SMOONSTYLE

 

 

The first Epica single 'Abyss of Time' is now officially released!!!!

I recorded my vocals for the new album in a different studio back in April. Due to Covid, Mark and I had to search for alternative options. He chose his clothing closet, because of the great acoustics and I found a studio close to my home. Joost was there on the iPad in my vocal booth to listen to the recordings and give directions.  It was the first time for me in my career that I went to work in the morning and came back home in the afternoon. 

If you want to see more you can have a look at our Studio Vlog

It is a wonderful feeling that everybody can listen to our new music. I have been humming the melodies for so long.  How do you like the song and the video that we recorded with Grupa 13?

For me, the album has gotten an even deeper meaning than it already has now that we are living in uncertain times. One thing is certain; the healing power of music. What would we be without music and art in general? 

Stay safe everybody!

xo

Simone

Vincent wanted a Spiderman Cake for his 7th birthday. Challenge accepted! 

I had no experience how to create a Spiderman cake, so I turned to Youtube and watched several tutorials of how other people managed to create an awesome Spiderman cake.

I had many different ideas in my head how to do it, but the final result depended on the ingredients and tools that I was able to get my hands on. 

The one thing that I never tried before, was working with fondant. I always tried to stay far away from making cakes that required the fondant as an ingredient. I am more a messy baker.

I binge watched all the tutorials that I could find online so that I would make as minimal mistakes as possible. 

I ordered some red fondant online and went to the biggest supermarket to make sure that I would get all the ingredients needed for the cake and the decoration. I bought some more red and black fondant, in case my package wouldn't arrive on time. The package arrived on time, but the red fondant was more pink than red. In case my attempt would be a total flop, I also bought a cake topper with Spiderman design. It is always good to have a backup plan. 

The recipe that I used to make the chocolate cake is from Sallys Welt. Vincent loves chocolate cake, I think most men do. It was super easy and absolutely foolproof. It is a more dense cake compared to what I normally make, but this is perfect for fondant topping.

I cut off the domed shape of the top of the cake to make it nice and even and set the parts that I cut off aside. I was going to use that part of the cake to make cake pops for the children's birthday party. Cake pops are always a great treat for kids. 

Sealing off the cake with two layers of dark and milk chocolate ganache. 

Sally has a great converter on her website: Ganache Recipe The ratio between heavy cream and chocolate differs depending on which kind of chocolate you have and how you want to use the ganache. You can use it for topping, but also as a filling layer in between the cake. That was a bit too tricky for me. Besides, I had run out of chocolate so I just went for the ganache topping.

Unfortunately, I didn't have enough red fondant to cover the whole cake, so I took the black fondant to create a belt around the cake, problem solved!

Rolling fondant and making sure it doesn't stick to the countertop was a bit tricky. The fondant roller worked really well, but I didn't have the right baking powder/sugar mixture to spread on the countertop to roll out the fondant. I used icing sugar, but that made the fondant a bit sticky. 

Going through my baking supplies, I found this metallic cake/cookie dust that I purchased a while ago. For a second I doubted if I should use it, but decided to go for it. The end result was lovely! It felt a bit like applying makeup to the cake haha!

Now it was time to create the spider webs on top of the cake. You need a steady hand for this and also steady pressure on the tube. I purchased black glitter sugar tubes (sorry, I don't know the name in English) that you use to decorate cookies and cakes with. I bought a pack of 4 colors, gold, white, black and red. The other colors will be put to good use around Christmas time when we will be backing cookies all the time ;)

With a kind of steady hand, I managed to make a decent looking spiderweb. 

I decided to also put eyes on the cake, and I totally mismeasured and misplaced them haha! At first, they were too small, then I made a second pair that was bigger and put them on top of the smaller ones.

I placed them too close to each other, creating a rather crossed eye Spiderman haha! The red glitter sugar tube helped me fix the outlines of the eyes a bit.

Vincent loved the cake and that is all that matters. It was the first thing he said when he came walking down the stairs: 'Cool cake mom', he said!