The Good Dessert Table

I've finally done it! About a month ago I had decided to give myself a challenge of a dessert table and had spent several weeks planning everything and sourcing for props; and finally baking all of the goodies over a period of 3 days. 

It was such a fruitful lesson because working with dessert can be so tricky as all of my resources - time, ingredients, space, equipment are all inter-linked. 

It taught me about time management. The use of the oven for a batch of meringues take 2.5 hours (in Hong Kong weather), which would mean that I would have 2.5 hours to prepare for the next item. Might baking the meringues help preserve its crunchiness - but that would mean that at the end of the tiring day I would be sitting on the sofa for 2.5 hours...

Learning about the efficient use of space in the fridge for both baked cakes and ingredients was the next challenge. We have a regular fridge for the home, hence my cakes and ingredients (fruits, double cream, butter, eggs, whipped meringue, buttercream) share the space with our vegetables, milk and what have you. This made for careful calculation of ingredients, which in turn can make mistakes costly. 

I do wonder at the point if I were merely not used to baking back to back or if I could have staggered the baking a little better for I was truly exhausted by the end of the photo-shoot on Sunday. I do think that I should have given myself a little more time to work on the cupcakes and cake, also that would have provided time for a new batch of goodies if I had made a mistake. 

So what have we here? I had baked a 2 layer (almost) naked Victoria Sponge cake with royal icing and a delicious home-made (Karen-made) caramel drip. This cake was light, hence it made a really apt afternoon treat after the long shoot in the morning.

I had also baked chocolate cupcakes topped with buttercream and baked meringue roses or fresh blueberries, shortbread cookies and cinnamon donuts. 

Every lesson is an enjoyable one and I am getting there :)