Cake Decorating

I am currently doing course 4 of the Wilton cake decorating courses – this course focuses on fondant and gumpaste. To be honest it probably isn’t worth doing – well, that’s not quite right. The four lessons could quite easily be condensed down into two lessons. I actually had to miss a lesson last week as well as we were away on holiday.

Gum paste is like a much more expensive (4 time the price) version of fondant. The advantage it has over fondant is that it sets hard. Whereas fondant doesn’t completely dry hard. It is used to make flowers such as the carnations and daisies we were taught in the class. This little cake is a banana cake and is quite simply decorated with green and white stripes and whit daisies. We were meant to be doing a cake with a shawl thing on it. Well, I cannot imagine a situation where I would put a shawl of fondant on a cake, so I made my more simply decorated cake. It’s not perfect but it’s kind of cute.




I haven’t posted for ages on any week day meals we have had, mostly because the last three weeks or so have just passed by in a blur! Last night we had lovely fresh fish (terakihi). I sprinkled it with lemon zest, sea salt and pepper and drizzled it with lemon infused olive oil before roasting it at a high temperature for about 12 minutes. Just before it came out of the oven I sautéed some slivered almonds and cherry tomatoes in a little lemon infused olive oil, just until the nuts turned golden and the tomatoes started to pop out of their skins. I spooned this over the fish and served it with roast kumara, salad and home made hummus on the side. This was loosely based on a recipe in the latest Dish magazine.