First Molded Cake

In the first 3 months of my adventures in cake making, my aim was to practice as many times as possible in stretching my artistic abilities, my knowledge of baking, and my competence in combining these realities into a what I hoped would be a sensation. The second order I ever filled was just this sort of opportunity. A molded cake, or I should say sculpted cake was on the docket for the week. Molded hints that there was some special pan involved, which was not the case this time. I wanted to learn how to do a 3D structure without the help of many special tools, and this was just such an opportunity

The project: to construct a yellow vanilla bean cake, filled with fresh raspberry filling, and topped with white chocolate ganache and fondant into the shape of a 3D airplane. I chose to work with Baker’s White Chocolate blocks since I wasn’t sure what kind of outcome to expect with imitation white morsels. Let me tell ya, chopping chocolate blocks like these takes a LONG time, but 4 blisters later, I was done and melting it all down into a thick, creamy, rich icing.

Here was my very first bowl of white chocolate ganache. It’s extremely sweet, so learned from this order to warn people to have a strong cup of coffee nearby when slicing into it.

Utilizing my then new Magic Line 8″ square pan, I baked up a delicious Yellow Vanilla Bean cake.  I’m not a big vanilla person myself, but after searching high and low for a recipe I liked, this one has been my staple.

Maybe I’ll try store-bought fillings in the future and tell you what I like and don’t like, but so far I can’t bring myself to do it. There’s just something so delightful about making my own filling.

At this point, I had to make a decision. Since I knew I needed to put a dam of icing around the outer edge of each layer of this cake, I had to choose whether or not I would simply put ganache into a pastry bag, or to make buttercream and use that to dam in my filling. Once I saw that the texture of the white chocolate ganache was slightly unpredictable in how well it would set up, I made buttercream. This was the only time. As I have articulated in the past, I loathe American buttercream, and slightly cringed when I had to make some to make this cake stand firm.

After getting over my dismay, it was time to begin the carving.

Using the templates in the back of my trusty Planet Cake book, I formed the layers into the beginnings of the airplane. I had made my setup board in the same shape to keep the structure firm, piped the border of each layer with the buttercream, and then smoothed my rich raspberry filling in between those layers.

After taking smaller pieces of the cake and attaching them to form the larger part of the cake, I was finally able to ganache the whole beast. To my surprise, I discovered that white chocolate, though a little less predictable in terms of texture, is far easier to smooth onto a cake than dark chocolate ganache. What I thought was going to be a massive challenge, actually fell into place quite easily.

After short bursts in the freezer and some patient hot-knifing, my form was ready for fondant.

Unfortunately, I had miscalculated on the amount of fondant I needed to make, so the love of my life ran out and got me what I needed for a quick batch of marshmallow fondant, which I used to cover the display board.

Miscalculating the weight of the cake was also a big mistake, and after diverting a minor disaster by catching it before it fell to the ground, I decided to leave it on a flat surface as much as possible.

Thanks to my assistant for the day, Mahan, I was able to get the details slapped on the delicious creation.

This was the final result. Not too shabby for my second cake order ever. More stories to come.

The Saga Begins

With much excitement, I received my first official cake order last November. As it turned out, it was a LOT of firsts for me. It was my first attempt at a square cake, which is a skill in and of itself to master. However, I had to make two square cakes in order to give it two tiers, which means that it was my first time ever stacking a cake. To top it off, it was my first attempt at making something I designed myself. Needless to say, I learned a lot.

And so it all began… the customer wanted two separate cake flavors to offset the giant amount of chocolate ganache that would cover the cake, so I included alternating layers of Chocolate Mud and Yellow Vanilla Bean.

Once deliciously smothered in dark ganache, the bottom tier was ready for a few minutes in the freezer so I could quickly hot knife it.

For my first time hot knifing a square cake, I think I did pretty well. Side note: when I stick a cake in the freezer for a few minutes to get the ganache to set up, I generally place a piece of waxed paper over a flat cookie sheet or broiler pan. That way, there’s no lip on the pan to have to deal with when I take the cake off of it to transfer it to my turntable.

Oddly enough, hot knifing the smaller tier was slightly more difficult. To create perfect corners and sharp edges, I do much better on a larger surface. Don’t ask me why.

Now for the fondant! This is a picture of the top tier. November in Kansas City is generally pretty dry, but you wouldn’t believe the trouble I had rolling out this fondant! Humidity was my enemy, but I was able to patch the look of it for a smoother finished product.

I skipped a few steps in taking pictures because I was, you guessed it, pressed for time. Don’t worry, I’ve learned my lesson. In a future post, I’ll show you how I stack cakes. To my relief, stacking this cake was a breeze.

Just in case you haven’t realized this by now, when I’m nearing the end of my creation, pictures with extremely cluttered backgrounds generally mean I’m in a hurry. No apologies- just warnings.

