Typo-gateaux (0UGD405)

OUGD405
TYPO-GATEAUX
INITIAL IDEAS.

One of my first ideas was to make a Typographical design with in a Bake-well Tart. The tart would spell out baked while and added piece either made from cake or pastry would spell out well creating 'Baked-well'. Having the well know cake displayed in a play on its name would be quite fun and. As well as displaying a Bake-well tart through the aesthetics of the design and having the wording familiar to this well know cake as well ill, It could also be perceived as 'this cake not only looks good but is 'baked well' to.

Even though I liked this idea i felt it would be to complicated to create in the short time I have. i feel that having the crust shaped into letters and the baking the filling with in it would be too hard without having specialised trays.

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Another idea I had was to somehow have the word 'slice' form the shape of a slice of cake. 

Or have a whole cake with a slice taken out of it with the word 'slice' within the cake. However I thought that having just a slice of cake to concentrate on because I believe I can make this look more appealing and polished.

To make a start i am going to create the individual letters out of cake while cutting them on an angle to give the elusion that the word has been sliced.

To start, I baked a basic cake mix using a loaf tin and, after letting it cool, trimmed off the raised top to make the block even. I then cut this block on an angle to create the wedge shape. I used greece proof paper to trace the outline of the cake and then measured, drew, and cut out the individual letterforms.

I place these drawn letterforms on top of the cake and sliced the letters out carefully with various kitchen knives.

to make this cake look more like a slide of cake I sliced the whole thing through the middle so familiar fillings such as cream or jam could be put in the middle.

 With a piece of tissue I tried to visualise what this would look like. Somehow I feel that having this layered look takes away from the overall appearance and understanding I am trying to apply. However not having a slice through the middle make hinder the feeling that this is a slice of an actual cake.

Because of this i decided to try something that still goes along with this idea but approaches it in a slightly different way.

 By using letterform shaped cookie cutters I attempted to physically bake letter into the cake batter. To do this I laid the 'slice' letters in the bottom of a larger and shallower baking tray. While holding the cookie cutters down we poured the made a basic cake batter mix around the letters.

 We then put this in the oven for a few minutes so the batter went a little bit stiff which would then make it easier to then pour the chocolate tinted batter inside the cookie cutter shapes. We then baked this for a few minutes more.

I really liked the outcome of this, however i am restricted to the size of cake I could make while using this method. This is because the cookie cutters are only short in height meaning the cake batter would overflow and ruin the baked outcome.

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During this stump in attempts to create my idea, to use up all the left over cake, we unknowingly through all the cut up cake and left over cake better in to a tin a baked it....

When I cut into the cake we were very pleasantly surprised to see contrasting shapes inside the baked batter! Even though the white cake had already previously been baked, I think that  the moisture from the wet cake batter kept it moist through the second bake.

Because of the great clarity in these bits of letters I then tried to recreate the same thing but in a more organised, deliberate manner.

I used the same method as before by baking a plain vanilla flavoured batter in a loaf tin and then trimming it down neatly.

I traced the outline of each block again and made sure that each letterform was accurate in size.

I then cut each letter out carefully with different sized knifes, making sure that each edge was cut neatly so they cam out clean when baked again within the chocolate flavoured batter.

I then placed the letters accurately in the the bottom of the same loaf tin I used for the original letters. I have to make sure the spacing between each letter was the same so the chocolate batter would spread around them evenly.

 W encountered a problem once we had poured the batter in and around the white cake as the letterforms started to float and shift around. After a little panic we quickly weighed the letters back down with some metal cutlery and put it in the oven.

 After baking the cake for around 30 minutes, i then left it to cool. When cool enough to handle, I trimmed the top and the bottom of each cake to get a need block.

 To make the two cakes look asif they have been baked in the same cake and then sliced out, I stood the next to each other lining up the letters.

To make it look like a wedge of cake I then trimmed the for end of each cake into a triangular shape.

I place each cake at a greater angle and put the bits that had been trimmed off down the middle gap to fill it out. To stick these different bits of cake together I spread orange marmalade along each side and made a simple buttercream icing and used it as a kind of cement.

Because the cake is quite big and heavy I decided to use some melted mars bars as the top icing because once it hardens it will be stronger.

To make this cake look more like a slice of actual cake, I decorated the outer edge with the same buttercream as I used inside the cake.

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OUGD405

TYPO-GATEAUX

COMPETITION DAY.

EVALUATION.

Overall i am very pleased with how this cake turned out. Through the reactions from others on the competition day I one that my goal to confuse had been accomplished. I feel the cake lacked in texture when It came to the actual eating of it but I think that the main reason for the cake being dry is because I had to walk from the train station to collage with the cake in a basket. i think that because the cake was slightly exposed, this is was dried it out.

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