"Turning 30 in Style"

This cake was commissioned by Datuk Raja Arshad's siblings for their sister, Raja Jesrina or fondly called Jess. I've known Jess since she started ordering cakes from me in 2011. Ever since then, she has been my very regular client. Usually she's the one who does the ordering for her family. This time, her family decided to order a cake to surprise her for her 30th birthday bash last month.

It was indeed a very busy week for me as I had many, many cupcake orders (blog entry: "More Cupcakes"), another cake for Jess' sister, Johanna (blog entry: "Art Lover") and of course, Jess' 3 tier cake and 100 cupcakes. A 3 tier cake is always a challenge especially when all 3 tiers are made of cake. Each tier of the cake had different flavours, i.e. bottom tier - vanilla bean cake, middle tier - chocolate cake and top tier - lemon cake.

Jess' siblings wanted to make each tier different and incorporate the silhouettes portraying Jess in three different poses.I was advised to use only the theme colours, which are white, silver and metallic. I decided to stack the cakes in square shapes at the bottom and top with the rectangular shape as the middle tier. I've never baked so much as I did in that 2 days. Loads of butter, sugar, flour and eggs were used and the baking process itself was very exhausting!!

The bottom layer was decorated in round cut-outs and made in the lightest gray and airbrushed a pearly sheen. The middle tier is a rectangular shape cake made to look like a gift box and the top tier had gumpaste flowers with diamente in the centre.

The first version of the cake... A mishap occurred during collection and I had to re-do the bottom part of the cake

View from the side of the cake

Bottom tier with the silhouettes of Jess reading and walking to work

Middle tier shaped like a gift box with Jesrina's name

Top tier with the gumpaste flowers and the silhouette of Jess dancing

The worst thing that could happen to a cake maker is a ruined cake. Well, almost ruined. That's what happened to this cake. When the cake was collected from me, it was fine but the weather was so hot and humid that the cake was getting soft on the inside. Well, I didn't know actually what happened in the car when they collected the cake from me, but when it was returned, the structure of bottom tier was compromised that the cake moved and the cake almost collapsed to the front!!

My heart stopped beating for a while when I saw the cake. I was thinking, how the heck am I gonna fix this! The time is already 6 pm and I thought the cake was for 8 pm. I calmly thought about it and told Jess' brother that he has to give me at least 2 hours to fix the cake. Good thing he told me that the cake was for later that night (around 11.30 pm) as that gave me some time to fix the mess they made on my cake!

I proceeded to take the top two tiers off the bottom tier (thank goodness these two tiers were intact and still looked as good as new!) and took the bottom tier off the board. I took the fondant off the cake and separated the cake two layers. I put these layers in the refrigerator to get the cake firm for easy frosting later. I re-did the board again (took off the old paper wrapping and put in new paper and netting). I also decided to make chocolate ganache to cover my vanilla cake. The buttercream frosting was not strong enough to hold the top two tiers and I didn't want any more mishaps on my cake. After I've covered the cake in ganache, I proceeded to cover the cake and redecorate the whole bottom tier, I did a few adjustments on the design and managed to finish the cake in 3 hours!! This was how the second cake looked like:

This was the final cake and the one Jess had for her birthday

I re-did the bottom tier and the fondant work looks better as the chocolate ganache held the cake together firmly

Middle tier - I change the position of the photo and name

I actually love the second version better than the first, so I guess this mishap was a blessing in disguise! Am so glad that my cake arrived at the party destination in one piece and that Jess loved the cake. Oh, I almost forgot about the matching cupcakes!! I made 100 of them with the silhouettes as the main deco of the cuppies.

The cupcakes were decorated with ribbons in the matching theme colours

The silhouettes were also printed on edible paper

The cupcakes all packed up and ready to be collected

Welcome to the 3 series club, Jess!! Hope you had a great celebration that night :)