Somehow I was able to tackle this beast. It must have weighed 30 pounds! (Something I didn’t think about until I was trying to carry it out to my car!

One more first: making a fondant ribbon. I’m still not a master of this technique, but that’s why we have future posts, right? Finally, I was able to deliver my very first cake order. One minor problem, other than the fact that I almost lost this thing taking a slightly sharp turn (don’t worry, it was unharmed), was that I had NO clue as to how to estimate servings. The poor kids who ordered this beast didn’t even finish the top tier between all of them. So you guessed it! We’ll be talking about servings in the future as well.

For now,  I’m off to get some much-needed play time with my daughter.

Thanks, Martha

I love the fall. It’s the season of colors, my birthday, my wedding anniversary, and lovely things like spice cake. For Thanksgiving last year, I decided to try my hand at a recipe I found on Martha Stewart’s website. It was called “Caramelized Apple Spice Cake with Brown Sugar Swiss Meringue Buttercream, and garnished with marzipan leaves, pumpkins and acorns”. If you just clicked on the link, you’ll probably laugh at the pictures you are about to see. Yes, yes, it was my first and only attempt at Swiss Meringue Buttercream. I prefer Italian Meringue these days, but I didn’t know any better at the time. “Apples caramelized in butter and an array of fall spices…”. It sounds dreamy, doesn’t it? Well, it was.

As you can barely get a glimpse of, by the time I whipped up this creation, I had finally purchased a real apron from a real kitchen store to replace the Americana snowman one I’ve had since I was 10. The batter for the cake was to be hand-mixed, and based on the next picture, you will understand why.

Yes, this was a gooooooooood cake. In fact, I highly recommend you try making it sometime, even if you top it with a spiced cream cheese icing. Only don’t do what I did, and agree to make it along with the turkey, green beans, cranberries, and sweet potatoes. E-X-H-A-U-S-T-I-O-N! By now, you’re probably picking up the subtle nuances of my personality (i.e. the go big or go home tendencies).

This is what the caramelizing apples looked like as they simmered on the stove with a couple of vanilla beans before I mixed them into the cake batter, but I wanted to show you the picture of the actual cake first, because let’s face it- YUM!

This was the beginning of the icing. It took me somewhere in the vicinity of an hour to finish this. Somewhere in the mixing of the 2 cups of butter, nearly 2 cups of brown sugar, and some egg whites I think I thought to myself, “Carrie, there’s a good chance you will not survive an entire piece of this cake,” which I promptly ignored and finally came to the end of the unbelievable sticky mess, semi-victorious.

I say “semi victorious” because this is what went on when I began icing. Yikes and yikes. When you look at the picture good old Martha posts on what the cake should look like, you think you’re going to have an easy time getting it to set up just right. Go ahead, take another gander at the pic. I’ll wait. See? Yikes. The consistency is something I’ll be attempting again in the future, but after eating this cake, I vowed I would only attempt to make it once a year so I can make it to 30 without a heart attack.

This was truly the fun part, but let me tell you something about marzipan- it’s basically like fondant. If you can make it from scratch, it will make a world of difference in both flavor and texture. This marzipan was just a product I found at my local grocer, and ew. I vowed I would never buy it again. It tasted fine when I ate a bit of it with a bit of the cake, but on its own it was terrible. I believe “sick” was the word that came to mind. Thankfully, a little luster dust made it look pretty.

A few edible pearls later, I was finally done with my four day project, and the turkey was taking a hot butter bath, waiting to be dressed.

So what did we learn? 1) Never take on too many projects at one time, 2) make your own marzipan, 3) Martha Stewart is perfect, 4) when all is said and done, as long as the overall product tastes great, your guests will forgive you if it’s a little messy- that’s what mine did anyway.

…and yes, I am only showing you the most flattering pictures I have of this cake.

YUM!

Experiment Number Two: Monster Cupcakes

After completing my first cake back in October 2009, I was well on my way to my second project: cupcakes for a friend’s birthday party, which happened to fall on the very next day. It was the 31st, so instead of coming up with a costume last-minute, I dressed my cupcakes up instead. The golden lesson I learned from the weekend was this: when you’re just learning how to do the decorating bit, DON’T schedule yourself for two events in one weekend. I had to learn this the hard way a couple of times. Again, Paris Cutler’s Planet Cake book was my inspiration. Don’t worry, though, I do get more independently creative as time goes on.

This was a vanilla cupcake recipe. One issue has baffled me throughout my exploration of cake making, and I have yet to resolve it; I cannot for the life of me find a vanilla cake recipe that I like. Now, hang on a minute, because all of you vanilla lovers out there tend to defend it to the death. I typically use a yellow vanilla bean recipe that is a massive crowd-pleaser. The standard white vanilla recipe, however, never sits well with me. Call it personal preference, call it stubbornness, call it poor taste, but I hate white cake. The batter tastes delicious (yes, we have already established that I’m of the dangerous category of person who enjoys a spoonful of raw batter), but the baked product is often dry and hard.

