Lilypie

Saturday, January 31, 2009

To Bake Or Not To Bake

That was the question I was asking myself when I was sourcing for a raspberry cake. It is hard to find shops that actually sell raspberry cakes, because most sell blueberry or black forest, with the most common being strawberry. But I needed to find a raspberry cake because my friend told me before he has a weakness for raspberries. Hence the search.


The white chocolate raspberry cheesecake I ate in New Zealand was really good, thus I thought if I could find the recipe, I could produce it quite easily. Unfortunately, I have yet to equip my kitchen with the necessary baking utensils, and most of my friends do not bake, thus I am not able to use any of their kitchens.


So I started asking around and sourcing online. There are some online cake shops, but even they do not custom make cakes according to what I like, only according to their own recipes. Needless to say, most do not make raspberry cakes. Is it really that hard to make, I wonder? It is the same as making a strawberry or blueberry cake, except one uses raspberry of course. So why does none of the cake shops offer that?


After some search, I finally came across this shop that sells a Raspberry Chocolate Cake. I called them up last Wednesday and said I would like to place an order for the Raspberry Chocolate Cake, to be collected yesterday, but with fresh raspberries on top. Initially the guy who answered the phone told me okay, but the following day, he called me and said they had to turn down my order as the baking chef would be away until after the stipulated date.


He was nice enough by providing me with a list of his clients who make the cakes, but the list consists of mainly the high-class hotels, and calling them up to custom make a cake would be tantamount to breaking my bank. Besides, it is the peak New Year season so it will cost much more!


Finally, I had to settle for the White Chocolate Raspberry Cake at Coffee Bean. Personally I do not quite fancy their cakes, although I must admit their New York Cheesecake is good. Since the cheesecake is good, I thought perhaps with some raspberry filling it would not be that bad as well.


Unfortunately, the cheesecake comes with white chocolate crumbs on top, sprinkled with cocoa powder, without any raspberry fruit. I asked for fresh raspberries on top, but was told they do not custom make cakes. The only thing they do is to add in messages and supply candles. Still, the cake looks pretty good, at least from the picture!


Thus, in the end I settled for that. His birthday is not until a week later, but since we were going to a post New Year gathering at a friend’s place last night, I thought to give him a surprise party. I ordered the cake last Thursday, and went down to collect yesterday before going to my friend’s place. Luckily Coffee Bean was nice enough to send the cake to the outlet nearest to my office, so I collected it during lunch time, put it in the fridge in my office, then took it out and went to my company event.


My friend was really surprised! He did not expect that! Still, everyone said the cake looks nice and tastes good, and all of us had a slice. We made my friend took the remaining cake home since it is meant for him anyway. It really was a good party!

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