I think avid readers of this blog would probably remember that my family does have a sort of a tradition of buying cakes for all our birthdays and especially for Christmas and/or New Year… This time however, thanks to our neighbours who collectively gave us too much cake for Christmas, we couldn’t order one of our own like we have been doing usually… However, we still wanted to do it, just that we had to wait a while for those cakes to be finished plus a gap which leads to where we are now… 🙂
Having enjoyed the Plum Cake with Royal Icing from last year, we decided to go with the same home baker named Bindu GS, who by now calls her venture as Cake House… So, the idea was to go for the same Plum Cake with Royal Icing like last time, but this time, mom suggested we try asking for different icing than just chocolate… So, discussed about the same with the baker and found that she is willing to try making the Royal Icing using Strawberry or Butterscotch syrups, though she hasn’t done this before as she usually makes only Vanilla and Chocolate versions of the royal icing… So, I suggested that she make an attempt on the Strawberry version and for portability suggested that she make the cake with shorter diameter and then add another layer of icing in between for the increased height, thereby making this a two-layered cake… For the icing in between, I chose to have her do the Chocolate royal icing thereby making that classic combination part of the cake.
Hence this is the Plum Cake with Strawberry and Chocolate Royal Icing and it arrived as shown in the pic above and the ones below… Of-course, as always, I did ask the baker to put in extra icing, cause of how much my dad loved to eat royal icing (otherwise I won’t get enough to have with the cake you see) and so if you think this cake has too much icing, thats the reason why its so 😛 I must however say that I didn’t quite expect this cake to look this good… All of us just loved the colour and the flower decorations that has been done with the Icings… I guess this would be the perfect look for a cake on Valentine’s Day 😉
Unfortunately, the cake had to be cut for the taste to the enjoyed… The two-layer structure can be clearly seen in the pics below… The Cake itself appeared to have a good amount of dry fruits and nuts as expected from a Plum Cake… The Chocolate icing looked thick enough for the size of the layers of the cake… Texture-wise, I felt that the cake was indeed soft but dense enough as Plums Cakes typically are and it had just the right amount of moisture as well… The Chocolate Icing had that Fudge like texture to it like last time and the Strawberry Icing had that typical slightly grainy texture thats typically found in royal icing but it too had that fudge like richness to it though not as much as the chocolate icing which was exactly like the Russian Chocolates that I have had before… Coming to the taste, I liked the cake a lot more than I did last time simply cause, the flavours felt well balanced with just the right amount of sweetness throughout the cake… I mean even though the cake has this much icing on it, the overall sweetness didn’t feel too much like it did last time as she seems to have balanced it by reducing the sweetness in the cake… So, no sugar rush this time… 🙂 As for the cake itself, being not overpowered by sweetness, I could taste all the ingredients individually and that felt very good… Once again, no taste of wine / rum even though the baker said that the fruits and nuts have been thoroughly soaking in it this time, and instead there is the taste of butter throughout the cake…
Overall, all of us simply loved this cake… My dad even mentioned that this is the best cake he has ever had from Trivandrum and that it even reminded him of his childhood favourite cakes from the old Citizen Bakery that used to exist in Kozhikode where he grew up and hence feels extremely happy to have gotten to experience that old taste once again… Of-course this home baker is not related to that old bakery in any way (I asked 😛 ) but I think this proves that she is definitely one of the best Plum Cake makers here… Anyways, feel free to contact her through the Cake House page and try her plum cake or any other cake and let me know in the comments section below… Have a nice day 🙂
