Ok, I didn't make this one, but it was great to look closely at a professionally made cake and see what goes into it, then look elements of it for inspiration.
This was a birthday cake I ordered from the Hand and Flowers in Marlow...it's 2-Michelin starred pub, and everything looks and tastes amazing!
Inside things get a little funky, with plenty of layers. You can see that the outer-icing layer is really thick, so it's good that it's not too sweet.
Again, the vanilla icing is not over-sweet, and it's all very moist. The different colours work really well, really showing off the layers. The green of the pistachio layer is very striking.
I'd love to give something like this a go...I have some smaller cake tins, though I'm wondering if it would be easier to do swiss-roll layers, and then chop them to size.
Decoration
The top has a scattering of chopped strawberries, blueberries, pistachio nibs and bits of biscuit. I've always displayed strawberries "skin up", never considered showing them s the chopped side up.Outer Icing
It's a coffee-chocolate, almost mousse-like coating...you can see in the photo the line where a palette knife has been used to level the sides. It's then been dusted with cocoa powder to give it a matt-finish. There are some blobs of white vanilla icing to hold on some of the decorations on top.
The Layers
- Chocolate cake
- Vanilla Icing
- Pistachio Cake
- Vanilla Icing
- Dark Chocolate Cake
Again, the vanilla icing is not over-sweet, and it's all very moist. The different colours work really well, really showing off the layers. The green of the pistachio layer is very striking.
I'd love to give something like this a go...I have some smaller cake tins, though I'm wondering if it would be easier to do swiss-roll layers, and then chop them to size.