Baby Zhi Yang's Full Month 
This is a 2-tier durian cake with Tigger design for handsome baby Zhi Yang's baby shower celebration.
This is the very 1st time I made such a big & heavy cake! Good durians (“Cat Mountain King”) are purchased for this cake as I do not want to ruin my home-made durian cake reputation with poor quality durians. I bought a lot of durian for this cake and the durian stall owner told me & my hubby that it is a waste to buy such good durians to make cake!
The bottom tier is spreaded with 3 layers of durian ganache, followed by pure durian flesh. The top tier is spreaded with 1 layer of durian ganache, followed by pure durian flesh. The whole cake is then covered & decorated using good quality yummy fresh cream. This durian cake weighed 5kg!
Everything on the cake are edible.. including the baby tigger, stars & the silver candies on the pipped blue stars. I drew the baby tigger with free hand using melted chocolates & DIY the stars lollipop using melted chocolates as well. The name ZHI YANG is then pipped onto the star chocolates. Preparation for these chocolates took me 2 days to complete as I can only make them after work, which is around 9pm.
I encountered a lot of challenges while making this cake:
1) Sourcing for good quality durians! Headache & stressed up over this for week as I heard that the durians won't be so good as durian season will be coming to an end by end July as many durian stalls had closed for business. And I don't know how to choose good durians without my dad & sister's help.. Have been searching around for durian stalls for a week. My sister has been helping me on this too. Finally found a durian stall but need my hubby to buy the durians with me as the stall is too far from my home & there is no way to take public transport with durians in hands (banned by SMRT & SBS). Anyway, the durians are too heavy for me to carry back home all by myself ;p
2) Thought I only need to bake 2 batches of sponge cakes but ended up, I have to bake 3 batches of sponge cakes. Reasons - I underestimated the batter needed for the big square pan & most importantly, my current mixer is unable to support such a huge amount of batter for the big square pan. So no choice. Super tired!
3) It took me 3 long hours (from 1am - 4am) to prepare the pure durian fillings for this 2-tier cake! @_@ So much durian was used that my body & hands ached so much the next day. Super super tired!
4) The cake is so big that I have difficulty handling the fresh cream on the cake, especially when the cake is in square & rectangular shapes. Much to my disappointment, the fresh cream on the cake is not smooth no matter how many times I tried to smooth it on the cake. No choice but to raise the white flag to surrender. Got to move on, else I will be forever stuck at this stage!
5) Design - I am so stressed up over the design planning for 1 week.. thinking & planning everyday.. I sketched a few draft designs & finally settled with the one that I am most satisfied with. Rested my mind for a few days but am real busy with the purchasing of ingredients & materials required for this big cake.
On the 2nd week, I decided to make some changes to my 1st design and comes out with a 2nd design (as plan B). Happy with this 2nd design as well but sad to say, on the actual day, I realized that both my planned designs will not 100% fit in well to the cake. So I have to make further modification the designs and quickly think of a 3rd design on the spot.
6) At the very last final stage to the completion of this cake, when I am about to place the baby tigger chocolate onto the cake top, it broke into half and dropped onto the cake. My heart sank : (
Beside being feeling upset over the wasted effort in making the baby tigger chocolate and having to redo it again at the very last minute, what worst is.. I still have to think of a solution to cover up the damage done on the cake top.
Due to the 1st bad experience in putting the tigger chocolate on the cake top, I am very careful this time round. And the damage on the cake top is covered with blue clouds design.
7) The cake is so big that the pipped fresh cream on the sides of the cake got damaged by the cake box several times. In the end I have to redo the pipping a few times, and the very last time I did is just before I left home to deliver the cake to the destination!
8) The cake is so heavy that the cake board & cake box can't even support it well! The cake board is not hard enough. Hence it is not stable when carrying the cake on the cake board in hands. The cake box is not strong enough as well for such a big & heavy cake. Got to be real careful during the transport. Hence my hubby is very very careful when he carry the cake in hand & he drove at a slow speed to the destination (although not reall very slow.. Haha..)
After the completion of this cake, I feel very upset & disappointed. The cake decoration is really not up to standard. I wish I have did a much better job in the decoration part : (
Luckily good feedbacks are received from the family & guests on the taste of this durian cake. Something to be glad of ^_^
Although I am super tired (both mentality & physically) after the making of such a big cake with so much challenges along the way, I am still glad to have this very good opportunity to touch on such a big cake project.
I have been searching for baby tigger pictures for days & reason why I chosen this picture is because the tigger is so cute & it looks so happy & carefree.. I hope baby Zhi Yang will be as happy & carefree like this baby tigger ^_^
The happy family ^_^
Cyndi, thanks for the permission to upload your family photo in my blog.
1 comment:
My mother and I thinks that its very nice!
Oh... and our family request that on Jia Hao's 21st birthday you make a birthday cake like a Mahjong tile, with the word "豪" for him if its possible =)
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