Strawberry Fondant Cake

On my return journey from the airport to my house last sunday, my nephew told me he wanted Avatar with Aang as the main picture for his birthday cake. My sister quickly added that she will send me the pictures as reference. As they have seen my previous work on the Ariel, they wanted something similar. I also had the same thoughts when they discussed the main cast with me.

However, when the day drew nearer, I realised that I didn't have the time to colour out Aang! I panicked. Then I decided I shall do fondant instead. And so, I created the head, a Aang-look-alike. Based on one of the picture which my sister sent, I thought the arrow was grey colour. Subsequently, I realised that it was blue. *gosh*

He also asked for a strawberry cake, which was quite rare. I had earlier told my sister that it will be a challenge because I don't want to buy strawberry essence just for this cake. Also, I personally don't believe in artificial flavourings. So in the end, I tweaked the lavender teacake recipe to include fresh strawberries into the cake. I used this cake as I felt that it'll be strong enough to hold the fondant frosting which I want to decorate. I like the result of the cake as the strawberries were very well spreaded.

I used fresh cream and strawberries to sandwich the cake together. Then cover the cake with chocolate fondant. I also used some stencil, which I bought from KC, to print the background. Okay, got to admit that I didn't do a good job here. I hope to improve on it the next time I try again. My daughter also suggested that I put "happy birthday" around the base, which I had initially thought of using a "happy birthday" tag instead. Good suggestion made by her though.

The taste of the cake was pretty good, except that I have slightly overbaked it a little. The lightness of the fresh cream and the partial sour strawberry was a good combination to the cake. I asked my nephew if he liked the cake. He nodded and told me "but the strawberry is very sour!"  Okay, at least that wasn't my fault! My sister told me he was expecting a pink strawberry flavoured cake. I had told her to explain to him on my behalf about using artificial flavourings. Being a brilliant boy he is, I'm sure he understands why his Er Yee (二姨) didn't give him a pink strawberry flavoured cake. Lastly, I want to wish him a very happy 9th birthday!