HOMECOMING REVOLUTION TAKES THE CAKE

Debi van Flymen, chef, businesswoman and South African homecomer, has become the first South African to receive a CATIE (Catered Arts through Innovated Excellence) Award. Her win was for the Best Celebration Cake. The annual award is open to caterers from all over the world and is held in Las Vegas.

van Flymen, who left South Africa to pursue business opportunities in the USA in 1998, returned home to South Africa in 2004. Her winning production is a “Reasons to return to South Africa” themed cake made specifically for the non-profit organisation, the Homecoming Revolution. (See editor’s notes).

According to van Flymen, the challenge was to create a cake that would embody a variety of strategic campaigns used by The Homecoming Revolution and would serve as a marketing tool for the network. “Our response was a colourful cake mirroring their most popular campaigns with many uniquely South African elements that is as multicultural and diverse as our nation - humourous, beautiful and proud.”

The cake, which weighs 11kgs, is a half a meter square and 15cm high. It features an 65cm high baobab tree reinforced with an invisible sterile wire frame is dotted with signposts citing reasons to return to South Africa, three dimensional plaques of

the Big Five, a taxi, a traditional tin roof homestead, dolls, sporting logos, and the full South African national anthem: all done entirely in sugar and plastic icing.

For more details on the cake specifications, as well as the recipes used, see the editor’s notes.

According to van Flymen, she went to a Homecoming Revolution meeting, saw the words on their “reasons to return to South Africa” poster, and said “I see a cake in here.” The organisers initially thought she was crazy but undeterred, she spent the next eight weeks designing and building the components of the cake.

Although the cake was prepared for a homecoming revolution function nobody was prepared to cut it and to the best of our knowledge it still remains uneaten.

van Flymen says that most people are surprised to learn that the most difficult part of decorating the cake was painting the national anthem. “It was very challenging to work in such a tiny space, write minutely and neatly and not to shake,” she explains. “Creating this cake was a real labour of love. I was so inspired by the two ad campaigns used by The Homecoming Revolution. The cake just evolved as I played with some of the taglines that read ‘You can make a difference,’ and ‘You can catch a ride in a local taxi and feel like Michael Schumacher’s passenger’ as a reasons to return to South Africa.”

Debi’s Culinary Productions is an off premise catering company that does functions from two to two and a half thousand people. She describes her company as a place where culinary excellence, sterling service and creativity converge. Her clients include Gautrain, SAB Miller, United Nations Development Programme, and numerous private individuals where she comes into their house a few hours before a private dinner and creates their menu as the invisible “kitchen fairy”.

Debi’s Culinary Productions has made its mark in Johannesburg through its extraordinary creativity and its emphasis on using fresh and regional ingredients to bring together flavours that are exciting. “I like people to look at my food and say ‘wow’ and then put it in their mouths and say ‘incredible’. I always remind my clients that we eat with our eyes and our sense of smell before our mouths,” she says. For this reason, van Flymen has picked up a number of marketing organisations and departments as clients.

“A cake can be the most amazing marketing exercise in a jaded consumer world that has been exposed to every ad campaign around. For example, for last year’s J&B Jet launch we did whisky brownies with photos of the pack-shot and for Style Magazine’s 25th birthday bash last year we did intricate cupcakes with the Style magazine cover on them.”

van Flymen says that she gets her ideas from anything from design and fashion magazines, to music on the radio, to looking at a beautiful garden, to the sunset over Johannesburg as she drives home.

Talking about her support of The Homecoming Revolution, she comments that “South Africa has always been home, it is in my blood. People enjoy themselves here. South Africans work hard and there’s a general positive attitude and quality of life that you just don’t get anywhere else. I feel that coming back here was the most intelligent decision I could have made. Ultimately, if I look around the world, South Africa is where there is the most opportunity for me to make the greatest difference.”

