JeanneCake

There may or may not be time for this to dry, but use squares and circles with the centers cut out. If you use straight gum paste, it will dry faster, and if they're not too too thick, that will help speed the drying too. You could make small ones and put them on wires so they're "bouncing" on the top of the cake and provide some movement as well as color; you'd have to use a heavy weight wire if these are bigger than 1" square or round. I prefer white wire when I can get it, it "disappears" better. Or you could make larger shapes (3" squares and circles) and then attach them at random on a bamboo skewer tinted brown or blue (with food color) - sort of like an art sculpture - and put the skewer into the top of the cake. When I use shapes with wires on them, I always put a straw in the cake so I'm not putting the wire into direct contact with the cake. I most frequently use the little brown coffee stir sticks that are round and hollow, I can also get the individually wrapped straws in green (like the ones Starbucks uses) from my paper distributor - these are larger and are perfect for bigger flower arrangements. Great design - hope you'll post a photo of the finished cake!

What gorgeous flowers - the cake is going to be *stunning*! Can't wait to see the rest (and so true about mother and child ... I once made my husband switch sides of the bed with me so my son would wake *him* up in the middle of the night if need be... didn't work. He toddled around to where I was, claiming that Daddy wouldn't get up!!!! )

Pam - I need freezer space at work (the walkin freezer is small, and there's not a whole lot of room for my stuff in there) and am considering a single door reach in; what brand do you have? I'm looking at Arctic Air (22 cu ft), Northland (29 cu ft) and maybe a True (but that is a huge leap in price as I would probably get the 35 cu ft two door)- but probably the Northland because it has more capacity in the same footprint as the Arctic Air for only $200 more. Anyone familiar with these brands for reach-ins?

Sometimes the ovens are full (these ovens are single full sheet size, not like the pizza deck ovens where you can get two full sheets side by side) - I've got two and the caterer is using the other two; or I'm baking 15" tiers and I don't want to crowd a bunch of other pans in. Sometimes I can start making the next batch of cake as soon as the first is in - so the second batch can wait in the walkin for a little while without harm or maybe it is just that there's extra batter that I don't want to waste but it won't fit. I'd never tried it until one day I had an extra 9" pan full of cake batter and no space, so I figured - why not see what happens if it waits? It took a little longer to bake because it was cold but otherwise it was fine.

I also share kitchen space and sometimes the chef will pull my butter and eggs for me at 6 am before he leaves (this is usually only when I remember to ask!). But most of the time, they sit in a bowl of warm water while I'm setting up so they aren't ice cold when I'm using them. Annie's got it right, IMHO; I think you pulled them out before they were really set. Not enough leavening (or too much, or too old to do much good) will also cause a cake's structure to collapse. The other thing you can do with the extra batter is pour it into a smaller cake pan or muffin tin and refrigerate it while the rest of it is baking. I only have four oven decks to use and when I'm pressed for time, I'm scaling the rest of batter into pans and keep them in the walkin until the ovens are ready. I can honestly say I've never held batter overnight, just for one maybe two hours and it works fine.

Regardless of whether your cakes are two, three or four layers of cake with buttercream filling, make sure that as you're building the cake, the corners are level and straight (it is easier to correct any sagging as you're building it). Spin it around so you see it from each side - make sure the table you're working on is level, too. I use a #8 Ateco tip to fill cakes with, and start by putting a big blob of buttercream in each corner first, then piping lines to fill in. Do you bake in 3" or 2" high pans? If you use 2" pans, and torte each one in half, you have two bottom layers to work with - it may help to use one of those as the top of the cake. Use a paint scraper or bench scraper to smooth the sides and top (there's a picture in chefpeon's thread on the flower pot baby shower cake of the paint scraper thing - I used to use a bench scraper but got a paint scraper at her suggestion - it's longer so it is better/easier than the bench scraper). smooth the icing on the sides first and there will be a top edge of icing that extends above the line of the cake. Use the scraper at the corners and swipe it toward the center of the cake to eliminate that top edge. If you haven't used a scraper before, it is good to practice to get the hang of it - maybe make some 6" square cakes to practice with before you do the client's cake. Good luck!

a long time ago, I tasted the most fantastic passionfruit jam - but the jam-maker refused to part with the recipe. All I was able to get out of her was that she used fresh fruit ... it was a deep amber-gold color and absolutely sensational. Wish I could point you in the direction of a recipe!

maybe if you PM Kerry (Kerry Vincent, who organizes this show) she can either provide some helpful hints or point you in the direction of other participants who are coming from a distance and they can offer tips on how to safely transport your work. If you're flying, you might end up buying your dummy cake a seat on the plane!!! - or possibly plan to do your finish work once you arrive. Check out the past thread (end of May) on the Cakewalk display (50 wedding cakes) sponsored by Modern Bride or Bride's magazine for other designers to contact who flew their cakes in (Ana Paz, Laurie Lucov). Good luck! Let us know how things work out!

