Welcome to our second design and development blog post in partnership with The Happy Egg Co.! As we mentioned in last month’s design entry our development posts will help take our readers through the cake design, recipe testing and trend forecasting process. We’ll show you what is involved in designing a cake and it’s recipe, how to gather inspiration, creating colour palettes and what fads in the cake world to look out for!
Cookies and Crème de menthe?
For our second cake using only Happy Eggs we wanted to create a fun yet sophisticated dessert that could be adapted to suit any crowd. We looked at combining different ingredients and flavours together and played with various puns (we do love puns here at Juniper Cakery) before we settled upon a more grown up version of the classic ‘cookies and cream’ (our most popular cupcake flavour).
The creamy yet tingly combination of rich vanilla, cookie crumble and crème de menthe is traditionally an American dessert called ‘Grasshopper Pie'; a delicious and light minty pie with hints of vanilla perched upon a chocolate sandwich cookie crust. The name of the pie comes from the ‘Grasshopper’ cocktail which consists of crème de menthe and crème de cacao.
The wonderful thing about creating a crème de menthe based cake is it’s freshness! The soft yet vibrant green combined with the tingling taste is perfect for the approaching spring season. Also, because wedding season is fast approaching it is important (for us as bakers and cake decorators especially) to consider what trends are circulating the world of wedding cakes. 2013 is seeing a succession of soft mint and ivory tiered cakes flavoured with traditional vanilla and peppermint. Subtle lace detailing paired with shimmer, birds, focal point floral motifs and ‘rustic’ homemade look cakes are also finding their way into cake shops.
Design Boards and Sketches
For all of our cakes in partnership with The Happy Egg Co. we consider a variety of things that will inspire our end design and create a design board in order to fully develop our ideas. From the fresh green and ‘Grasshopper’ history we looked at plants, simple white florals and leaves. From the mint flavour and traditional creamy vanilla we considered ice creams and sugar beads. Both aspects evolved into looking at simple lace features and pearl embellishment ideas and how could we translate these.
