JSkilling

My camera, which I um, dropped, is due back tomorrow so I can post some new pictures of my current crop then.

Double A HA! That would do it, though it still doesn't have enough cocoa in it for me, which is why the Woolley cake is working so nicely. And as much as I generally like dutched, in this application I'm mixing about 1/2 cup of dutched with the other cup natural. I love the deeper flavor. And it's just good ole Hersheys.

I tried the "She Ain't Heavy Cake" as well and was disappointed with it. The cocoa flavor is not strong enough, it's not sweet enough and it was very dense when I made, though that's probably my fault for halving the recipe and using two eggs in it. The Woolley cake is beating everything I've made so far and it gets raves from my tasters. What I like is it's fine for a kid's cake but it gets nicely dressed up with that lovely Herme caramel chocolate ganache and some hazelnut buttercream (going to try it with the Nutella on Thursday instead of making a ganache out of Gianduja).

Thanks, Keith! I'll make them thinner and shorter!!

Pam, In the end I think the Dunn book is the best for helping me to understand how to form the flowers. His instructions are clear and once you understand what you are going to be doing you can follow along fairly well. The Woolley book is less step by step and the directions are hand drawn as opposed to good photography, which makes a big difference. The Alison Proctor book is also nice but less usable in the types of flowers she shows you how to make or at least for what I want to do right now. I also have Toba Garrett's cake book and like that for some very simple instructions on roses. I'm going to look at the other Dunn books to see what they are like as well. Now that I know more about the process I think I'll be better able to evaluate whether or not they'll be for me. The time spent with someone is INVALUABLE. Now as I look at this very close up picture I can see how I needed to get those edges thinner and how I could have shaped and formed petals better. I don't think I'd have had the feel withouth that hands on time. And maybe for some of the more complicated flowers or to get a feel for better coloring, I'll spend some time in another class... Thanks for the kind words! For my first cake I've decorated in about 20 some years it's not bad... Now I'll graduate to 6 inches!

Eons later, I have finally been able to practice what I've learned.... I spent some time with Keith and now really understand the techniques in the books much better. I see how much work I need to do but since these are the very first flowers - and the first cake - I've done since what I did with Keith I'm pretty happy with the way they came out. The cake is teeny! It's the size of my dessert rings and was just to get the feel of the fondant on cake and to try out flowers. As cute as it is someone would have to pay way too much for it to be worth my while. Now I see why Wendy wanted to charge $50 per mini! On to a bigger size to try out some more roses and fondant on a bigger surface...

For rolled cookies, I use very chilled dough and roll between two sheets of parchment. If you roll to about 1/4" you have a nice enough weight to withstand any movement and if the dough is very cold it won't move around. I then usually do pick up the dough in the cutter and move it to the silpat that way. Bake them just until they turn color at the edge - turn down the heat if you are using dark, insulated pans.

The link is in the second post in this thread....

Purty pics! The oil in that recipe must be minimal since the cake looks fairly light. I agree with CB - pineapple is a must and orange zest in the frosting! This is one of those cakes where the more glopped up the better.

I think it's 160 to get them safe but I'd just bag them in the recipe. It's plenty rich without them so they won't be missed. A standard no bake is cream cheese, whipped cream, and gelatine plus sugar and flavoring. I don't even usually bother with the gelatin unless it really has to slice up and hold. Plus with the white chocolate it's going to be firmer anyway and it's adding the additional sweetness since the sugar content is fairly low.

I generally find LOL to be the best but I've had fine success with Giant butter and Kirkland, Costco's brand. Sugar cookies and cakes have been just fine with both of these but I made a warm ganache cake once with some off brand and could not figure out what that strange flavor was until I broke it down to the butter. So now I almost always choose LOL since the price difference is not great but when it's on sale at Giant, in goes the store brand!

I found Rosa's site and another that has those rolling pins so I'm getting a couple of them. I have the same question as Wendy about which part of that cute butterfly cake is embossed and how did you do the butterflies on the layers - paint over them?

