Crissa's Cake Corner!: Golf Cake

Dad is turning 65 years old. 65!! And since I'm 28 years behind him, man, I'm old too. Reality check! sob. sob. Since we settled on a party date with only 2 weeks lead time, at first, it was a mad scramble to plan dad's shindig. Where are we gonna have it? What kinda party is it gonna be? Who are we gonna invite? So my sisters and mom and I were in a panic, calling people up. Trying to secure a venue. Checking people's availability. In the end, dad said that he just wants a celebration with the fam-jam. That made things a lot easier, and took the pressure off pulling off a fancy party! Korean BBQ, here we come!

Dad's 65th Birthday Golf Cake

I didn't want to commit to making a cake for him, what with this baby coming any day now (yessss, due with no. 4!!!). So I said let's see how I feel by Wednesday (the party was on a Saturday). Well, baby seemed to be be perfectly happy growing and didn't seem to be wanting out in the next few days, which gave me the chance to make dad's cake! Thank goodness I was able to do it, cuz I was feeling really bad that I had made a cake for nearly everyone else in the family while I've been home "on vacation" this past year. Dad would never have let me hear the end of it if we only got him a cake from supermarket. (but then you'd think he would be happy holding a new grandkid, eh?)

Golf Cake. Fore!

Anyway, dad is an avid golfer, not a pro by an means, but an avid golfer. He loves going to the driving range with his buddies, and playing a round of 9-hole after work or the sunset game. Of course, I had to make him a golf-themed birthday cake. Like I said, I am usually not in the country to even celebrate with him, so I wanted it to be a special cake, what with it being his 65th birthday and all.

On the green at Fairmont Chateau Whistler, circa May 2014

Putting at Savage Creek, circa Sep 2016

Dad at Fraserview pitch & putt, circa Aug 2018

The top tier of the cake is an ube (purple yam) chiffon cake, filled with homemade ube halaya (sweetened mashed purple yam) and macapuno strings (coconut sport). It's a classic filipino flavour and my family loves it.

The bottom tier is a super soft and moist chocolate chiffon cake, filled with a light whipped dark chocolate ganache and fresh blueberries, strawberries and raspberries. Got the inspiration for this cake flavour from my friend's wedding cake a couple years ago!

Since it has been super warm and humid lately (hello, summer!), I made the golfer figurine first, making sure to have 3 solid days for it to dry completely so it would be able to stand stiff and proud on the cake come party day! I used gumpaste for the most part, except for the red shirt and black details, which were made out of fondant. I did try to make it resemble my dad, but caricature figurines have never really been my forte. Heck, the figurine looks Italian rather than Asian! Oh wells...

Fore!

I also made most of the fondant decorations ahead of time, including the flags, the Happy Birthday sign, the grass accents, the golf cart, the "DAD" lettering, the "65" candles & even the fondant-covered cake board.

all in the details

I really love how the golfer's Argyle-style letters and numbers turned out! I just cut small squares out of fondant in a contrasting colour, arranged it on the letters & numbers in a diamond pattern, and then used a ruler to indent the middles in a criss cross pattern. Boom, Arygle lettering!

Argyle-patterned numbers!

I wanted to make dad's cake have something special on it (after all, I did make mom a surprise money-pulling cake for her birthday earlier this year!), so I decided to do a "gravity-defying" element, and have golf balls suspended in the air, being "poured" out of the box!

I didn't bring my golf ball chocolate mould with me (left that back in Singapore), so I Googled "chocolate golf balls" and discovered that Lidnt made them! It woulda been cool to have white chocolate golf balls without the foil wrapping on it, but hey, one can't really complain when you have gourmet Lidnt chocolate truffles on your cake!! (plus they were going for 50% off at the outlet store. Score!)

view from the top

Putting the cake together was "fast" since I had all the fondant decorations ready to go. (and by fast, I mean I was still on my feet for 6 hours. Not that comfy at 38.5 weeks preggos, especially when it was the case for 3 days straight!)

customized fondant candles

I finished the bottom tier in dark chocolate ganache, which totally worked with the design I had in mind anyway. Not only was this the more delicious option (chocolate ganache on chocolate cake!), but it saved me having to make a trip to the store and replenish my fondant stock.

dark chocolate ganache finish

For the "grass" on top, I rolled out a circle of green fondant larger than the diameter of the cake, and then cut a random wavy pattern for the edge before draping and smoothing it over the cake.

crushed digestive biscuit sand pit

I placed the bottom tier of the cake on the fondant-covered cake board that I had made earlier, and then piped green buttercream grass around the edge, using piping tip no. 233. Since this bottom tier was made of super soft chocolate chiffon cake, the support dowels are very important to have, or else the heavy top tier would've totally collapsed into the bottom tier!

Happy Golfer cake

After stacking the cakes, I placed on all the fondant decorations, cleaning up the edge with rolling hills & adding some clouds in the sky. I secured three of the Lindt chocolate golf balls on top of the cake and another on the cake board using a little melted white chocolate.

"gravity-defying" golf balls

To get the "gravity" effect of the golf balls coming out of the suspended box, I threaded 3 x 18 gauge wires through three chocolate golf balls, and curved the wire, leaving extra wire before and after the balls so that there was enough to poke into the cake and support the suspended chocolate, and to hold the box up.

golf, beer and Soju.

I was excited for dad to see his cake! Loved how the whole thing turned out!

big smile of approval from Dad :)

The celebration was held at Insadong Korean BBQ restaurant. They had given us "most" of the tables in one of the private rooms for our event, but the staff had intended to seat walk-ins at the other three remaining tables in the room. Thank goodness that we ended up having the entire room to ourselves anyway, cuz my family got wayyyy tooo loud, especially the men after a "few" drinks!! Can't go wrong with delicious Korean BBQ, and Soju bombs.

Toasting the birthday boy with Soju bombs!

Dad was super happy to be celebrating his milestone birthday with his family. And he was very happy with his special birthday cake! Love these pics of him surrounded by his grandkids (our family is blessed to be ever-growing!!). Just look at his smile! Happy 65th Birthday, Dad!!