Chinese b-day cake

A friend of Ma Chan recently contacted me about making a birthday cake for one of her friends. The challenge was that it was a typical Chinese birthday cake of sponge, fresh fruit and fresh cream - something which I have not had much experience in making in the past. I also felt a bit of pressure as a) it was ordered with pretty short notice, b) I was making it without having done a dry run first and c) I knew I had to deliver taste and appearance wise! Not easy as we are in the depths of winter and I needed to source some ripe fruit!! 

It was a learning experience but I managed to get it done in the end (many thanks to Won for helping me out with the sponge recipe!!). As if I wasn't stressed enough, I managed to stick my thumb into the side of the cake when Ma Chan's friend came to pick up the cake which screwed up the decor somewhat!!! Luckily, I was able to patch it up there and then - overall, I think she was happy enough with the final product so a happy customer, yay! :)

A 10" vanilla sponge with 2 layers, sandwiched with fresh mango and cream in the middle....

 

.....decorated with a medley of fruits on the top and more fresh cream. If I were to make it again, I would leave putting the fruit on until the very last minute as storing the cake in the fridge tends to dull the fruit :(

The one criteria for the b-day cake was to have the message "Happy Birthday Ling" - not easy to pipe onto a cream cake so I made a makeshift plaque with white chocolate and piped the message using dark chocolate. As I had some spare plaques, I added an additional "生日快樂" too :)