Constructing chocolate building blocks

A few images of the construction of our chocolate building blocks, they are back in store due to huge demand.

Flavours are Raspberry (Red), Lime (Green), Mango (Yellow) and Blackberry (Blue), all of the blocks have been topped off with the appropriate jellies and finished with our signature chocolate velvet spray.

Matheus, one of our senior chefs, is pictured putting the finishing touches to these desserts which are sold as a minimum block of four. For more information on these fun cakes and details on how to order please see our party cakes range by clicking here.

Burch & Purchese Wedding Cake & Celebration Cake Enquiries

Three tier dark chocolate & hazelnut sponge & mousse cake with flavoured edible flowers.

Single tier thirteen layer cake with silver & blue chocolate centre piece on designed clear acrylic stand.

Royal Wedding Cake - Violet & Lemon produced for The Circle channel 10.

Pistachio & Lemon Cake 100th birthday celebration.

Cake sketch design is done freehand by Ian or Darren.

An example of the sketch a client will receive.

Choose from over 300 flavours, texture or finishes from our unique flavour & food pairing wall.    (image. Dean Cambray)

We have been busy with bespoke cake creations almost from the very first day of Sweet Studio and we get large amounts of enquiries as to how to go about designing your own cake. This post will help explain some the the intricacies and answer some of the frequently asked questions.

Of course we do the designing but we take into consideration the following points before a quotation:

• The event - to establish themes and appropriate design direction.
• Number of persons - for scale and size of creation.
• Is it for dessert or for a smaller piece with coffee - again for scale & size.
• Favourite flavours - we can create any flavour combination but if you had anything in mind..
• Will it need to sit out for a long period of time - to determine the composition and structure of the creation
• Is a stand required - we can design and produce our own clear acrylic stands to suit and recommend this option
• Is there a design in mind or is the client happy to leave it to our creative side - we are very happy to use our years of experience to create a one off for you
• Any allergies to consider - we are able to produce vegan and vegetarian creations, make sponges without gluten and creams without dairy. We can produce nut free creations but we advise that the cake will be made at Sweet Studio where we use nuts so we cannot guarantee the absence of traces.
• What sort of decoration is in mind - We specialise in chocolate cakes and the finishes to our cakes are predominantly chocolate velvet sprayed with bespoke chocolate spheres or chocolate piece however we are not limited to this.
• Is it to be delivered and installed by our team or picked up at the studio - We are happy to deliver, set up & install. Additional charges apply.
• Any other information that might be of use to us as designers - Give us as much information as possible and we will tailor to your requirements.

This procedure can be done face to face during one of our late night Thursday cake consultations at Sweet Studio or via email. Once all of the information is collated we will send a free quote & sketch design to the client. We want to give a personal service to our clients and provide them with a stunning, practical and unique creation. 

All initial enquiries for our unique service should start by emailing info@burchandpurchese.com or calling 03 9827 7060 or popping into the studio to make an appointment.

We hope we can make your celebration truly spectacular.  

Latest Wedding Cake Creation 12.12.10

Wow! What a busy month, they don't call it the silly season for nothing. We have been flat out with orders for our chocolate celebration cakes and here is a shot of one of the latest for a wedding between a lovely couple John & Helen. A summery theme of lemon, vanilla and pistachio was chosen by the happy couple. We have layered Heilala vanilla & white chocolate mousse with fresh silky lemon curd and a crumbly moist Iranian pistachio sponge. It was sprayed with our signature velvet chocolate spray and finished with one of our 'avant garde' chocolate pieces. We hope John & Helen had a fantastic day, which we are sure was fantastic as it was held at Hellenic Republic (yum!), and we wish them all of the best for the future.
We will post some festive desserts and chocolate pieces that we have been working on in our next instalment, but until then, enjoy the season.

Wedding Cake 14.11.10

Phew! Another weekend and another few cakes, this one was really fun. It was commissioned for a lovely couple who were married on Sunday, they designed the flavours and a few of the visual element and we put it together for them. The cake consisted of 'Tarakan' & 'Nayarit' chocolates from Chocovic made into a mousse. It also had raspberry mayonnaise, tarragon crunchy meringue, brownie and Murray River salted caramel. We also produce a specially designed antique chocolate piece for the top of the cake and each guest had a mini version of the main cake to prevent all that unattractive cake cutting that so often happens. We wish the couple a happy life and look forward to making more delicious creations such as these. Thanks to Kate from Bright Young things and the owners of the Emerald Peacock in the city for all of their help.

Bright Young Things   http://www.brightyoungthings.net.au/
The Emerald Peacock  http://www.theemeraldpeacock.com/

Wedding Cake 06.11.10

We have been very busy with our unique designer wedding cakes lately. It seems we are doing at least 2 events a week at the moment which is great fun and the feedback we have had has been sensational. The creation above was an adaptation of one of our mousse cakes we created a couple of months back. The original was a smooth and silky white chocolate and Heilala vanilla mousse on top of set lemon cream, pistachio custard and crunchy green tea meringue. This was the basis for the clients choice of wedding cake with all of the original elements added plus a few extra. The cake was garnished with one of our signature white chocolate pieces and a few green tea macaroons. We wish the clients well for the future and hope they enjoyed the cake as much as we did making it.

