An Education in VW Kombi

I can't believe it's October already! I haven't had much time to update the blog on the cakes I've been busy with. In the past weeks, I had the pleasure of repeating some fun designs like the Fire Engine and Honeybee cupcakes, as well as some cheery Sunflower cupcakes for my niece's 17th birthday, but the one cake I have to share with you is the VW Kombi cake!

I was contacted by some Kombi enthusiasts for a series of Kombi van cakes. While I do recognise the iconic camper van, I can't say I know the vehicle in great detail. I have also underestimated what it meant to make a cake for enthusiasts (of any subject). You just could not afford to be too casual about details. My first brief was for a rainbow-coloured Kombi with peace sign in place of the VW logo. As the van needed to look like it's painted, that's just what I did. I painted on the rainbow colours on the body of the van (with edible paints and gin). It was my first time painting on fondant but some tips online really helped out. 

I baked blocks of chocolate cake and carved out the shape of the Kombi, had it covered in fondant and laid the paintwork. Yes I did feel a bit like a mechanic for car body kit. Here's the Kombi taking a test drive...

Front View 

Back View

Unfortunately, this Kombi never made it beyond a test drive. I was told flat out that the recipient of the cake was rejecting it! It's a first for me and boy did it hurt :(

To begin with, I didn't get the shape of the Kombi right, the slope in the front was way too exaggerated. Then the sides looked somewhat saggy, which could be due to the double layer fondant I applied (I also realise my cake could have been a bit too moist, causing the internal structure to buckle). But finally, the reason it was not road worthy was that while the cake waited for the day of the party (1.5 days) in it's air-conditioned 'garage', it finally had a meltdown. I recommended it didn't go into refrigeration for fear of the colours weeping but looks like air-conditioning didn't do the trick.

Lesson learnt, fondant cakes wait for no man. Bake it, eat it.

I was quite wrecked from the experience (mostly from the rejection and feeling bad for the whole situation). While I'll take the rep for the many things that went wrong, it was still good cake and an honest effort. In the end, I had another chance to make it right. This time I was given many pictures of the Kombi to study, and boy did I look long and hard. The cake I had to replicate is this very adorable Kombi called 'Blue'.

'Blue'

And this time, I nailed it. 

Thanks for the opportunity. 

Kombi rocks!

Lightning McQueen

The little boy who introduced Thomas the Train to my Jake has a new toy interest - Lightning McQueen from Disney's Cars. Jake's cousin, Justin turns 4 and luckily for his mum, she did not have to endure another year of Thomas birthday party. So Aunty Debbie was tasked with baking a Lightning McQueen cake!

Before I started work, I contacted my baker friend Dawn who made a Lightning McQueen cake some months back. Now if you remember, Dawn is my fellow baker mum who helped me on the Penguin cake last year. Dawn's cake decoration skills is easily the very best that I've seen anywhere. Pure perfection. I had hoped some tips from her would help me along the way. She sent me a step-by-step via WhatsApp from Shanghai where she is based, thank you so much Dawn. Here's a peek at her amazing work... check out the contours!

A perfect Lightning McQueen by Dawn

So I went about building this cake. The baking part was easy - a moist chocolate cake with Oreo cream cheese filing. I had to stop myself from eating the bits that were carved out while making this cake! 

Yummy undercarriage

Rough outline of McQueen covered in fudge

I tried so hard to follow the tips and advice given for this cake. It was a challenge carving a car out of a block of cake, which was recommended. I found myself piecing together the car for the contours instead. So between meeting the requirements of a moist cake and the details required for the car to take shape, this was my best effort.

Lightning McQueen!

Adding in the details was the real fun part especially the round disc on the bonnet. I used it to imprint the birthday boy's name! 

Here's looking at you kid

Ok so it's not really an accurate shape of Lightning McQueen, mine is more like a family saloon than a sports car but the signature windscreen eyes and engine grille smile did the trick. And not forgetting the lightning stripes on the door!

Vroom!

A Lightning McQueen that he can eat

It made the birthday boy's day and that's all that really matters. Happy Birthday Justin!

Little Red Corvette

Ok, not exactly (a red corvette). But it's a little red car nonetheless for a little boy who turns 2.

A friend had referred a mummy to me - she was looking for a healthy treat to be shared in school for her little one's birthday. She was keen on a fruity cake with reduced sugar and fancied the Hummingbird Cake... it couldn't be a better choice! She didn't favour the pineapples in the original recipe, so I had it replaced with mangoes. It was a yummy substitute and because mangoes are naturally so sweet, I easily reduced the sugar in the recipe by 50%. The resulting cake was also very moist - banana and mango is such a great combination, who'd have thought ; ) And in place of sour cream, I added fruity yoghurt, which is way more healthy!

Little Keith must love cars since his cake requirement was simple - a little classic red car on a rectangular cake. That's the best shape cake for school since it makes for easy cutting and serving.

I made a double layer cake measuring 13" by 9" and another smaller layer for carving into the shape of the car. I went with the Volkswagen beetle shape car just because it looks cuter and had it covered in fondant for a neater finish. The rest of the cake was generously frosted in light cream cheese.

Delicious ride

Happy Birthday Keith!

The style of this cake is like the penguin cake I made some months back, though there is one huge challenge to this - fondant and cream cheese do not like each other at all. While I love cream cheese frosting more than any other frosting, it is just not possible to apply fondant to it. Fondant breaks down when it comes into contact with cream cheese and becomes a total mess! Still it is possible to be creative and incorporate the two popular ingredients. The trick is to create a barrier for the fondant - in this case, I used a royal icing-like frosting where the fondant car is sitting on.

This is having your fondant and eating it with cream cheese ; )