Beautiful cakes! Do you mind telling which roller you used on each cake and how so we can see them in action. I'm thinking about getting a couple but I was looking also at the impresson mats so if you know both, can you compare them?

I made the SCW cake today and I'm totally sold on it! 5 stars. It had everything I want in a chocolate cake - good crumb, great cocoa taste, moist. And this was right after it was baked. I also made his vanilla cake today and am just as sold on that recipe and its versatility. I'm going to make my way through his other recipes as well and see how they turn out....

If you had to whip it, you likely overwhipped which will cause that grittiness.

I use MasterCook all the time and it's quite easy. If you have a recipe now that you want analyzed just give the ingredients and the yield and I'll give you the info. I've done a great deal of work in this lower cal, low carb world. My thoughts now are mixed. Cutting out where you can and making it still an indulgence is a nice direction because it doesn't scream diet for the rest of your customers. Getting portion sizes down to control the calories is another way to handle it without having them aware of anything "lacking" in the dessert. You can also choose items which are simply healthier in nature, such as a fruit combination. If you mold something like this: sponge cake fresh caramelized tropical fruit fruit gelee chiboust, bruleed sauce for the plate This in passionfruit only comes out to 150 calories and is low in fat. But no one feels like they are eating a diet dessert. It simply takes advantage of a lower fat biscuit choice, whole fruits and puts fat in only one component, the chiboust. But even that is not very high. It's about pairing and how you spend that fat budget that makes this work. And I'm all about the minis! Give me a buffet any day to make lots of choices and I'm happy so doing the same in dessert is great. My personal opinion is that it's not going to draw anyone to your main sized desserts and will simply be another offering on your menu. The tasters in the bunch like me will just order that to have 3 or 4 little bites of different things. And you could mix that up so it's not always the same bites...

Oh my God! One day I was in the local supermarket in my high end neighborhood and the Channel 7 News Reporter accosts me as I pick up my strawberry yogurt. And she proceeds to tell me just how many insect parts were allowable in that!! Yuck.... I just told her it seemed like added protein...

If you look at the ingredient list on the site mentioned you can see what they have in this cake and frosting. There is no cream cheese listed or flavoring other than vanillin, which is giving the off color most likely. I'm betting on a simple shortening buttercream with vanilla flavoring. But I personally wouldn't recreate that and would use a cream cheese frosting on this!

I put it in my lime sorbet to give it body and weight. But you don't really taste the avocado there. I like it as an ice cream or shake and eat one just about every single day on top of sliced ham, turkey and spicy cheese. Yum! I can also vouch for it over nicely scrambled eggs. Hell, I'd even mash it in my hair as well, Chromedome!! I wish they'd get cheaper...

Yell at me too cuz I love that coconut cake that comes in the square... I don't actually remember the banana cake, though. But when you figure this out I'll test out a recipe as well since my family loves banana stuff....

Andiesenji, Thanks for the recipe! I'll try this soon. I do like the cardamom and rum raisins with it so I might have to try it both ways. I'll see if I can get that rice this weekend and try it with that. What I didn't like about the arborio is how tough it stayed. Way back when I had rice pudding and think I liked it but I didn't remember the little "pellets"! And how'd you know I had my hands on that skim milk

What recipe do you use for your pudding? I tried one with Arborio rice where you cooked it all together for some time and was less than impressed. Since so many people like the stuff I really want to try again and see if I like it better....

No, it's blech!! It curdles and becomes somewhat not grainy but textured and separates on your tongue. I'd just scrape it off and top it with a fruit glaze. Or just drizzle chocolate all over it like you meant it!

Sour cream on its own doesn't freeze well. And I find that if I make a recipe that's higher in sour cream, that cheesecake doesn't freeze very well either. Can you scrape the topping off and then thaw? I've never tried to do that but it might work.

I'm with you on the scones, never could see the popularity of them as they are always dry and crumbly. Now, with Devonshire cream and strawberry preserves dolloped all over them, who cares?? Okay, I like the damp cheese danishes Even with my ever expanding tastes, I just love them!! But for now, it's yogurt, hard boiled eggs and possibly some melon. Fifteen pounds HAVE to come off...