like same as store prices except that stores don't have stuff like this readily available. So stressful.

In the end, managed something that I think looks ok. Will I do another fondant cake here? Umm...

I've had another extremely busy weekend (and week building up to it)! With a wedding in the Blue Mountains followed directly by a Kitchen Tea back in the Sydney CBD, it was always going to be a logistical challenge.

I did have an amazing (and rather cold) time away outside of Sydney on Friday evening and Saturday before hastily fitting in a morning bushwalk on Sunday morning before the drive back to Sydney. I was exhausted. The wedding was beautiful and very much what the bride wanted.

So was the Kitchen Tea - the cake, which I had completed by Friday morning, turned out well too! We were supposed to have a cake topper as well but my dear friend forgot it. No matter, flowers to the rescue and as she had already prepped everything, it was really easy! The cake was delicious just in case you were wondering! Very happy with how it all turned out.

It was a great afternoon (despite the dreary wet weather storming outside) at Doltone House opposite Hyde Park. Lots of laughs, competitiveness and general fun. Really enjoyed myself and was quite impressed by the service.

The cake board barely fit the jersey! Don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise... cakes are heavy. And when you think about it, gram for gram, it all adds up. If it's 3 kg of fondant and 1 kg of chocolate and 500 g of butter... that's already a whopping 4.5 kg! Plus ganache, cake, buttercream, etc... no wonder they need guys to do all the heavy-lifting.

It's been a hot weekend in Sydney and it makes working with fondant that much harder.

However, perseverance and not wanting to let anyone down always prevails. Cake may look kind of easy but it was quite fiddly in the end. Pretty happy with the piping though :)

Double chocolate mud cake... crowd pleaser! Can't wait to deliver!

Yield 1 x 8 inch round

Ingredients
200 g butter, cubed
200 g white chocolate
1 C brown sugar
1 C milk
4 T golden syrup
2 t vanilla
3 eggs, at room temperature
1 C flour
1 C S.R. flour

Method
1. Preheat oven to 150 degrees and grease and line cake tin.
2. Over a double boiler melt butter, chocolate, sugar, milk, golden syrup and vanilla essence until mixture is smooth. Allow to cool.
3. Add eggs one at a time mixing well until thoroughly combined.
4. Sift in flours and use a wooden spoon to stir until combined.
5. Pour mixture into pan and bake in preheated oven for 50-60 mins or until a skewer comes out almost clean.
6. Stand cake for 20 mins before turning onto a wire rack to cool.

Yield 1 x 10 inch round

Ingredients:
1 3/4 C sugar
2 1/2 C flour
1/2 C cocoa
1 1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t bicarb soda
4 eggs, lightly beaten
1 C buttermilk
3 T oil
1 t vanilla
250 g butter, melted
250 g dark chocolate, finely chopped

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 150 degrees and grease and line baking tin.
2. Sift dry ingredients and stir in sugar.
3. Gradually beat in eggs, milk, oil and vanilla.
4. Stir in butter and chocolate.
5. Bake for approx 60 minutes or until skewer inserted comes out clean.