K8memphis

Wait, aren't they supposed to have baking soda??? Did you put cream of tartar???

Cool. You'll do great.

I did not check the demo, but I thought of one other thing that may or may not be covered there. Droopy corners--even if you are eventually rounding them all off--you want them all square before you round them--and to eliminate droopy corners you can sandwich a little bit of cake on each corner and re-level it if they are droopy y'know??? Anyway a fine point for sure, but important nonetheless. What kind of icing are you using?? Will you have a top border on the tiers???

Also of course, the object of the smooth icing game is to put more icing on then scrape off down to the smooth beautiful finish. So all that to say, spend your time building up your icing carefully. Pipe an extra fat line of icing up each corner too.

Peppermint ramblings... I think they would be good without the peppermint flavor too. Peppermint can be overwhelming to me. And I actually avoid eating peppermint if I am eating like at a buffet or something. Because nothing tastes right after I eat it. So they are muy delicious, but they kind of steal the show. I think just the peppermint candies on top is cool. And I always wrap peppermint stuff up separate from the like peanut butter cookies & everything else lest the peppermint take hold over those too. A leetle bit of the flavor goes a loooong way too. Just some pepperminty musings for you

Welcome to egullet, atcake!!!

We have a new store in town called World Market and I picked out several interesting sounding beers. The first was Melbourne Brothers Apricot Beer the second was Pete's Wicked Strawberry Blonde. I might not have been in the mood for beer last night but both just tasted to me like plain old regular beer. Which I prefer drinks leaning toward the sweeter side and these were not at all. Since I was running out of corks I will try another one shortly. I think I got spoiled on that first raspberry one I had that I mentioned a few posts ago. I still like Woodchuck amber, so so far that's two I'd buy again. And I think the amber is far & away better than the other woodchuck flavors. Maybe I'll try these corkers again tonight...maybe not though . I need one of my kids to come over & finish these for me. Knew they'd come in handy for something. Ugh, what's an infected beer??? Christmas ales??? Hmmm, need to check that out. Which one is kinda sweet???

Somebody smart will be on here to help you soon. I know I have been around people who can make perfect fudge. Y'know like the famous painting. There is such a thing as perfect fudge and perfect fudge makers and as sure as they are annointed I surely missed the annointing. I make the fudge soup, or the rock candy fudge that looks like I scraped it off the surface of Mars, <cough> little dusty. But I will throw out a coupla ideas in the meantime. Maybe use a thermometer. Switch to a no-cook fudge. Buy it somewhere!!! No seriously, I'm awaiting some good fudge wisdom too.

Except for a few Woodchucks (are those beer??) Anyway, this is probably the second whole bottle of beer I've ever had. It's Lindemans Lambic belgian peach ale--don't hate me because my first one was the raspberry ale last week.

Sebastian, so lecithin will thicken it if too much is added?? Wow, good to know. We are still trying to fine tune a good formula for our chocolate fountains. I was thinking about adding some lecithin so this little nugget of information is very valuable. I only thought to add it because it is on the ingredient list of chocolate fountain stuff you buy. Thanks!

Mine were meltalicious in three days max--dude, you made enough to test religiously didncha??? I just used mine like a dough and wrapped my cherries up then dipped--I used like 2-3 drops of invertase. In fact, I never put in the captions and this is just how I do it but clickety here. It worked

Thanks, I never thought of that. I love studded snow tires!!

Yeah, we do this at work and it makes me crazy*--like fruit fillings in between cheesecake layers--can you say 'slip & slide'--but we do it all the time. Coupla ideas for you--freeze your layers before handling. And be sure to use a 'dam' as it's called. The dam is ganache or sturdy buttercream that you run around the top edge of the bottom layer so that when you place the top layer on there, it has something to grab on to. Then you of course fill with whatever filling or you can just sandwich them together with all ganache or all buttercream. But you need to at least outline the top edge of the bottom layer with something that will keep the two layers stuck together. Especially if you are using a fruit filling, or a slippery filling. You don't want your layers to slide apart. *we do not freeze our layers When you are stacking layers, cold cheesecake doesn't re-adjust like frozen cheesecake

Yeah, are those spearmint leaf trees--way cool!! I love the over hanging roof. It's awesome. A classic.

