A Hippo of a wedding cake

A different wedding cake. i was quite surprised when i recieved the call for this cake and thought i mistranslated the voice on the other side saying we want a hippo themed wedding cake. i said " hippo like hippopotamus the animal" she said "Yes! we love hippos!" and i love making fun cakes, so off we went!

another new thing for me was the inside. they wanted a Pan di spagna- typical italian sponge cake (like victoria sponge cake) and chocolate pastry cream inside. see both recipes below. both of which i had never made in my life, oh well, i know you can learn everything on the internet but i was quite scared of the pastry cream because i tried to make it on my last cake and overcooked it into rubber. thanks to my french patisserie book which is obviously for experts. so as we were going to visit Francescos family in the south, i asked his Granny who is the queen of cakes if she could show me how to make the cream! so i got a private lesson from a cream making expert.

The customer was one of Francescos work colleagues, he is so great at marketing and showing people my blog and its all thanks to him that i got this comission. written on the label it says Fatina and Stregone (this i found out later means fairy and a male fairy, do we have a word for a male fairy in english?) anyway they were quite interesting customers. i tried marbling the fondant for the first time by not completely mixing different lumps of blue fondant together

the red and yellow fish represent the red and yellow colours of the 2 cities that they come from. i made a mass production of fish all the same, as fast as i could make them and francesco decided to give me a hand. he sat and crafted this piranha for about 30 minutes, completely engrossed

so i gave it some prey to chase! the cake was for 35 people but i made it for what i thought was 40. turned out  there were about 55 people and still cake left over! either i seriously overestimated or.. people avoided the cake...

it looks small but it was 34cm wide and about 19cm high. it weighed a ton!! inside the sponge was seperated into 9 layers with perfect chocolate pastry cream inside.  i made the cake  over the period of a week, starting with all the decorations working up to the cake itself. id say about 15 hours in total, it'd be nice to have someone make the cake and i just do the decorating.. any volunteers? you have to face your fears of making pastry cream! but if you have a super granny on your side im sure i can do it, like i did- see the recipe and super-gran below

PASTRY CREAM- Crema Pasticceria

makes 1/2 litre of cream

ingredients: 150 white sugar

500ml full cream milk

3 egg yolks

50gr flour

150gr dark chocolate and 75ml cream (if making chocolate pastry cream)

This is Aldina, Francescos grandmother and she still commands the room, no doubt about it
STEP 1: mix egg yolks and sugar  in a thick bottomed pot with electric mixer until mixture is pale yellow (longer than you think)

STEP 2: add flour by the spoon. here she is telling me that depending on if you want the cream  thicker or thinner for what you need it for, you add more or less flour. i dont really like feeling recipes, the ones you have to go on instinct. so i put all the flour in mine

STEP 3: put milk in a small pot and heat until starts to boil.

STEP 4: take milk off heat and mix slowly into the eggs and sugar mixture

STEP 5: put the pot on low heat and stir until your arm falls off. DO NOT STOP STIRRING. YOUR CREAM WILL BURN AND GET LUMPS IN. when it starts to boil take it off the heat and allow to cool.
* i confess i used a mini sieve to catch the lumps floating on the top in the beginning and squash them into submission to make sure my cream was perfect.

STEP 6: if youre making vanilla pastry cream, add a tsp of vanilla esscence.
if making chocolate pastry cream. cut up your chocolate. heat cream in a pot on stove, when it starts to boil take it off and pour over chocolate. wait for a min, now stir until mixture is smooth. stir into cream when cream has cooled

*to keep cream if youre not using it immediately, put a piece of clingfilm on the surface of the cream, otherwise it gets a skin, like custard
* i made my cream in 1 litre batches and it came out ridiculously perfect
*also good to eat with a spoon at midnight

here we made half chocolate and half vanilla cream poured over budior biscuits soaked in liquer
and everyone got involved

PAN DI SPAGNA- old fashioned vanilla sponge

italian sponge cake made in the old fashioned way by beating the eggs for so long that they become the volume of your cake and not using a rising agent.

Ingredients for a 28cm x 6cm cake:

8 eggs

240gr sugar

240gr sifted flour

a sachet of vanilla flavouring (im sure you can use 2 teaspoons of vanilla esscence instead) 

i chose the easiest recipe for Pan di spagna because there are quite a few variations, beating different parts of the eggs separetly, using different types of flours bla bla blah. when youre making a 28cm cake 3 times in a 30cm oven, time is of the esscence
STEP 1: beat eggs and sugar for exactly 20 min. not kidding. take a seat.
my marvelous Bosch beater didnt even break a sweat

can you see how much my mixture grew from being beaten! so use a big bowl!
STEP 2: carefully fold in sifted flour, 1 table spoon at a time. with a large spatula . try  mixing as little as possible, folding mixture from the bottom onto the top. make sure you dont have lumps

STEP 3: line 28cm round tin with butter and baking paper cut to size. bake at 180'c for about 30 min or until cake pick comes out clean

after assembling my sponge and cream layers i coated the cake in dark chocolate ganache. in the middle i also put a thin cake board on supports to stop the cake squashing itself.
then i put it in the fridge overnight to set.
please remember that once you cover your cake in fondant DONT put it in the fridge! fondant melts on contact with water or humidity

HAPPY BAKING!
the next cake coming in june, is a french themed birthday cake for a gorgeous 1 year old baby girl! cant wait!