Carole Walter's Great Cakes book has a recipe for Pineapple Chiffon Cake. It calls for baking in an angel food pan, but if you have the time to play around with it, perhaps it can work in regular cake pans. I've never made this particular cake, so I can't offer any suggestions, just the recipe if you don't have the book. Her recipe has the pineapple in the cake, where a lot of other pineapple cakes have a pineapple filling between yellow or white cake layers and a marshmellow fluffy icing.

I've been using the King Arthur brand whole wheat flour which is definitely similar to graham flour - (it doesn't have any cracked grains in it), but the original recipe calls for the stoneground whole wheat. Although I'm sure you can, I've also not used dry yeast in this recipe, too much fun playing with the fresh I get from the whole foods store... come to think of it, I wonder if the King Arthur site has some recipes for walnut bread King Arthur

This is adapted from Linda Collister's Baking book - originally it was Nut and Raisin Bread but since I didn't like the raisins.... 450 g stoneground whole wheat bread flour 230 g unbleached white bread flour 2 1/2 tsp salt 15 g fresh yeast 340 ml cold tap water (I use bottled because of the water in our area) 1 1/2 TBL honey extra flour for kneading 170 g raisins 170 g nuts (toasted) Mix flours and salt in a bowl, make a well in the center. Mix into a paste the yeast and half of the water and all the honey. Pour into the flour and mix just enough of the flour to make a sort of "sponge" or thick batter; let it sit for 15 mins. Then add the rest of the cold water and gradually work in the remaining flour until you get a nice soft dough (you might need more water or more flour, depending). Knead until smooth and elastic, then sprinkle the nuts and knead in (I like to spread it out a bit like pizza) until evenly distributed. Shape into a ball, into a greased bowl; let rise til doubled; punch down, knead, shape into two loaves and let rise again on baking sheet til doubled. Oven at 425, slash the tops; bake 15 mins then lower temp to 375 and bake til done. I like to make rolls out of this instead of loaves (I was looking to replicate the walnut raisin rolls at the local organic market; this comes close. I did use to use golden raisins in it but I hate when they burn if they're on the outside so now I don't. I like a lot of nuts so I usually use about 350 grams or so of roughly chopped nuts).

Not being "dainty" myself, I've had better luck with the Chefwear pants - have been unhappy with the jacket and pants I bought from Happy Chef for what it's worth (you get what you pay for). I'm so sorry to hear about your cat; my son and I desperately wish we could have one but with my husband's allergies it would come down to him or a cat .... Thanks for letting us sit on your shoulder during your work day! Sounds like you're enjoying it - and wishing you all the best....

Next week, I have a client who wants the bottom tier of her wedding cake painted in the style of Mondrian; black outlines around rectangular shapes painted in primary colors - blue, red, yellow. I've been playing around with some options and am not satisfied with the results so far. Luster dust has too much shimmer, petal dust is too flat; painting with straight paste or my liqui-gel colors stays tacky. The plan is to mark the outlines with a scribing tool, paint the blocks and then do the outlines in black royal icing. I know if I got really desperate, I could do the edible image thing, but I really don't want to because the rest of this cake is pretty wild and it just wouldn't look right. Has anyone ever used a cocoa butter/powder color "paint"? Any guidelines.. advice.. warnings? Last night, I was flipping through channels and caught a brief segment on the FoodNetwork - the show was at Disney and they showed someone painting a floral vine on a fondant cake and I thought they said cocoa butter....

Last two weeks, there have been a lot of chocolate cakes going out the door with a milk chocolate toffee buttercream filling... people love the unexpected crunch of toffee in the otherwise smooth buttercream.... A caramel ganache would be heavenly

or Perfect Puree is ok too - Perfect Puree and see if they sell retail or can put you in touch with a local distributor.

when you grind whole or chopped cookies in the food processor, you want to make sure they are well ground. When I was having trouble with Oreo crusts (for cheesecakes) last year, (the crusts would weep when I was unmolding them; I use a removeable bottom pan lightly buttered before pressing the crumbs on), one piece of advice talked about the texture of the crumbs and sure enough, the problem went away when I left the crumbs in the processor for longer than usual so it was more well ground.

