sherribabee

I'll be there provided it's not before 1:00 and not after 5:00.

So, what's next? A summer pie potluck? A cake potluck? A comfort food potluck? An 'invent your own dish' potluck?

I figured you'd like that, Elyse! You should make that your avatar. Oh wait, that would only be suitable for 'Burger Bitch'. Hee-hee.

I'm wearing elastic pants to the next eGullet gathering. Everything was absolutely delicious! Before After Pie Gothic Burger Gothic Giant Burger Pie Pie More pie!

I'm bringing mine -- it's a good one! I"m off to the store right now to get my ingredients (yes, I'm a procrastinator -- but that's what makes me special ).

I'm pretty tolerant when it come to burgers and will finish almost anything. However -- 2 bites into the burger at Cozy and I was almost ill. Big gray hunk of slimy, greasy, wet meat. And I mean big. And slimy. And gray. I think I'll have to pass when the burger club goes there. I couldn't stomach it again.

Try KANKA; it totally numbs the area. Is it anything like Orajel? The orajel numbed my tongue and my lips, but just burned and burned the area around where I actually wanted it to actually be numb. It's been 2 days since I used it and the skin is still peeling away. (Sorry if that's gross, I'll shut up about it now. I'm just fixating on it cuz it hurts som much) *whine*

Apparently, everyone has a secret to making good pancakes. One of my friends uses light beer to make them fluffy, another uses lime juice. What are your tips/tricks/special ingredients?

I'm planning to make a heap of chili tonight, so I might bring a Frito Pie as well. You know that little thingie that connects your bottom lip to your gums? Well I got a scratch-a-frackin canker sore right there. Tried using some Orajel on it *throws tube of Orajel against the wall* and it just burned and started to make all the surrounding skin peel off. However, I shall persevere -- I will still be at the pie potluck on Sunday! Soba: ouch! Get better. Al: you suck. Fork: good idea. But if someone throws a durian at you, please shower before you come.

I found a copy of the Cake Bible at the Strand for $12 the other night. Skimming through it has been quite educational.

Ha! That's hillarious! No, that's frightening! And any bride who would make her closest friends wear those things should be tarred and feathered.

Two problems with that: 1. I have a tiny NYC apartment with a midget-size fridge/freezer. Not really adequate room to keep any cake. 2. Even if I did have the room, transporting it would be an issue. I'd have to drag it all to work with me on Thursday, then to the airport, then ON the plane. I don't see that happening. I'm restricted to whatever I can make and assemble within roughly a 30 hour time frame. Surely making a good cake in 30 hours is not impossible?

That's a lot of piping. Trust us all when we tell you not to attempt to bake, decorate, and assemble this cake in one day. You're setting yourself up for a nervous breakdown. bake and freeze teh cake layers ahead of time. If they're well wrapped they won't lose anything in texture and flavor. In fact, most cakes taste better after a day or two anyway. If you haven't worked with fondant before it might be a good idea of make a practice layer ahead of time. Well, I'm flying from NYC to OH for this wedding, so I'll only have a day and a half to do it. Baking ahead of time is not an option. The most I could do is bake really late on Thursday night and freeze until Friday afternoon. Although I'm not sure that's an option either as the kitchen I'll be using (at the reception site) isn't available until Friday morning. Then assemble the cake on Friday evening. The wedding will be on Saturday afternoon. I'm not doing that intricate piping design that you see on the cake in my last post -- the design I'm doing is going to be very simple and I'll have a cookie-cutter sort of pattern that I can just press into the fondant and trace. I'm not too worried about the piping. How long must the cake freeze in order to be easy to work with? I've got 5 months to practice. I've already received a few leads on good recipes, so I plan to bake them all up in small batches and conduct taste tests on my guinea pig coworkers. I'l also try to practice with the fondant and piping on these test batches.

I'm afraid I don't have any recipes to share, but you might get more responses over on the Cooking category. I seem to remember chicken pot pie making an appearance in a thread a couple of months ago, but I can't remember if anyone posted any recipes. I know we discussed the crusts though. Have you tried using the search function to find chicken pot pie related discussion?

Nah, it was just the "as of such-and-such a time today" that threw me off. Took me a while to realize you were referring to the time your were posting.

By coutoured I mean just like THIS (the cake in the big picture) It will be nearly identical to this cake, only with 5 layers instead of 4 and a different design piped on.

They want a very simple cake. Alternating chocolate and vanilla tiers -- no fancy fruit fillings, ganache, etc. Just a nice buttercream type filling between the layers. I have no idea as to how many layers in each tier -- I guess I automatically assumed it would be 3. What are the relative advantages/disadvantages to 2 vs. 3 layers? I'm not going to even attempt 4 layers. Is it best to bake a thicker cake and simply slice it for the layers, or bake separate, thinner cakes for each layer and just level each one off a bit? She wants the contoured look at the top of each tier, which I can only imagine doing with contoured cake pans, as I don't trust my cake carving abilities enough to do it free-hand. I've seen the countoured cake pan sets in depths of 2", 2.5" and 3" Any advice here?

That's OK, bloviatrix -- I had to re-read the post a few times to figure out that it wasn't being taped today. And I even knew it was a live deal.

How might freezing the cake affect the taste & texture? I want to be sure I have a cake that looks nice but also tastes and feels like heaven (yeah, I know -- hard to do with fondant, but I want the actual cake to make up for the fondant).

Yikes! I'm lucky enough to have the entire day before the wedding in the on-site kitchen at the reception site to bake and assemble the cake. I will probably sleep there too to make sure no one sneaks in and ruins it. If I had to drive with the cake (this will be in pot-hole city, OH), I think I'd have a breakdown.

I think I just lost the will to live.

I am going to be making the cake for my brother's upcoming wedding (eek!), and I need a little help with the logistics. There will be ~350 people and the bride wants a 5 tier contoured, round cake with white rolled fondant. How big should each tier be? Should I have a couple of cutting cakes in addition to the tiered cake? I think that a cake of 18", 15" 12" 9" & 6" would look nice (and serve about 250(?)), but I want to get some expert advice here before I start planning. Any other advice/tips you guys have will be very much appreciated. Thanks!

That's the first thing that popped into my head when I saw this thread. Or how about a Ms. Pacman cake? Just a round cake with a wedge cut out and some frosting. Like, totally easy dude! Ideas

So what's everyone gonna bring? I'm bringing the potato pie, and maybe a fruit tart of some sort (depends on how ambitious I feel that morning).

My VCR is being temperamental...would someone be willing to tape Elyse's appearance today and maybe bring it to the pie potluck so the rest of us could see it? Please?