I had high hopes for this batch, and everyone at the party enjoyed them, but once cooked, they left me wishing I had chocolate. (Take that with a grain of salt… I do prefer chocolate over vanilla 9 times out of 10).

Here they are, ready to go in the oven next to the dark ganache, and my first cooling chocolate cake. No, I didn’t do something wrong and screw up the batch. Side note: every white vanilla cake recipe I’ve ever eaten or baked has been sub-par.

As you can see, the cupcakes turned out beautiful. A very small dome on the top made them easy to decorate. When you are making cupcakes, though, remember to allow them to cool completely and then cover them right away if you do not intend to decorate them until later. I heard a baker once say, “Air is cake’s natural enemy.” It’s true especially for cupcakes because of their smaller size.

Before ganaching my cupcakes, I trimmed off the slight dome so I had a flatter surface to work on, brushed them with some sugar syrup, and then went to town. Hot knifing goes for this as well.

This was me racing against the clock to once again finish my project before I ran out of time. I had a blast, but as you can see, I donned the pajamas as well as an apron made for me by my aunt when I was about 10 years old.

Once the hot knifing was done, a short brush of more syrup paved the way for the application of the fondant. I learned that cupcakes are FAR more time consuming than cakes… or at least they can be. To simplify the process, I created somewhat of a one-woman assembly line. The lesson of the day: remember to keep those suckers covered! Fondant can dry out quickly, especially on a dry day.

…And voila! Now, if you happen to purchase a copy of Planet Cake, you’ll notice that I used brown fondant instead of black for the mouth. This was only because I didn’t discover until the day I had to have them finished that I did not yet own black color paste, providing me with yet another lesson; MAKE SURE YOU HAVE EVERYTHING YOU NEED BEFORE YOU BEGIN. Sometimes I get so excited to start that I skip a few steps.

Another thing you will notice upon seeing these cupcakes in the Planet Cake book is that I used different sized triangles to make the teeth. I wanted to add a little personal touch and character to each of the cupcakes, rather than making them 100% uniform.

Side note: I have only made cupcakes one time since this day. They’re fun and all, but I prefer to work with larger surfaces.

Numero Uno

The pictures you are about to see are from my first cake. As people look through these pictures, the number one question that comes up is, “What book are you using to learn how to do this?!” Well, here’s my big secret: a huge portion of my knowledge of cakes comes from a book called Planet Cake by Paris Cutler.  It’s a fantastic book for anyone just getting started. Buy it, read it, love it!

One more thing you should know about the pictures you will be seeing over the next several posts is that my former kitchen was horrible for getting good shots. With almost no natural lighting to speak of, you’ll have to excuse the darkness of many of the pictures. I make no apologies for the mess. Baking is messy, and so is decorating. Thankfully, I have a new home with a much brighter kitchen, and in the next year it will be remodeled and even better.

Chocolate Mud Cake was on the menu for this birthday cake. The birthday girl informed me that all she wanted was chocolate, so I topped it with dark chocolate ganache, but we’ll talk about that in a minute. Rule number one: get good pans. Rule number two: if a cake is 8″ or more, use a “flower nail” which can easily be purchased at a local craft or baking supply store and insert it into the center of the batter. Your cake cooks evenly and doesn’t end up with a huge dome once it’s finished baking.

You better believe I licked this bowl clean. And to all of those labels that say “Do NOT consume uncooked batter”, I say “Put a cork in it! We’ve all been doing it for years.”

Rule number three: I live by the “butter that pan like crazy” rule to keep the cake from sticking. I butter the pan itself, and then cut out waxed paper to line the bottom of it and place a collar of waxed paper around the side of the pan. And yes, I butter the waxed paper after I do that. It works like a charm. Rule number four: when baking any cake, never bake the cake higher than 350° F (unless you live in high altitude… if you do, I have no idea what to tell you because I’ve lived on the great plains my entire life). This particular cake cooks best at 325°F.

Now, isn’t that just gorgeous! Note the even top of the cake. The cake pan I used for this project was a 3″ deep aluminum pan with straight vertical sides. Rule number five: leave that cake alone until it’s completely cooled.

While our cake is cooling, let’s talk chocolate. Ganache is by far one of my favorite ways to ice a cake. It locks in the moisture of the cake, and adds a decadent touch that tends to surprise your guests. Most people expect to sink their teeth into a slice of cake that’s mostly dry, spongy, and covered in crystalline buttercream. Let me just say here, that I cannot stand American buttercream. I find the stuff revolting. Forgive me, but it would be better titled “Criscocream”, and that to me is unacceptable.

