Cake Contest - Latvijas Gardaka Kuka

To those of you who so faithfully supported me with your daily votes, and many kinds thoughts. Thank you for believing in me!  And for those of you who have wanted to follow up and know how the contest went here is my LONG and detailed summary with photos :) 

I was very nervous in the days leading up to the contest- knowing I had very little time to devote to my cake planning due to the wedding cake I had to finish in order for me to even participate. I was on a strict deadline to complete the wedding cake by Friday evening so that I would be able to go to the contest Saturday morning and participate there and then come home and in the evening deliver the wedding cake. 

Saturday morning I was so nervous I could  not even eat and headed to Valmiera ( a 2 hour drive one direction) for the competition with my friend along. At least our chatting helped ease my nerves on the drive there. 

We arrived, got my stuff taken to the tent and waited for the other participates to arrive. The day was already hot- probably about 90 degrees F. and inside the tent it was hotter. 

I did all my prepping, was informed of the days schedule and tried to decide when to remove my butter from the fridge so that it would be soft, but not squishy. I cut it into the glass bowl I had along and immediately it started melting along the sides of bowl- proving that the heat of the tent had so warmed my bowls that they could melt COLD butter. I then placed both of my glass bowls and butter in the fridge to chill. 

The contest started with a nice introduction and we each had to tell why our cake was the best. I had been so nervous to get up and talk in front of everyone- but my neighbor here in the orange dress was also nervous and we chatted and got to know one another a bit. 

Once the contest started, we were sweating with the heat of the 90 + degree weather inside the tent, and constantly being photographed and filmed and working our fastest while being bombarded with questions by the jury. 

Breaking the caramelized sugar. My amber. . . 

 Answering questions. 

Because of the heat several of us had problems with our cakes. My whipped cream filling separated, making it impossible for me to decorate with it as planned. I was thankful I didn't have any more problems than I did- though because of the distance and heat I was not able to assemble my cake ahead of time which resulted in it being very hard to cut. 

 My neighbor was one of the ones who went on to advance to the next level with her beer chocolate cake (which supported the local city festival). 

It was great fun participating, and a delight to get to know some other bakers. I wish those who advanced to do their best. 

I was not disappointed not to have advanced because I knew this was not my best work- I submitted this recipe because it was different and unusual and I knew full well that it was not a good cake for clarity and precision- but the taste is amazing! 

That being said I was so relieved when the whole thing was over because of the stress, the horrible heat and extreme cake decorating conditions. 

I hope the next contest I am is in a nice cold/comfortable setting where we don't have to battle with the heat melting our fillings. 

I got to redeem myself in the evening with my well received and very tasty wedding cake which was very quickly devoured.

Silver Pink Wedding Cake

Spring and summer are the wedding season and I had my first order of the season:

Cake or 60 people (top layer no included in this- so that the couple can save it for themselves)

Bottom layer- chocolate cake, cherry filling, custard filling

Middle layer- chocolate cake- meringue- chocolate ganache,

Top layer- German chocolate

Weight- 11 kg (- top layer)

 Price - 10 eiro/kg + decorations

A Summer Wedding

 This summer I got to make another wedding cake for a sweet friend. Doesn't she look lovely?

White Swan Wedding Cake

My latest wedding cake was so fun to make since it was different than all the others- with tons of white chocolate curls, 64 white chocolate hearts, and two white chocolate swans.

• Chocolate Cake
• Raspberry jam filling
• Vanilla Bean Buttercream
• Lots of white chocolate decor
• 8ls/kg

Wedding Cake

Last weekend I got to make my brother's wedding cake

 

Wedding Cake with Two Kids

Today I began making the wedding cake I have to make for Saturday. I have been preparing all week little by little to make this process as smooth as possible. This is the first wedding cake order I have accepted in three years. The first I will have made with two children. . . yikes!

I have been mostly worried about tiring myself out, as full days in the kitchen leave me with an achy back. I began this day on my knees and jumped right in after breakfast.

Much to my amazement my kids are playing VERY peacefully together, and they are staying out of the kitchen so far- unheard of! Wow! Thank you Lord of watching out for me and making the beginning of this day smooth so far :) It is now 9:00 a.m :)

13:47 The morning didn't progress as smoothly as I would have liked due to an unplanned trip to the store. All my lists and trips to the store somehow left me with no milk and therefore only one cake baked. After returning home my kids were ready for a snack and they were then much more emotional and grouchy. Oh dear. Somehow I got the 6 layers of cake made and baked and lunch made. I turned on cartoons (which is only a special occasion thing in our house) and hoped that would keep them busy. It worked for a while, but when it was time to eat and I turned it off we had a 3 year old fit on our hands. YUCK. So now the kids are fed and in bed. Though D is still not asleep- he doesn't nap every day anymore.I am off to make fillings now.


Whilst the kids napped I got a lot done. I made my cherry filling and the cream fillings. So ends the first day.


Day 2:


Morning: Now comes the time of putting together the cake. However, my kids have not been in the best of moods and by 9:30 a.m I was feeling rather stressed and desperate. My husband encouraged me by phone to stop and give the kids some moments of my undivided attention. We read 4 books and then I was able to finish filling the cakes. I realized the biggest problem was that they weren't "allowed" to taste what I was making and doing. Once I started leveling the cake and had leftovers they were both happy. Not to mention that I had left over cream filling and cherry filling which they both loved!

The afternoon had a few bumps along the way because of a trip to the store ended in the frosting flopping due to mixing two different brands of butter. I had to run to the church to choose flowers for the cake. And my husband saved the day by getting more butter. Finally about 20:00 I was able to finish frosting the cakes and get to the decorating.

I had chosen to cover the cakes with marzipan. Originally I had been daunted by this idea since I had never used marzipan and didn't know how costly that would be. However, after watching this link and some other very good videos on marzipan I was ready to try my hand at it.

I stopped decorating at 22:00, my back was killing me and I was ready to head to bed. I was pleased with the results of the cake and even though simple it looked stunning with the fresh flowers. 
Saturday we headed off to the reception area about 10:00. We wanted to deliver the cake in one piece and get home again to prepare for the wedding. The drive to the camp seemed to take about 30 minutes, and the last part of the drive was HORRIBLE. It was a very bumpy dirty road- which we later discovered is not the main entrance and seldom used.

We got the cake settled, fixed and put together. There were already lots of good comments and I was eager to have it be completely decked out so people could see the end result. But since there were several hours to wait I put the flowers in water and we headed home.


Amelija's godmother had agreed to stay with them for the day and we had the whole day to ourselves. The wedding was nice!


We headed to the reception early to get the cake finished. It was a great success, not only being very lovely but VERY delicious. It was a black forest type cake. Chocolate cake, with cherry filling, a cream filling and delicious swiss buttercream over that, entirely covered in marzipan. It was scrumptious!