It has been over a year or two since I have blogged about anything cake related. I have missed it immensely but have hardly had any time to spare a minute to sit down at my laptop to write reviews or showcase any of my recent works!
I have a number of cake pictures that I need to upload but right now I am in no rush! I just want to take it nice and eassssyyyyy.
So as you may have guessed from the title of this blog post; me and my family have moved to Dubai. As much as I would love to say it has been easy and stress free … it has been the complete opposite! You just make the silly assumption that everything will be on the internet, telling you step by step what to do and how to do it. oh no…. no no no no no… how naive I was!!! You’ll find it yes, but in drips and drabs, on this website or that website. We just needed it all on one page was it so hard to ask? Apparently so! Or perhaps I just wasn’t looking in the right places which was probably the case (as always!). However, considering my hubby had a look online and could not find simple steps on how to do things, I did think to myself perhaps I have looked.
We had to do most of the finding out for ourselves which was incredibly time consuming and quite tiring if I’m honest. BTW – when I say ‘we’, most of the time it means my husband hahaha!
For those of you who are hoping to get a job in Dubai and would like to know how to do it (if you don’t already). I will try and upload a step by step list of what we had to get done in order to get our jobs secured in Dubai and to migrate here. I know I will end up leaving things out because there genuinely was so many things that we had to get done. So if I do forget, please do excuse my forgetfulness and I will try to correct it when I get the chance 🙂
Yes, this blogpost is not about cakes! I have had many people asking me to write this up so that they know in the future what the process is like and how to get through it all. Hopefully when I get the chance to do baking again I will start uploading some blogposts on here yay!
Please note that I will not be disclosing where me and my family work, or which school my children are attending, I hope you can respect this choice. I have put this disclaimer out on here because I know people will ask and there’s always this question in the back of people’s minds. “Ooooh wonder where they work, I wonder if they’ll tell us?”… You know how I know?…. Because I am one of these people hahaha!
In the meantime keep an eye out for my dubai blog posts as well as my cakes posts!
I know… ganaching is a completely new concept to many people. But let me tell you something!… You will NOT regret it!
It is the best thing ever I promise you!
Not only that. Chocolate Ganache is a million times easier to work with than buttercream when crumbcoating! Why? I will tell you…
Buttercream: First things first, it is lovely to work with (kinda), hardens in the fridge relatively quickly, and has a nice buttery taste although it can become rather sickly if eaten too much!
However, I have found that once you bring it to room temperature (and even if its still cold and hard) and try to cover it with fondant, it is a nightmare to work with if you end up smoothing the sides longer than you need to. I have done this on many occasions as I was trying to get a ‘sharp edge finish’!
I ended up ruining my cake and having to rip off the fondant to cover it again due to the buttercream oozing out from the layers of cake and the crumbcoating becoming too soft.
Ganache Crumbcoating:
I cannot tell you how in love I am with this stuff! First time around I got it completely wrong. This was a few months ago when I attempted to make a Great Gatsby themed cake. I didn’t let the ganache rest overnight to harden and that was my biggest mistake as you NEED to let it sit overnight for at least 12- 24 hours. Yup, its annoying having to wait that long but it allows the sugar crystals in the chocolate to crystallise which helps it to form the hard outer shell. In turn this makes it so much easier to cover in fondant as it is far less likely to melt or ooze if you’re working to get super sharp edges.
Obviously, do NOT work too the fondant too much or else it will melt the chocolate underneath! But the thing is, you won’t even need to work too long with the fondant as the edges are so razor sharp from the chocolate ganache alone that it automatically helps to form a sharp edge on your fondant with some careful smoothing. By the way, I do highly recommend Bellissimo Flexi Smoothers to get the perfect edges which you can buy from here. You can also make your own and I will show you a tutorial on how to do that very soon!
Another positive is that the taste of the cake altogether is great as you have this wonderful chocolatey sensation as you bite into your cake. Chocolate is sweet, but not as overpoweringly sweet like buttercream is. It makes your cakes stand out a mile from the rest by far!
As I was saying, the main downside is the long waiting time but it just means you can ganache and leave it whilst you get on with your other work or decoration preparation!
I made this cake (pictured below) using ONLY chocolate ganache and did so by ganaching the cake UPSIDE DOWN! Woahhh! Yup, it was so scary but so worth it in the end as I doubt I could get that type of a finish on my first attempt using any other method!
It’s actually a lot simpler than you may think and it does also help you to get amazing sharp edges hence why it is now my chosen method of crumbcoating!