Ganache, however, is two ingredients. Heavy cream, and couverture chocolate, which is just a fancy way of saying “chocolate that does a good job at covering a cake”. Chocolate of this variety should be no less than 53% cocoa, and no more than 63% cocoa. Now, you can spend a fortune on posh chocolate, but I use good old Baker’s Chocolate of the semi-sweet variety. I believe it falls around 54% cocoa, and it’s easy to track down.

When you chop the chocolate up into small pieces and mix hot (not scalded) heavy cream with the pieces, it melts in seconds, creating this gloriously smooth ganache. I wait until the mixture has cooled to the consistency of peanut butter, just like the Planet Cake book says, but you can stick it in the fridge and melt it in the microwave in short bursts of about 2o seconds. The consistency is easy to restore.

Rule number six: it takes somewhere around three days to complete a cake made with fondant, so I allow plenty of time to make mine. Don’t try to do this the night before a party. You will be MISERABLE! The best part about all of this is taking your time and letting your creativity take shape. “How do you keep your cake moist?” you ask? Well, here’s rule number seven: bake it, and then cover that sucker with tons of plastic wrap and stick it in an air-tight container. Should you put it in the fridge? I don’t. Some bakers do, but for me, I find my cake stays moist longer if I leave it at room temp on the counter than in the fridge where moisture tends to take it’s toll.

Rule number eight is this: come up with a “syrup” recipe that works for you. I’m not talking about anything you would dream of putting on pancakes. “Syrup” in the baking world is a term for a mixture of water and sugar. Do a little research on the subject, and I know you’ll find more information than you ever wanted. The point is, when you brush each layer of your cake with syrup just before you ice your cake, it will stay delectably moist and you won’t have to worry about it drying out over the span of the next few days.

Once you have torted (cut your cake into 2-4 layers), brushed them with syrup, and iced them with ganache, you can then move onto process of “hot knifing”. The process is pretty self-explanatory, but basically you stick a large palette knife or serrated knife in boiling hot water, and then, for lack of a better term “whittle” the cake down to create the sharpest edges possible. Obviously, the picture above was my first attempt. It takes practice, okay!

Now for my favorite part: decorating. Covering a cake with fondant is probably on my top 10 list of favorite activities. Rule number nine: make your own fondant at least once! In a future post, I will explore all different kinds of fondant and give you my opinions on the best fondant on the earth, but for now I will tell you that I have NEVER tasted a store-bought fondant I liked. In fact, when people try my cakes they are often shocked that the fondant tasted so good, rather than the bitter flavor they have come to expect from fondant. I always make mine from scratch, and it’s never failed me.

Because I miscalculated the amount I needed, the fondant pictured above was marshmallow fondant (aka: MMF), which is simply a mixture of marshmallows, water, and confectioner’s sugar. MMF is good-tasting, but I find it unreliable, so I don’t typically use it unless a crisis hits like it did when I was making this cake. I only used it for part of the cake, but as you can see, the edges of it were pretty brittle when I was smoothing it out.

Despite the patience it requires, you can see that MMF can look very smooth once you’ve finished smoothing it, regardless of the fact that it lack the elasticity of real fondant. Rule number ten: if you’ve covered your cake in ganache, brush more sugar syrup on the cake before covering it with fondant, or the stuff will not stick to your cake.  If you don’t have sugar syrup, a spray bottle with clean water can work just as well (just don’t douse your cake- you only want a light spritz). In fact, I do that a lot to save time.

I will save you many of the details, since you can see the real deal in the Planet Cake book, but as you can see, the hat box/gift cake was taking shape. The blue and white stripes were made from “real” fondant, not MMF.

I topped it with a very stressful bow. Stressful because I was running out of time, which brings me back to reminding you of rule number six: ALLOW PLENTY OF TIME TO COMPLETE YOUR CREATION! It all came together just before I threw the party, but PHEW! That was no walk in the park.

And there she blows! Now, I have improved in a lot of different areas, so if you’re looking at this and saying to yourself, “Shoot, I can do that!” then my mission is accomplished. Seriously. You can. I was just proud to be done with the thing with 15 minutes to spare before the party started!

I didn’t know what to expect, but tears came to my eyes when I bit into this monster of a cake. In fact, it was the best cake I had ever tasted! Rule number eleven: NEVER store a cake covered with fondant in the fridge. The moisture will cause the fondant to sweat and melt. Fondant is basically a million different kinds of sugar all combined together, and what happens to sugar when it meets water? That’s right: MELTAGE! You can safely store a cake of this kind at room temp for a few days as long as it’s properly covered with plastic wrap or in an air-tight container, but you can also safely store it in the freezer for even longer. Don’t ask me how long. Cake doesn’t really stick around in my house long enough to find out!