My favorite way is to add piping gel at soft peak stage but but but clicky here. You really don't need stabilizer if you whip it properly

America is as not as noted for it's fine cake publications as the other countries that have been mentioned. However, we do have a few US magazines, among them--American Cake Decorating has techniques & cake photos & editorials & discussions & stuff--comes out six times a year I believe. Then Mailbox News has zillions of photos submitted by the artists--also six times a year--somebody correct me please if I am mistaken. 'Course Wilton Industries puts out their Yearbook every year with an all year look at the craft particularly geared toward their product line includes foundational techniques & how to's. Martha Stewart puts out her Weddings magazine four times a year. But like Grace Ormond's Wedding Style magazine, these both encompass all aspects of the wedding although Martha's does give cake instructions. These two give usually super wedding cake ideas but again only Martha's gives a smattering of instruction. I believe many passions (drama) pro and con surround each publication. And yes--we are comfortable to share our combined wealth of cake decorating wisdom, including disasters, triumphs, techniques, myth busting, myth setting et al. Welcome to egullet, Dessertm!!!

Wonder what that brown blob is in the bottom of this picture??? A brown fish?? A dead elf?? An elf 'deposit'?? I can't remember--looks like I should a brushed it away before I took the picture--geez, good cake decorator/artist, sh*tty photographer!!! I mean I could have at least cropped it with scissors before I had it scanned, duh. Patrick, where were yah when I needed yah??????

Wendy, per your request, this is a link to a larger version of the other artist's gingerbread pictures that I took. I tell yah though, I just watched the gingerbread competition on FoodTV --Oh my total gosh--if you want an avalanche of imagination--you need to see (record) that. There's a spinning merry-go-round out of gingerbread, and all edible, plus a ceiling fan, some of my cake buddies on tv, and I was crying by the end of it--way too cool.

I knew that boy would come in handy if I could just hold out long enough!!! He got my old gingerbread house scanned for me. OK--the story is, It's Magnolia Manor, a run down orphanage and the fairy/angel enchants the magnolia tree and the little elfs pop out of the flowers and fix things up for Christmas. There's elves fixing shutters and bringing in the tree and one is sitting on the tree being carried in and truthfully I can't rememer what the other elves are doing--but it's all good!!! Oh yeah there's an orphan peeking out the window too. This is based on a real house in Holly Springs, Mississippi

I love everyone's awesome and inspiring work. Chef-boy might get my old picture scanned just any minute now. In the meantime here are some from The Enchanted Forest at The Pink Palace Museum here in Memphis--these are donated for a beautiful charity Christmas exposition and I helped execute/facilitate the last one, the millhouse, designed by my boss. While I do have permission from the Pink Palace to take the pictures, I apologize in advance for not getting every artist's name & stuff--I just wanted to bring some gingerbready good wishes to egullet for a Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays to Everyone I'm not Patrick and my camera's zoom is broken but these are great compared to the photographic quality of my own house, Magnolia Manor, that I will hopefully post later after it is scanned. Hey, ChezKaren, tell Erika that hers is the first one here. Erika is the pastry chef of The Peabody Hotel.

It is possible, but highly unlikely. I think the odds of eggs having salmonella/campylobacter here in the U.S. is about 1 in 30,000 (someone please correct me if I am wrong). And if you are healthy, it probably won't kill you, although you might wish you were dead for a day or two. I once spent 36 hours in the hospital (on Christmas Eve/Day!) from food poisoning. Even though I would not like to relive that episode, I eat cookie dough and cake batter all the time. (Perhaps this is because my food poisoning was from a fast-food hamburger left in the glove box of a car for 3 hours, not from eggs). It is a risk, but pretty small. ← I have a tremendously touchy stomach and I am happy to report I can still eat cookie dough

Here's a tutorial that I did on making pretty rose cakes in the rose shaped molds. Great for gift giving. It's called,"A Rose By Any Other Name" PS. I wrote it with my sister* in mind. It's real simple *She's more noted for her business rather than her culinary skills

Oh wow how cool. I'm really excited. I tried a recipe out of a book & they were ok but not super. I decided next time I'd try an egg white deal also from my book. However, I'll surely use this recipe instead Thank you!

Daniel, the picture of the boy on the package of candy bears a striking resemblance to your avatar. Btw--I had Pepperidge Farm sugar free chocolate chip cookies with pecans tonight--they are very good. Ok ok so I had a few brownie scraps at work today too. Can't be good all the time!

Does adding oil help with release? (I'm glad we're talking about baking...) I've been using the 1:1 flour/shortening formula and notice that it seems to require a heavy hand during application. I'm using aluminum pans, no parchment. ← I haven't tried the 1:1. When I first tried the one with the oil in it, I melted the shortening--it didn't work for me. Just slapping it all together worked. Yeah I love those all in one baking sprays. But when I use that aerosol stuff I try not to breath that stuff in. I spray holding my breath & leave the room. I mean especially for a huge pan--that's a lotta airborne grease. Yeah, like you didn't already know I was weird?!