As you can see from my picture I didn’t cover the cake with fondant as it was a simple chocolate cake and I’m glad I didn’t cover it to be honest as it just looks stunning just as it is with the edible silver leaf!
Would you like to see a step-by step tutorial on how I ganached upside down? Have you ever made a cake using chocolate ganache and did so by using the upside down method?
Recently I’ve been looking through many beautiful cake pictures on both Pinterest and Instagram. For some silly reason I could feel my insecurities surfacing. I couldn’t understand why… and then I realised when I asked myself “arghhhh why can’t I make flowers like they do? Why can’t I do stunning masterpieces like these amazing cake designers?”
I realised then and there that I was becoming very aware of the fact that I thought I couldn’t do these grand cakes. But of course, such things are not impossible if we set our minds to it, it’s all a matter of setting your goals and taking the steps to achieve them.
After soothing these silly insecurities, I reminded myself of where I started. A bit of buttercream here, a few fanned strawberries plopped on there there and there, a little dusting of icing sugar and VOILA my masterpiece is finished. Always felt ecstatic and beamed with pride at how stunning I thought my finished piece was!
Now I can’t stop finding flaws in every single one of my cakes.
I. Just. Want. Them. To. Be. PERFECT arghhhh!!! There’s no such thing as perfect I do know that yes, but I just want to achieve the best finish for my customers.
My first “professional” selection of cupcakes!
When you find yourself doing what I tend to do. Just take a step back, have a nap, go for a walk, play with your kids, eat the leftovers (lol!), watch some TV. Anything really, just something that will help to take your mind off it for a while. I happened to do this the other day when decorating but instead of doing any of the suggestions listed above, I started looking through my old photos on Facebook. My cupcakes and cakes were far from perfect but at the time I made them I was dead proud!… Bless, it’s quite cute actually considering some of my piping work looked like white cow pat as pictured above! That day I made so many different frostings, buttercreams, and sponge flavours in such a short space of time I just rushed with the piping work as we had to leave but I was bursting with excitement and was looking forward to showing them off! They were for family members and I can confirm that they were chuffed to bits upon receiving these!
Glitter sprinkled cupcakes
Here, I was invited to do an exclusive stall at a Bollywood Night event in Cambridgeshire. I really don’t know what I was thinking when I decorated these to be honest but I just remember sitting at my mum’s and throwing the glitter on top then ‘neatly’ chucking a few silver dragees over!
My Mich Turner inspired miniature cakes
The miniature cakes in the middle were inspired by Mich Turner and I remember looking in the book thinking, “WOW, these are so pretty and they look so easy to make!”. Boy was I in for a shock that weekend. After downing countless energy drinks, I was buzzing around the kitchen and dining room where I had laid out all my cake equipment like a lunatic… or so my mum said! Never again I told myself, never again! But I’m actually quite up for the challenge now that I know how to go about doing it and after doing so many cakes I’m pretty sure I can get the ribbon to stay at the bottom and avoid the fondant cracking!
Vanilla sponge cake with fresh cream and strawberry jam filling. Covered in white chocolate buttercream and topped with fanned strawberries
Now this baby really was my baby as this was what I started off with when I first started baking.
The day my husband and his family came over to my parents house for the first time to bring forth their proposal, I baked this but not as neatly. It was this very cake that started Nel’s Cake Boutique!
4.5″ tall and I used to sell this piece for £15!!! I thought I was really rolling in the big bucks not realising I was making a huge loss as I never bothered to check my finances properly back then lol!
Unfortunately, I do not sell at this price any more (sorry guys!) and nor do I sell fresh cream cakes or use fresh cream to cover my cakes.
And now….
Can you see the difference?
Other than the photography as I’ve started to use a DSLR (no, I’m not a pro despite trying to ‘act’ like one when taking pictures!), but the difference in covering and the finish is much cleaner.
My first picture at the top of this post were some cupcakes made during the summer just gone.and I’m pretty sure you can see the difference in design and uniformity from my Bollywood Night cupcakes!
That being said, I will leave you on this note. I’ve been doing cakes for roughly 4 years now but I would say most of my time and effort has been invested in my cake making and decorating in the past 2 years even whilst doing my PGCE! It has taken a lot of hard work, love, dedication, time, support, perseverance, practice, and of course patience to get to where I am today! There’s still a VERY long way for me to go and I intend to keep learning new skills to make great things for you all!
On the days where you just want to throw in the towel… don’t! Don’t ever give up if it’s something you are really passionate about and remind yourself to keep reaching for your goals. Keep practising and you will automatically see that you are getting better!
Do you decorate cakes or do any other craft? Do you feel that you too have come a long way?
Nel's Cake Boutique 