Oriental String Work Cake

In one of my previous post I mentioned that I was working on a cake with Oriental String work and that I was also going to take progress pictures as always? I did.................! but guess what..?

My camera memory card showed an error at the last minute and all the pictures on my camera were gone.
All my cake pictures, all my recipe post pictures, all my tutorials --- everything just gone.
I am not so upset about the tutorials because I makes cakes all the time so I can make more of those.
But , I now have no pictures of the cakes I made the whole week. I have called some of my clients who I hope will send me some pictures but ..... I just hope they do.

Yesterday, I received three pictures of this cake and so I am able to share it with you. I will make a tutorial on this technique for sure.

Now, in all honesty this is  my first attempt at Oriental String work.

Having said that; I have seen it being done in front of me a couple of times. But as far as I remember it was always done on a Fruit Cake that was covered in Marzipan and then coated in Royal Icing. That makes the cake a lot more stable to flip a hundred times.

Here I used my Chocolate Pound Cake recipe with two layers of my chocolate buttercream. And of course Royal Icing. Yes two layers of chocolate buttercream making it even more unstable. Boy was I scared. Why Chocolate Cake?

Now a days no one ever orders a fruit cake. Not here at least. In fact the kids and teenagers want nothing other than Chocolate Cake and that too rich, moist chocolate cake.
As kids my mom made fruit cakes all the time and we loved them, I still do. But my husband and kids never eat fruit cake. Made by me or anybody else.
I do have a few friends here that are in their sixties and they order a fruit cake from me almost every anniversary.

Plus, this techniques takes for ever to finish. It is a very delicate and tedious process. Patience is a virtue when doing this technique. Not to mention the stress that goes with it.
And let's face it; no one is going to pay me for the time and effort I have to put on this cake, because most people don't know how long or how these are done. So unless I'm doing it for fun or to show off my cake decorating skill, I don't really think anyone is going to order this cake in my business.

I loved working on this cake and I must say I felt like an artist. It bothers me to think that today the appreciation for these types of sugar art are almost dying in some parts of the world.
In Asia and the UK people still know and appreciate these Royal Icing works as well as enjoy fruit cakes. I myself had three tiers of rich fruit cake for my wedding with lots of sugar flowers six years ago.

I really feel so terrible that I lost all those pictures including the progress pictures. I wish I could have shared them with you.
Ah well, we'll just have to wait for the next opportunity.
Have a good week you guys and thanks for stopping by.