The Stepford Wife: Couture Cake

I tried baking my own birthday cake when i was 15. I got as far as buying the ingredients before quitting and deciding that i'll never be able to bake my own cake.

I proved myself wrong today. A friend presented me with the opportunity to join a baking class at The Fig Tree. After having watched Julie and Julia last month, I was enticed by the idea of a culinary school like the Cordon Bleu.

Anyway the cake of the day: Blackforest. Perfect. It ranks second to cheesecake in my books.

The kitchen is well-stocked with the best ingredients and baking utensils, from different sizes spatulas (which apparently makes a difference) to different qualities of whiskers (which apparently also makes a difference).

We were not allowed to use mixers for this exercise, so everything was hand-whisked.

Check this out, the oven is as tall as me.

Lesson number 1: Use the best ingredients available. The key to a delicious Blackforest Cake- Griottines Cherry. Essentially high quality cherries soaked in alcohol.

Lesson Number 2: Always use a baking tray versus a rack because it evens out the heat distribution.

There are many more lessons learnt but it's too many and too long. So let's just get to the good part. TADA! the "sponge cake"! It's actually very hard and dry at this point so we had to make a syrup to drench the cake.

This was the most fun part. The cream and the decoration.

I think we have a winner.

My very first successful Blackforest cake. "U are pretty, oh so pretty...."

This was the head chef's cake. Its overly sweet but dont tell her that. For our cake, we reduced the sugar and amped up the kirch alcohol so it was divine. The BEST Blackforest cake i've ever had.
An additional icing on the cake, today's lesson was photographed by a lifestyle magazine in Chang Chun. So I am going to be famous in Chang Chun!

PS: I've started a new label for the blog called "The Stepford Wife" to mark events related to being a stay-home mom.