Burch & Purchese Latest Creations

We have been working hard on increasing our future product range with the invention of this new creation designed for Spring. We have created a twist on the traditional hazelnut daquoise and replaced the nut with pistachio and have layered it with pistachio mousseline and then a layer of our fresh lemon curd. This has all been topped off with the most silky smooth white chocolate and vanilla mousse. The mousse was made with Heilala vanilla and the whole piece was textured and then sprayed with white chocolate fine spray. A green tea macaroon with green tea clay is the garnish as well as our lemon chocolate eyelashes. We hope you enjoy this piece and we have more to come

Cake Tasting

When we are asked to commission a special creation for a client we often provide them with a tasting. It is generally a smaller version of the proposed finished product and sometimes has a small sculpture or a feel of how the cake will look as well as the exact flavour profile. The cake above was delivered as a tasting last week to some clients who had expressed an interest in Burch & Purchese creating their wedding cake. The brief was to have a multi-layered creation with chocolate (of course) being the star. We were pretty much given a black canvas to create something rustic, earthy and delicious. We came up with this and the layers inside include hazelnut daquoise, hazelnut brownie, salted caramel and pear jelly. We garnished the tasting cake with chocolate flowers, toasted hazelnuts, hazelnut cream and charred poached pear. We'll let you know how we go once it's been approved or revised.

Latest Bespoke Chocolate Celebration Cakes

We are now making more cakes than ever before and two we finished recently are pictured here. The first was a request for a stunning table piece with individual portions and a 'goldfish bowl' filled with chocolate spheres, it was flavoured with burnt orange and bay leaf sable breton. The second cake was chocolate mousse, salted caramel and ginger cake and the client wanted gold garnishes and the birthday person's name written in this font. Both cakes were greatly received and enjoyed and we really enjoy working closely with our clients to give them the best possible product.

The Architecture Of A Celebration Cake

The Chocolate & Orange Wedding Creation Assembled Yesterday.

Initial Sketch After Consultation With The Clients.

Some Of Our Chocolate Spheres.

Ian Concentrating On The Chocolate Centre Piece.

Close Up Of The Spheres.

The 'Jaina' Chocolate Is Bleached With Titanium Dioxide.

The Chocolate Centre Piece.

The architecture of a cake? We take our creations seriously and work a lot like architects in constructing our unique celebration cakes. From conception to consumption we work closely with our clients to ensure we make exactly what is wished. We pride ourselves on making cakes "that are as interesting on the inside as on the outside", this particular design was layered inside with a dense and moist chocolate brownie, burnt orange cream and 'Tarakan' chocolate mousse. The brief was to finish the cake in dark chocolate glaze and ultra white chocolate glaze and topped with a bespoke chocolate piece. The deep red flowers set off the cake stunningly in a distinct 'Art Deco' style. We met with the clients a number of months ago for the initial consultation and then set to work on a sketch for us to work with. The next stage was a delivery of small samples of the cake with different flavours inside, we were told that the orange flavoured one was the favourite, which worked really well with this time of the year the best for oranges in Australia. As our cakes are made to order and of a fresh nature, the cake was started on Thursday with the brownie base being made, as well as some of the chocolate shapes for the centre piece. On Friday we assembled the mousse and burnt orange in frames with the base and we got to work on the top of the cake. Saturday morning was spent glazing the top and bottom tiers in dark and white and finishing the deep red flowers for the top. We then went to the venue with all of the components and assembled the creation there. We were happy with the result and received great feedback from the venue staff, hopefully the clients enjoyed the cake as much as we enjoyed making it. We currently have several of these projects lined up for the coming months and have taken orders for as far as November 2011. More and more people want something different for a celebration cake, especially weddings, they seem to want it to be delicious as well as strikingly beautiful. That is our ethos as well, why pay for a cake for a wedding that no one really wants to eat? We hope you enjoy an insight into the process of one of our creations. Let us know if you wish Burch & Purchese to create something special for your event!

Happy Birthday Tigger!!

One of the fun things about being a pastry chef (and there are lots!!), is being able to create special cakes for our friends and family. Our friend Tigger is over from the UK and its his birthday which gave us the perfect opportunity for us to help him celebrate by creating this unique, chocolate and cherry layered surprise. Chocovic provided the chocolate for this delicious creation which has a beautiful soaked sponge base, lemon curd and cherry jelly filling. It has been hand sprayed in our trademark style and we cant wait to tuck into it tonight at his birthday celebration. Happy Birthday Tig.

Tig's website is http://www2.hud.ac.uk/mhm/history/research/cricket/ in case you are into cricket research on an intellectual level!