The Making of Frozen Castle Cake

One day when I was inside a steamy swimming pool building, waiting for my children while they have lessons, I received an enquiry to make a cake based on the latest Disney production, Frozen. Wow, I knew it was a hot favourite theme for cakes and parties, so I'm really proud to be able to get a part of this action. But when I saw the picture that was sent to me of what the birthday girl wanted, I froze.

It was a castle cake with 5 huge towers. Based on the number of people it was to serve, we decided that only the base of the castle would be real cake and the rest of the towers would be dummy. However I have no idea how to make them....Thus began my quest to learn how to make fake castle towers. I had to learn real quick too, for depending on what the construction material was gonna be and how complex it was to make it, I have to give a quote.

Thank God for a Facebook group for cake decorators! I posted the photo online to see what other decorators would use and I got a variety of answers from styrofoam, to PVC pipes to krispy treats etc. After several rounds of research, here are what my towers were made of: 2x 90mm PVC pipes, 2x Pringles potato chips tubes and a 2 litre SOLO plastic soda bottle.

The PVC pipes were washed and sawed to the correct height with the help of hubby. I chopped up 2 Pringles bottles and the SOLO plastic bottle easily with a pen knife and scissors. 

Each of these towers were wrapped in white fondant. I then use the cobblestone impression mat all around. They were then individually hand-painted with a tint of blue edible ink diluted with vodka. To make it look like they have been frozen crystal solid, I brushed randomly, making sure not to cover evenly and to leave traces of white all over. The overall effect was awesome! I enjoyed painting it so much, but I had to stop myself, reminding myself that less is more.

When the day came for the actual cake to be decorated, I was really looking forward. It was a chocolate mud cake inside and I had baked it nice and tall. By then, I had decided to deviate from the picture the customer showed me, to add in my own design elements and to make it even better than the original. I decided to add in a flight of steps leading to the main tower. 

To make the steps, I cut off a wedge of the cake, about 1/3 of the way. Starting from the bottom step, the wedge of cake was subdivided and reattached with chocolate ganache. After that, I basically cover it the same way as the tower, imprint with cobblestone print and paint.

Lastly add the cut-out fondant snowflakes and pipe drips of icing hanging from the towers to simulate snow fall. I also purchased some really cool frosty lollies that looked like ice balls to place around the castle. The cake board was scattered with dessicated coconut to make is look like snow.

The final cake castle was really heavy but I was so proud to deliver it. :)

The Perfect Spatula

There's something I have always been curious about when watching cooking shows on TV or YouTube. Many bakers who show how to make cakes don't scrape their bowls very clean. They leave like 10% of their cake batter inside the mixing bowl, on the mixing spoon or on the mixing hook. I'm thinking, maybe it's because it's on TV, so there's no time to waste scraping the bowl really clean. Maybe at home, they're like me, spending a good few minutes getting every ounce of batter into the baking tin. Or am I the only one who's so stingy about cake batter?

I don't know about you, but I think ALL cake batter should be baked into a cake and not washed down the sink! Ok, it's impossible to get ALL, but almost. That's why, I believe, a good spatula is very important for a cake baker. You want 99% of your effort to turn into that cake and be eaten right? 

I recently went on a hunt for a good spatula after some feedback from my husband, aka hygiene master. I had a silicon scraper with a plastic handle which was really flexible. Although the handle was a little weak, it cleaned the mixing bowl really well. However he claimed that the current spatula I'm using is not good as cake batter could get inside the gap where the handle was inserted into the scraper. It makes cleaning the spatula difficult. 

Based on this requirement, we found 2 new spatulas that were completely encased in silicone, ie one piece from General Trader in Werribee Plaza. One was bigger and the other was smaller, which was meant for children. I put it to the scrape test one day and here's my verdict: 

In terms of strength, the bigger one was sturdy and flexible. However, it did not scrape the bowl clean. Even after a few minutes of continuous scraping, there were still cake batter smudging around. Not happy. I realised this was due to the 'blades' being too blunt/thick. I anticipated this when I noticed the blades were like 1mm thick, but thought I would still give it a try to see how it goes.

As for the smaller one, it scrapes really clean as the silicone 'blades' were made really sharp. However, it was a bit too soft and the handle was too short. Then again I wouldn't fault them since this spatula was meant for kids. It would be good for scraping a teaspoon of batter into small cupcake cases. But for scraping bowls, forget it, unless you don't want to sleep for the rest of the night and have nothing to do.

I bought spatula #3 from Spotlight after my initial disappointment with #1. The blades of #3 is sharper and it is also one whole piece. Somehow I ended up with a green spatula again as there wasn't much choice. Verdict: It scrapes much cleaner although I wish the handle could be a little longer. So folks, if you happen to be getting a new spatula, look out for a silicone one that is one piece, one that has thin and sharp sides and a strong long handle. Happy scraping n baking!

Hello

Welcome to Kekx Kreations' official blog! For those who are new, Kekx Kreations is a cake decorating home business based in the western suburb of Werribee, Victoria, Australia. We make custom cakes & cupcakes for all occasions as well as handmade sugar decorations. Our main web page is in Facebook (www.facebook.com/kekxkreations) for now. Of course, I hope one day we will grow to the extend that it justifies us having a proper dot.com.

 
I'm the creative director aka cake decorator of Kekx Kreations, with the support of my lovely family. KEKX represents the initials of all of us. And it is pronounced as "CAKES"! So yeah, I think it's my destiny, although for the first 38 years of my life, I would never have imagined myself doing what I'm doing today!

My cake decoration journey began with a glimpse of my sister-in-law's fondant creations photos online in 2011. I was curious and I asked her to show me one day, via Facetime, how she did her craft. By then, I had tried quilting and was getting rather sick of knitting. I started with a small pack of RTR fondant and some liquid colouring and some cookie cutters. It was fun and I decided to try my luck covering a cake. In January 2012, I received my first 'order' from a lovely friend, who gave me the opportunity to make a cake for her son's birthday. It was CARS theme...yes, Lightning McQueen was my first sugar figurine :) Here's the pic.

2012: My first creation

The result was rather amateur, of course. Nevertheless the grandma, mom and boy were very impressed and their happiness gave me great satisfaction and motivation to carry on. I picked up a lot of my skills from reading scores of cake decoration books borrowed from the library and slowly, I also acquired more cake decoration tools to help me. My first investment was a set of gumpaste flower moulding tools which I still use today. My first rolling pin, I borrowed it from my son's PlayDough play set. (He kept reminding me it was on loan.) It was so small and so nimble for rolling small pieces of fondant, I almost wanted to buy PlayDough sets just for its roller! I used it all the time and didn't return him until recently when I bought a proper one. Thanks son! 

It has been more than 2 years since and today, I'm starting off as a small business as a home based cake decorator. After more than 70 cakes under my belt, I still find that I have lots more to learn. As I grow and develop in my skills and be blessed with opportunities to create wonderful memories for people through my cakes, I hope you will enjoy reading our stories as we share with you our projects, growth, learning, tips and tutorials here. Secretly, my childhood ambition was to be an author :p

2013: See the difference between now and then?
Well, just to encourage all aspiring cake decorators, if I can do it, you can too :)

I realised that writing wasn't really my talent but I love to express my thoughts in writing. I hope I will always find inspiration and time to write and share snippets of our cake decorating here to keep this blog fun and interesting for all our fans. So stay tuned and enjoy!