Last year, during the PastryScoop Wedding cake chats, Susan Morgan of Elegant Cheesecakes was featured. These are my notes from the chat: uses paste color doesn't like powder b/c can't get the vibrant colors she is known for; plastique sweats, wrap airtight to minimize; uses callebaut w/corn syrup may need less syrup if humid; 8 days shelf life in fridge; use only sheeters to roll plastique, uses cookie or dough base for cheesecakes, butter in the dough releases it from pan so no parchment needed to line pan. Uses solid piece chzcake pans, if using removable, watch for water seepage. susanmorganelegantche> sometimes no base butter cream if the cake is smooth,otherwise white chocoalte cream cheese butter cream is a good one She repeatedly called it "paper" during the chat and said that all her formulas have been developed over the years through trial and error and encouraged the participants to do the same. There wasn't anything on technique.

I never had much success working with SatinIce brand, it was very stretchy, very easy to poke through when applying to a cake, it was harder to work with than Pettinice and not worth the aggravation at the time - this was at least two years ago and that's when I went back to Pettinice! So maybe SatinIce has reformulated their fondant? Do you have these types of issues with it? During a PastryScoop chat last year, Ron Ben-Israel said that he used a sheeter for this brand and he recommended icing down a table if you were going to roll it out. When my distributor doesn't have Pettinice, I use Albert Uster's Massa Grischuna. At the time I was buying it, SatinIce told me the shelf life was a year so maybe they have reworked it and it is time to try this again.

Here's a recipe for Chocolate Gobs from the Soho Charcuterie. Originally the recipe was adapted from Maida Heatter.... Chocolate Gobs 2 oz unsweetened chocolate 6 oz semisweet chocolate 3 oz unsalted butter 1/4 upc sifted all purpose flour 1/4 tsp double acting baking powder 1/2 tsp salt 2 eggs 3/4 cup granulated white sugar 2 tsp espresso powder (or powdered instant coffee) 2 tsp vanilla 6 oz semisweet choc chips (or chunks) 4 oz walnuts broken in large pieces 4 oz toasted pecans broken in large pieces Melt unsweetened choc, semisweet choc and butter over low heat; stir until melted and smooth. Remove from heat. Sift together flour, baking powder and salt (I just use a whisk to blend it all together). In the bowl of a standing mixer, beat the eggs, sugar, coffee and vanilla at high speed for 1-2 mins; then beat in on low speed the melted choc and butter (which can still be warm but not hot when you add it) mixture and then add the sifted dry ingredients and beat just to mix. Scrape the sides of the bowl as often as necessary as you are adding ingredients. Stir in the chips and nuts. Line pans with parchment or a silpat. Use a 1/4 cup or 1/3 cup measure to scoop out cookies but do not flatten the tops - the dough is gooey so if you want to spray the measuring cup, go ahead, but you still might need a spatula to push the dough out of the cup. Bake at 350 for 16-17 mins. The surface of the cookies will be dry, but the insides still soft. You'll get about 15-18 cookies depending on the size of the measuring cup. Sometimes I liketo sub in half white choc chips for the dark chips. I don't like walnuts so I use all pecans. Enjoy! Edited to insert "remove from heat" after melting the choc and butter

I think another factor to consider is price... for some clients, it comes down to what they can afford and are willing to spend. Only because I can remember that design while I'm writing this - take the Jan Kish design. The price difference between using a print transfer for a floral cameo or to handpainting (takes longer and costs more), that might be the deciding factor for a client. (Writing that up made me think of those magazine articles that show the designer outfit costing megabucks to a similar one for a lot less!) Thanks for the close ups, they're fantastic!

I haven't used the RTU edible image sheets, I know they are a slightly different product than the KK frosting sheets (this is based on what KK told me when I got the system) but I don't know what the difference would or could be. The reason I went with KK was 1) beryl had been using it for a while and had no problems with it and 2) I could buy my own printer and not have to pay extra for the decorating company putting their name on a printer and 3) the KK sheets were easy to get. The origami cake from Beryl and the I Do I Do striped one is very definitely the frosting sheet (well, I know for a fact that Beryl's is, she told me before she left!); the others (the yellow pattern could be a chocolate transfer sheet) I can't tell (and I didn't realize that Jan Kish had handpainted the panels, I've done similar things with antique prints supplied by clients, so I just guessed that's what it was. Sorry!) The frosting sheet doesn't absorb moisture from fondant the way it does on buttercream so there's no melting/melding when you use it on fondant, but it does get soft when you use it on buttercream. And you have to measure carefully when you're trying to get it on the sides of a cake if the repeat matters! I like to print the image or design on regular paper just to get a "dry run" of what I need before I go to use the frosting sheet when it has to go around the sides of a cake. And if the cake isn't completely level and smooth all the way around, that's where you're likely to get wrinkling or it becomes more obvious that the cake is slightly off level.

