Strawberry, Lemon and Flowers for the Ultimate Birthday Cake
Happy Birthday to our dear Co-Founder Jess!
The week had been an extremely busy one, so we only had time to put up a post, post-celebrations. Busy, as we are no great home-baker (in fact pretty novice) and yet we decided that we were going to bake a cake for our very own co-founder’s birthday. Well not exactly ‘we’ but me under the birthday girl’s supervision. Brilliant, yes?! Take a leap of faith and let's see how it went :)
Planning took about a week as there were several concerns, like it shouldn’t be too sweet or milky (you know, we had to take into account our parents tastes as well). So stress levels are high from the start, but after reading lots of online recipes and watching tons of YouTube tutorials, finally an idea struck – A lemon cake with strawberry mousse and a lemon curd center with a jelly top.
The rest of the planning was simpler. We drew a diagram with various recipe adaptations for a clearer 'road map' on the big day. Glad that a try-out took place the night before, as it pretty much flopped and I learnt how to fix the issues in time. Well most of it ~
A little teaser here.
Friendly suggestion: Always do a trial first. :)
Here comes the big day! (Where everything could go wrong despite my meticulous plans) Still, as I was hoping to make it a little bit of a surprise, I sneaked into the kitchen early, all on my own, fingers crossed **
Looked quite smooth sailing huh? Don’t be deceived. First hiccup arrived; at lining the baking tin properly. My biggest fear? was whether each layer could set in time, particularly the strawberry mousse. Absolutely stressful, it definitely felt like on an emotional roller coaster ride!
Revealing the end results in just a bit, but first let me share the fun part – decorating the top jelly layer with edible flowers. The edible flowers were so pretty! They just add such an amazing touch to beautify any desserts in my opinion. Yet they are so difficult to get in Singapore, so here is a tip - you can find them from selected Cold Storage stores.
Aren't they beautiful? :)
And now let’s take a look at our Homemade Artisan Cake.
Ta-da! Not too bad-looking, isn't it? Would have loved to have the mousse set fully though. But I am really pleased that the taste was actually quite nice and that all the flavours worked together (everyone had clean plates at the end) - quite a positive feedback coming from a house of rather critical food tasters. With a little extra mousse, we decided to fill them into heart shaped moulds, layered above the lemon curd, just for snacks or late night cravings.
Honestly despite the stress it was loads of fun and certainly very meaningful for the both of us. Definitely going to attempt the mousse again and we will be sure to share updates on that, so stay tuned!
#happybirthday #strawberrymousse #lemoncake #lemoncurd #edibleflowers