K8memphis

Thank you, Patrick : )

Hi, Lisa! Yeah, cake mix versus 'scratch' is a great discussion that anthropologists will have fun with someday. And there's an egulleter who's signature here online has a quote that says something to the effect that if you want to make something from scratch you have to create the universe. Ugh, yes I guess so. Kinda divides the itches from the scratches, huh? If memory serves that's a paraphrase of a Stephen Hawking quote.

Greenbean, I love your cupcake mission statement!

.82 times just the one batch amount of sugar right??? Those are big cookies! Jeez oh man, I constantly multiply and divide and tweak and bruise formulas until my eyes cross. Recently I found myself doing a lot of baking & stuff and I accidently qaudrupled the butter but I only doubled the rest of the stuff for cream puffs--oooh nasty stuff

I was gonna suggest making another batch or half batch & putting extra sugar in there to cover the mishap--then combine both batches but you already baked some off (if I'm understanding you correctly) so that leaves you wondering exactly how much sugar you are lacking. So if you can do the math, that would work. But you might work up a little gluten with the extra mixing so the cookies might be a little breadier. But that's not that big a deal. Or you could probably just roll your room temp cookie dough scoops in the extra sugar and massage it in Or you could come up with something new-ish and ice the cookies with something ranging from reasonable to decadent. Like simple confectioner's sugar glaze is reasonable and like white grand marnier ganache would be decadent or rum ganache--coconut rum ganache! But got any rosewater on hand??? By chance?? Glaze made with rosewater just sounds so spring time & different.

Thanks for the tip. Hope you're feeling better soon. Rest up.

Y'know anything mini is a huge pia--irony of ironies huh? Well, what I do is pipe the glaze onto the minis--I mean I do a pour over then I do touch ups with a piping bag. Works for me. Huge pain in the boo, minis are. Hey, CurlySue, would using a big ice cream scoop help you with doing cupcakes??? I mean truly the idea of baking individual mini cakes in individual mini cake pans just makes my knees weak,,, cahhn't breathhhe...

I LOVE cake pans and all things cake. I have oodles of little pans & stuff. But the object of the game for me is to need to wash as few dishes as possible. Too many dishes would send me to my grave! But I just cut my minis out of sheet cakes--but I cut mine out before I fill. Anyway~~ I have seen those towers of beautiful clever work like you are describing but I've never made any. It looks like they are using parchment and it looks like it's held together with a sticker of some kind. Umm, maybe Tepee knows. I'm pretty sure Judy and Hassreh have done these.

Yes that is correct. You do not need their tool. Congratulations on your exciting business venture. I advertised for help in several areas. One was in the local Home School newsletter. Now I got a lot of underage applicants but I also received some great prospects. And the local culinary schools are great sources--not that that wasn't totally obvious. Best wishes to yah, cake-buddy!!

Well said, Culinary Bear!!! That's a huge question, Jende. Here's a few storage thoughts for you. To keep chewy cookies chewy store them tightly sealed with a piece of bread or several pieces. The bread will dry out and the cookies will absorb the moisture & stay chewy and become more chewy too in a good way. In fact sometimes I cut heart shapes out of the bread so when I store the cookies with the bread, it's not as scarry looking Umm, if I have a nice loaf of bread and there's too much quantity to eat right away I freeze it right away in portion sizes--wrapped securely in waxed paper then those packages into a plastic ziploc. I keep the fresh or subsequently thawed out pieces loosely wrapped so the crust doesn't go soft--opposite of the chewy cookie storage deal. When thawing, I will remove the waxed paper right away so the ice crystals cannot thaw & wet the surface of my yummy treat. Then just a few minutes at room temp & warm or toast in toaster if you want. And eat all you can before you turn 50 or be prepared to carry it around permanently Muffins yes in a plastic container if it's just a few days storage--then they need to be heated in a hot oven to restore the surface & soften the inside before serving. Random storage thoughts...

Wow I never thought to use sugar veil like that--great idea. That way you could do edible artwork in advance of baking. Great great idea. I mean because otherwise you are doing the art last minute hurry hurry rush rush. >>clapping hands smilie face<< Hmm, wonder how that stuff cuts (slices/serves)??? Doesn't it meld into the cake icing??? No it probably stays firm or else the webs & stuff would break hmmm... I haven't used it in forever--mine is so old it's a solid mass in the bag. How does it slice????

Oh man! Now I remember why I never open up this topic!!! Pictures are to die for!! drool drool If I get granted three wishes, one of them will be for a metabolism like Ling's!!!

