Baking is my hobby. Unlike most hobbies you undertake after office hours, it’s not something that helps you lose weight or meet new people. Baking is a hobby that gives you great culinary skills but best of all it gives you the ability to put huge smiles on faces with lovely cake.
I’ve baked a few cakes and jam tarts for the office and I’m proud to say the discerning palettes at Eulogy! polished them off in minutes. I feel I’m doing a service for the agency by giving them a bit of sugar to get the creative juices flowing and create some excellent PR!
When I was asked by the Grand Marnier account team to have a go at making the brands chocolate fondant recipe I was delighted to take part. At the time I was hooked by the British bake off and considered applying, so I was treating this task as though I was competing in the competition. That was until I realised I was being judged on producing a type of cake slightly out of the realms of my signature bakes. The image from the recipe looked like something Raymond Blanc would whip up without looking. While I feel confident with sponge and pastry, getting the gooey soft centre and silky hard casing correct for the fondant would prove a challenge.
Armed with my ingredients and Cath Kidston apron, I pre heated the oven and carefully read the recipe instructions three times. As the mixture started to emerge into what I felt was the correct consistency I threw caution to the wind and divided the carefully crafted chocolate goo into individual pots. After placing the fondants in the oven I had one eye on Coronation Street and the other watching every millimetre of the mixture rise.
When the seven minutes of cooking time was up I pulled the cakes out of the oven and plopped onto a plate with whipped cream and icing sugar. Initial reviews were very good as the piping hot runny chocolate centre went down a storm with my first critic, my possibly biased boyfriend. However after sitting in the fridge all night waiting to come to the office the cakes did not look their best. I should not have worried so much, while they might not have looked like something from Pierre Hermé in Paris; they were devoured by the Eulogy! cake lovers in seconds. As I like to say, it’s not what it looks like it’s how it tastes…well that’s what I like to think anyway. The fondants provided a little sugar to fuel our excellent creative PR ideas.
Look forward to sampling the results of this recipe!!!