Debi’s Homecoming Revolution Cake Recipe

1 kilogram sultanas (yellow raisins)

1 kilogram currants

500 grams chopped raisins

500 grams glace cherries, halved

250 grams mixed candied fruit peel

400 grams blanched almonds, halved

1 cup orange marmalade

2 tablespoons orange rind, grated finely

1 tablespoon lemon rind, grated finely

½ cup lemon juice

2 cups brandy

1 cup spiced rum

1 kilogram butter

1 kilogram brown sugar, firmly packed

16 eggs

6 cups all purpose flour

2 cups self raising flour

Combine fruit, almonds, marmalade, rinds, juice, brandy and rum in a large non-metal bowl and mix well. Cover and stand mixture for 3-5 days.

Cream butter and sugar and beat in eggs one at a time – beating only until combined between each addition. Add creamed mixture to fruit mixture and mix well. Mix in sifted flour in 2 lots.

Spread mixture into prepared* cake pan and bake in a slow oven of 150°C for 5-7 hours depending on the dimensions of your pan.

Once cooled, the cake is drizzled with brandy and stored for 3-4 weeks receiving regular brandy top ups to keep the cake moist and increase its longevity.

Before icing the cake is brushed with melted apricot jam that has been sieved and then it is covered in marzipan and royal icing before decorating.

Pan should be prepared properly, lined with heavy paper or wrapped in newspaper to insulate the cake and prevent burning

Royal Icing Recipe

10 egg whites

15 cups powdered sugar

5 lemons, juiced and the juice strained

Colouring of your choice

Combine the egg whites and powdered sugar in a medium-size mixing bowl and whip with an electric mixer on medium speed until opaque and shiny, about 5 minutes. Add the lemon juice and continue whipping until completely incorporated, about 3 minutes. The lemon juice whitens the royal icing. The royal icing should be light, fluffy, and slightly stiff. You may need to adjust the consistency by adding more egg whites if the icing is too dry or more powdered sugar if it is too wet. We smooth 2 layers of royal icing onto our fruit cakes and smooth them accordingly as a base onto which we can decorate further. Royal icing can be coloured and piped to decorate.

Marzipan Recipe

2.5 kilograms almonds, coarsely chopped

15 egg whites (at room temperature)

½ teaspoon salt

18 to 20 cups powdered sugar

In an electric coffee grinder or food processor, grind the blanched almonds in small batches into a fine powder. Sift the powder through a fine sieve into a large bowl. Regrind any almond particles remaining in the sifter. In a bowl whisk the egg whites with the salt until they are frothy, whisk the vanilla, and stir the mixture into the almond powder. Sift in confectioners' sugar, 1 cup at a time, kneading the mixture together in the bowl, and sift enough of the remaining cup sugar to form a smooth, pliable dough (add more sugar if the dough is too sticky). Wrap each piece tightly in a zipper plastic bag removing as much air as possible. The marzipan paste keeps, chilled, in an airtight container for up to 8 weeks.

Description & Production Notes

This cake received brandy top ups for three weeks before being coated with apricot jam and marzipan (layer of about 1cm) and 24 hours later an initial coat of royal icing (about 2-3mm). A second coat of royal icing (another 2-3mm) was applied 24 hours after the initial cover.

A wire frame was created and sterilised before being fitted into the side of the cake to support the tree and then plastic icing (modeling icing) was applied to cover the frame in its entirety. The process of colouring the tree took 3 weeks during which multiple layers of gel colours were applied to achieve the realistic aging and representation of the baobab tree.

After the tree was completely dried, decoration began on the rest of the cake. The next side completed were the Big 5 animals – each done on its own plaque which was then mounted onto the cake with royal icing as glue. Each one was given the antique picture frame border with gold dragees once in position.

The taxi was the next component completed followed by the national anthem and then the traditional tin roof homestead. The front of the cake with the proudly South African logo, dolls and sporting emblems was the final component followed by the borders and bases and then lastly the signposts on the baobab tree.

Total production time: 8 weeks

Dimensions: Half metre square and 65cm high at highest point

Weight: 11 kilograms