I use a regular Canon printer that I bought at Staples, and use the KK edible ink cartridges in it. I use this printer only for edible images, nothing else. There's a cleaning "kit" to clean the printhead that you need to use periodically depending on how frequently you're printing images. The frosting sheets come from KK too; I buy them in bulk (as well as the cartridges and cleaning kit) from Pfeil and Holing because I don't have to pay shipping. The sheets are actually two pieces - the backing and the edible part. I don't have a package in front of me to list the ingredients but the frosting sheets are as thin as paper. I usually scan an image, import it into Word, and print it out. Over the years, I've learned it is best to cut the image as soon as it comes off the printer instead of letting it dry first (if it dries too much it gets too brittle and can be impossible to cut cleanly) then I put it back in the heavy plastic bag the sheets come in so it stays somewhat pliable until I need it. This means that you have the thin edible "paper" part on top of the fondant (it can be a separate piece of fondant or what's on the cake already - fondant or buttercream). It will "meld" into buttercream (as long as it isn't crusted, I remember the salesperson saying. I only use an IMB'cream so this isn't an issue for me. He also said you could apply the frosting sheet directly to melted chocolate, but this isn't the case (sometimes instead of melting and cooling white chocolate, I use the Ghiradelli bars and wave a torch across the flat side to barely soften the chocolate. Then the image (usually the message part of the cake) gets put onthe chocolate I'm not crazy about this method because if the choc is too warm, it will mar the design. At the time I bought this setup, the only printers that KK was supporting were Canon printers; the Lucks system uses something else. I wish I'd been paying closer attention because if you're going to do this to apply a pattern to the sides of a wedding cake (or other large size cake), you really want to use the bigger size sheet and there's only one printer type that can handle that size. Otherwise, there are lots of seams that have to be patched/planned very carefully. You still have seams with the bigger printer version, but not nearly as many as with the smaller sheets.

I've never used their software either (which could be the reason why the prepare circle and business card templates didn't work); but I make very good use of a scanner I find interesting origami paper, wrapping paper and even wallpaper patterns to scan in and use. For kids, sometimes there's clip art or a google image that works. Usually I import the image into a Word document -because I'm most familiar with how to manipulate images in Word, so while my guess is that you could probably print directly from something like Photoshop, I don't know that for certain.

I use this frequently; I bought a Canon printer (but unfortuntely there's only one model printer that can handle the large size sheets, and I didn't buy that model. I will... soon) and use the KopyKake ink cartridges and edible sheets. It took my friend Beryl about a year to convince me that this was a good idea, and she was right - she's been using it on cookies, cakes and petit fours for a while. You really want the large size sheets to do wedding cakes. They can be used on fondant or buttercream; mostly I use them on fondant. I have better results when I apply the fondant to the cake, let it start to "sweat" or at least feel cool to the touch (a few minutes at least) and then apply the sheet (it adheres better that way. Or cut the fondant to size and apply the sheet and then apply it to the cake, keeping in mind the dimensions you need. You want to go to the top edge, because it will fold and split the sheet if you try to go over the top edge of the cake). You can print the sheet in advance as long as you keep it in the sealed heavy-duty bag they come in. As I use up sheets, I keep the bags. If you leave the sheets out, even for a few minutes before printing on them, they get dry and brittle and become unusable. There was a problem with the pre-formed circle and card templates, the images didn't line up correctly so I stopped using those and just cut whatever shape I need from around the image. If you use water, sugar glue or extract under the image, it will bleed through. Melted white chocolate is useful for sticking the edges down if needed. The cut edge of the sheet will be evident (or obvious depending on what it is) but I've found you can use the shaped scrapbooking scissors to cut a decorative edge. For some things (like the magician cake I'm doing this weekend) I cut fondant shapes to the size I need and put the image on it and then put the fondant shape on the cake (think Jan Kish's display cake from the show). Depending on how frequently you use the sheets, you need to clean the print heads and change the cartridges often. This is where the Kopykake people are making their $ - the software that comes "with" the stuff is useful for things like kids' cakes and for generic images (not licensed ones - those are available pre-printed).

Each reception facility is different - usually I go over all the elements (flowers, ribbon) with the manager before I leave, when I give them a sheet with a cutting grid and the flavor(s) in the cake. Everything on a cake has to be edible, as far as the letter of the (health dept) law is concerned. But when I buy gum paste flowers, they are clearly labled for decoration only, not to be consumed, so that could technically be a violation... Just recently, though, I've received (by mail and by fax) sheets from places that state very clearly no inedible elements - e.g., dragees but ribbon was ok and they would remove all flowers from the cake for serving. I'm pretty sure that something must have happened at that one place that prompted it because I've not seen or heard anything like that before. Their instructions said they would refuse delivery if the cake had inedible elements on it...