Hart for Her 1st anniversary cake

My friend Patricia asked me to make a cake for the 1st anniversary of her women only gym and gave me a carte blanche. She was confident that I would come up with something nice. Actually nice is not something I would go for when I make a cake for someone. I'm always going for the WOW effect. 

I have to admit that I was a bit stressed. It's been a while since I last made a cake so I was hopping that I didn't lost my touch. Luckily it's just as riding a bike. 

A couple of days before I started to look online for inspiration. I found some really pretty cakes but I still had no idea what I would design for the cake. Since the gym color is fuchsia I would of course use that color. I though that some shades of pink and white would be nice for a cake. 

The day before the party I started making some crème pâtissière using this recipe:

- 500 ml milk
- 100 gr sugar
- 2 egg yolks
- 32 gr custard powder
- vanilla pot/essence/sugar
- pinch of salt

While the crème pâtissière cooled down I baked the biscuit for the bottom and top layer. For the bottom layer I used:

- 300 gr eggs
- 150 gr sugar
- 130 gr flour
- pinch of salt
- lemon zest
oven temperature 170C
And for the top layer I used:
- 200 gr eggs
- 100 gr sugar
- 50 gr flour

- 20 gr coco powder

- 3 teaspoons of coffee powder
- pinch of salt

 

While the biscuit cooled I made some butter cream:

- 128 gr water
- 338 gr sugar
- 150 gr egg white
- pinch of cream of tartar
- 750 gr room temperature butter in cubes
- 200 gr melted dark chocolate

I divided the butter cream in three portions. One portion I kept plain, one was used to make chocolate butter cream and the other portion was turned into some apricot butter cream.

I started with the bottom layer first. After I cut the biscuit in three layers, I spread some crème pâtissière on each layer to keep the biscuit moist. Then a layer of apricot jam, a layer of crème pâtissière and a layer of apricot butter cream. This was the filling for all the layers of biscuit. After that I crumble coat the biscuit and put it in the fridge to harden. 

Now it was time for the top layer. Again I spread some crème pâtissière on each layer, then some raspberry jam, some more crème pâtissière and some chocolate butter cream. I used some chocolate butter cream to crumble coat the biscuit and when that hardens I spread an extra layer of plain butter cream. If I wanted to coat it with some white fondant, the butter cream will not shine through. 

Now for the fun part. What shall I do with the cake decorations. I didn't want to make a "jump in your face" pink cake. I wanted something more then that. To keep the bottom part from being too busy I covered it with some white fondant. I love ombre cakes and I always wanted to make one so I used some pink fondant to make some fuchsia fondant by adding pink color. Then I used three different sizes heart shaped cutters to cut out the hearts. I did the same with a piece of different pink fondant. The idea was to use the different sized hearts to cover the cake all up. I started with a layer of fuchsia hearts and after adding a layer of pink hearts I decided to not cover it all up. As the top layer would be "in your face" I wanted to keep the bottom layer less busy. To give it more glam I added some mini sugar pearls in between the hearts. After all this I put the cake in the fridge.

In the meantime I used some of the left over hearts by turning them into balloons. I used some water to clue two hearts together and added a piece of wire in between. 

I also made some pink roses and cut out the letters for the gym. Instead of cutting out the letters "hart" I cut a heart out of fondant and put the letters "for her" on it. 

Now it was time to decorate the top layer. I wanted to try and see if I could make a pink ombre rose. I wanted to go from fuchsia to light pink so I had to cover the biscuit with a fuchsia fondant. As I didn't had enough left I had to make more and luckily I manage to get the same color as before. To that fuchsia fondant I started adding more white fondant to get the lighter shade. Layer for layer I clued all the different shades of pink pedestals with some water.

Because I was missing some decorations on the top of the cake I cut out some hearts and arranged that according to a pattern I had on a stencil. Then on the overlap of the pedestals I added a fuchsia sugar pearl. 

The next day I used some of my silver dust to give the pedestals a little shine. I also added the flowers.

At the gym I put the two cakes together and used some of the heart balloons to make it extra festive.

It's great to start a cake with no concrete idea and then to come up with something like this. Patricia and her guests loved it so mission accomplished!