Fondant Leaves and Chocolate Glaze

Finally, the time has come to bake the Stump de Noel cake and assemble the creations of the past few days, including the meringue toadstools, royal icing pine cones, and royal icing pine needles. Bear in mind, even though Williams Sonoma is no longer carrying this unusual cake pan, it can easily be found on eBay. I baked a box mix in it (Chocolate Fudge by Betty Crocker) for 60 minutes at 325 degrees. When I removed it from the oven I let it sit in the pan for 10 minutes, and then flipped it out onto a cake lifter, so the cooling rack wouldn't leave parallel lines on the top of the cake (which has a really cool pattern that looks like the stump's rings). The cake had developed an enormous crown, which would have probably caused the whole thing to crack.

I sliced it off with a large serrated knife, and was blown away by the amount of steam that poured forth; seriously, it was like a tiny volcano on my stovetop:

Here's the crown on the left, the cake on the right. That crown made for some mighty good snacking, let me tell you!

Here's what the cake looked like when I set it right-side up:

The pan came with a wonderful recipe for a glaze, which was simple and delicious. All you need is half a cup of heavy cream, and 4 ounces of chocolate:

I figured a semi-sweet bar would be sufficient, as the cake is plenty sweet on its own. On a carving board, finely mince the bar of chocolate with a sharp, heavy knife:

Put the minced chocolate in a bowl. 

Pour half a cup of the heavy cream into a small saucepan, and simmer over medium heat. 

Pour over the minced chocolate and start stirring. It will go from this…

…to this…

…to this…

…and then this…

…in a matter of moments. Make sure there's a piece of waxed paper under the rack your cooled cake is on, and pour the glaze all over the cake:

It was at about this point I realized I really needed to add a spot of color to this cake to keep it from being too brown and beige. I decided to try making some fondant leaves for the first time. Here's the set up:

That's a 9" rolling pin with purple rings on it to keep the fondant at a consistent thickness, a set of leaf-shaped fondant cutters, a piece of thin, pink foam for forming fondant or gum paste shapes on, a double-ended veining tool (part of the Wilton Gum Paste Tool Set; a bargain at any price when you buy it using a 40% off coupon at Michael's), and a golf ball-sized piece of green fondant from scratch. I spread some powdered sugar on the work surface, and rolled out the fondant:

Remember, the powdered sugar more or less gets absorbed by the fondant; don't worry if there's an accumulation of it on the fondant's surface. Cut out a number of leaves…

Keep re-rolling the scraps and cutting out more leaves until you're left with a situation like this; I'm always so thankful for those tiny cutters!:

Then, use the veining tool to draw some details on the leaves, like a center line…

…and lines around the edges. Use the piece of thin foam as a work surface; it will have just the right amount of "give":

Put the leaves to dry on flower formers; that will give them a bit of curve:

My leaves stuck a bit; I probably should have dusted the formers with powdered sugar or laid down a piece of plastic wrap first. I was able to pry them up with the tiny palette knife/spatula that came with the Gum Paste Tool Set. Finally, the cake was ready to assemble, which included a last-minute sprinkling of "snow"; powdered sugar in a dusting pouch:

This cake was a real hit with the crowd it was served to; every bit of it was devoured, because every bit of it was edible! I'm so glad I didn't wait until next Christmas to try out this Yule log-inspired pan; it can definitely be tailored for any season of the year. 

Royal Icing Pine Needles

I think I'm finally in the home stretch for making woodsy accoutrements for the Stump de Noel cake. After putting together the meringue toadstools and the royal icing pine cones, I realized what this cake will need are some pine needles; there were a few actually stuck in one of the sugar pine cones I was using for inspiration when I piped the pine cones out of icing. Bear in mind, if you follow these directions to the letter and sugar pine trees aren't native to your area, folks who see your cake might snarkily say "Pine needles don't look like that." So, you might need to adapt your method a bit, regionally. 

First, I spread out a piece of parchment paper on the glass stovetop and anchored the corners with tape. Any flat surface that's not going anywhere anytime soon would work:

Then I piped a couple of mediocre pine needles (the upper two, as I'm sure you've guessed). I used a Wilton #3 round tip on a bag loaded with the same medium-brown royal icing I made the pine cones out of:

I started by piping the bud at the bottom by squeezing the bag hard and shaking it slightly to get those ridges on the sides. I moved the bag slowly along the parchment paper about half an inch, allowing it to build up to be about 3 times the width of the #3 tip:

With the first couple of attempts, I piped the needles really close together from beginning to end because I imagined them breaking easily. Then I remembered how extremely tough royal icing is; I'm sure people have broken teeth on it. So I started to spread the needles out a little bit. I piped them by burying the tip in the bud a little to get it good and anchored, and then piped out along the parchment paper about 3 inches. I piped two individual needles…

…and then piped a third on top and in between them. Each one ultimately had 5; I just filled them in wherever seemed most aesthetically pleasing:

I let them dry overnight and in the morning carefully removed them from the parchment paper. I nudged them gently from one side of the thickest part at the bud, and they popped off easily. 

Then I mixed up some edible paint; just a tiny amount of vanilla extract mixed with a dab of brown paste food coloring off a toothpick. I used a small, squared-off brush…

…to paint just the bud. 

I propped them up off the paper to dry; it seemed appropriate to lay them across the original pine needles:

I'm hoping to finish this cake tomorrow! I've got my fingers crossed that it will look more like a still-life in the forest and less like an out-of-season Yule log. It's all about presentation!