That is a cool product. If I were making any money on my cakes I might be tempted to make the investment, but as an amateur, I can't see it. ← Sugarveil confectionery mix.... all it is is royal icing with a wee bit of maltodextrin and xantham gum mixed in for the added rubberiness. Not worh the money in my opinion. A friend in the US sent me some because it would've cost me upwards of $46 to import a bag of the stuff up here. I like it a lot, but it's not worth buying all the time, I think. I'm still trying to come up with the right proportions they used so I can use something similar ... but I can't post it anyways because the formula has a patent pending. ← It's only twelve dollars US. I mean I just bought a (cake deco) mold for fifty. I'll grant you getting anything over the border either way is pricey. But twelve dollars is a very inexpensive cake product that performs like this stuff does. And the customer service is priceless with this company. They are awesome.

That is a cool product. If I were making any money on my cakes I might be tempted to make the investment, but as an amateur, I can't see it. ← You can purchase the product without the machine--I mean the product alone is pricey too but just wanted you to be aware. Whole lot easier to do the best you can with what you have huh. That's what I like to do too.

You could do it on non-crusting with Sugar Veil

Oh wow, well it's easier. Patrick, I got it. I mean I use parchment to make my bags so I always get the size I want. Get sheet pan size parchment and make a cone and cut off a big tip, voila. Easy peasy. duh on me

I do brush embroidery on my crusting buttercream cakes. I use my crusting buttercream thinned down with water to do the brush embroidery. clciky here for colored brush embroidery clicky here for lite brown on chocolate buttercream embroidery click here for white on white embroider All three of these cakes were done using buttercream on buttercream. ← You genius you! Welcome to egullett, my creative friend. Beautiful work.

I have a feeling that I should go and browse some hardware stores. I'm sure there has to be some kind of nozzle or tube fitting or something that fits the bill. ← Umm, those cake icer tips are one and three quarter inches wide. You can manipulate it to make it round. One half would be basketweave and one half would be smooth--that would make a jive eclair. Try one of those. Where's the I'm fainting at the thought of Patrick using plumbing fixtures to pipe eclairs smilie face??

K8, believe it or not, that's what Baking Illustrated instructs you to do. Made my first eclair from their books. Other than the odd look to it, the recipe was good. ← Which way, poke it with a tube & fill it or slice it open like a hot dog bun?

Hey Patrick, The ultimate Baker calls them bismark tubes clickety. Then this site calls them round filling tip--scoll down it's the last one see how slender & long it is? For a mombo eclair, I would poke a hole in each end & fill from the middle & back out on each side. You could poke one hole more toward the top on the end so it will be easier to cover over it with chocolate icing. One of the crazy people I used to work for sliced them open like a hot dog bun Well hmm, now that I re-read this I'm wondering if you mean pipe out the pate choux or pipe them full of pastry cream??? But anyway--yes, just cut a bigger hole in the bag to pipe out the batter for large eclairs. But there are huge, huger & hugest tips too. Butcha gotta get a bigger bag then too. If you have a half inch tip just squeeze harder, apply more pressure when you pipe--that will make bigger eclairs. edited to say: you can double back on yourself piping too--I made some round cream puffs that had a snail like quality because I piped them out like a concentric circle. This is a ginormous tip.

Yes, you can do it on crusted buttercream. I definitely would use the everclear to speed drying and use a soft gentle touch on the buttercream. I would recommend you to practice on a small cake first--not on your target cake, y'know.

Hmm, you're just gonna need to get a nice workable brushable consistency. I almost think you'd do better just making a glaze out of powdered sugar & water. You can paint with just food color too. Umm, depending on what you're doing you can get a water color effect with umm, air brush color. And fuller strokes with some of the squeeze bottle liquid colors that are out. Umm, some times you want to add some lemon extract (for it's high alcohol content) or alcohol like everclear or vodka so it dries quickly. Hey, you can paint with some of the spoofle dusts too. Spoofle dust is a collective term, a k8ism, that encompasses all the dusts out there like luster dust, pearl dust, petal dust etc. I mean you can add lemon extract or the alcohol to the dust & paint with that too. Oh The Places You'll Go!!! I would ditch the buttercream idea though myself--I would just use a glaze. Another thing, practice & refine your work on random fondant--don't practice on your cake.

Just make a quick half batch of biscuits like this: Umm, so just use 1 cup flour, 3 T. butter or shortening, 3 oz. milk If they fluff up it's self-rising. If they're flat & heavy it's all purpose.

This is where I bought my scale. I just got a simple postal scale, weighs to 10 pounds has the tare. Easy. Cheap. I bought it for postage but it doubles in the kitchen too.

Whoa those are amazing. So the Elvis portrait is made out of candy pieces? There's oodles and oodles of breath taking pieces. Thank you Tepee!!! Wonder how much time was spent making all that. They should add that up at one of our shows one day--how many years went into producing the beauty. Thanks again.