JeanneCake

I was really just after a reality check on the size of the serving (dimensions) and the amount for that specific size. My experience is that when people are shopping on price, they fail to compare the type of cake they're getting. One of my "competitors" does a two layer cake with one layer of filling; that is definitely cheaper to produce than my standard three layers of cake/two layers filling - regardless of how it is decorated on the outside. Yesterday's client was reacting to the size of the serving and what they are after is a bigger slice. They are planning a 5-tier cake for 40 people and want the top tiers in styro and the bottom as real cake. When I told them the 12" served 60, they kept looking at the 12" and didn't think that would be enough for the size they want on the plate. I know that this will continue to be an issue for them - and they are going to waffle on whether they want 2 real tiers or 1. I always suggest kitchen cake to clients with big guest counts; it gives them the best of both worlds - the display cake with the design they want, and enough servings for everyone and they can stay on budget. And I agree about relationship building. For any delivery I do, I make it a point to talk to the function manager about the cake size and number of servings they should get from each tier/flavor/other details (remove gum paste flowers, there are pins or tape on the ribbon border) This gives me an opportunity to become familiar to them and I take advantage of this to demonstrate to them that I am passionate about my product and that makes a positive impression and for first time deliveries, I usually get asked for cards/brochures, etc.. And I always have to explain my policy about the anniversary cake (another thing people always expect and forget to factor that somehow this has to be absorbed into the bottom line!) so they don't try to save that top tier, they can go ahead and serve it. So, if anyone else has numbers they're willing to share, I'm all ears!

Annie, you're GREAT! Thank you! My cakes are also 4" tall and I usually try to give them the same size slice as a sample (I make my samples from square cakes when it is slow from a work perspective but swamped by wedding appts, but usually I'm just pulling whatever orphan layers there are from the week's baking and making samples from those). This grid will make things so much easier. Thank you! (PS I'm really getting good with the modeling chocolate, you'd think I'd been using it forever instead of just a month )

I keep styro dummies around for people to mix/match and see what their cake might look like, and tonight's clients were incredulous that a 12" square would provide 60 servings - they thought it would only provide 35 at most. I explained that my cakes are three layers of cake/two layers of filling, that a wedding cake serving is smaller than a restaurant dessert portion since it generally follows big meal (but they can cut the 12" in any formation they want, however for pricing purposes, I'd be using 60 as the multiplier.) But they were still trying to figure out why there was such a huge difference in what I was suggesting (and charging for) and what they thought was possible. (They booked with me but I can tell this will be an issue again as the wedding date draws closer.) It made me curious about what are you all using when you do your calculations about how much cake someone needs or how you base your price per serving on? I've been using Earlene's cake serving chart. There's so much variation out there - RLB claims to be able to get 150 servings from a 12, 9, 6 round configuration - Earlene's chart shows 75-80 and Wilton thinks you could get 102!! (I always encourage people to serve the entire cake so I'm not thinking in terms of the couple keeping the top tier. I have a thing for fresh cake so I give them a voucher for an anniversary cake when they provide a professional 5x7 photo of their cake.) So how do you calculate the number of servings in a cake?

Need to buy some jackets and pants and while I've bought from ChefWear and HappyChef, in the past, I thought you might have a vendor to recommend or warn me away from. I was disappointed with the stuff from Happy Chef - seams not finished and split after the first wash on the jackets and pants (they credited it but you get what you pay for) so I don't want to buy from them again. I don't wear a jacket every day, usually just a short sleeve shirt or sturdy Tshirt. (I share space with a caterer so we get aprons and towels from a linen supplier, but I do my own uniforms.) Thanks, Jeanne

Hmm... I never thought of straight white choc for dipping/icing cookies - and I like this idea a whole lot better than dealing with the glace icing. I was wondering about adding some melted white choc to the glace icing as I was working with it (the dots and writing were colored wh choc). So, Anne, do you add any glucose or corn syrup to the choc or just use it straight? (I like to add corn syrup to my ganache when I use it as a glaze to help the shine last a little longer, I wonder if I should add any to the wh choc for the cookies...) Do you ever outline first (Josette's cookies have a contrasting outline on some which I thought was a nice touch!) or just dip and go? At least now when the Swiss Chalet rep calls, I can order something without putting him off (WHY would I want to buy caramel paste when I can have my own caramel sauce ready in about 10 mins???). He's such a nice guy, too! And I did tell him not to bother about sending me a sample of the writing chocolate, as soon as someone mentioned it had peanut oil in it, I said forget it. Josette, those are terrific looking cookies!

I made some decorated cookies for a client's baby shower - they were 3x4" onesies iced in white glace icing with pink or blue dots and a Welcome Baby message on some. After 10 hours, although dry to the touch, the flood icing didn't dry enough so when I stacked some of the cookies, the white areas got dented and marred the look. (this is a plain sugar cookie that I bake in the convection oven - keeps its edge better than when I do it in the conventional ovens - I roll it about 1/3 to 1/4 inch thick) So now I'm on a hunt for icing I can use to flood a decorated cookie that has a bit of a sheen to it rather than a flat (matte) look and will dry quickly enough so I can pack them soon after (3-4 hours maybe?) icing the cookies. Something along the idea of the cookies that you'd see at Eleni's New York or Rolling Pin Productions is what I'm after. The icing I've been using is from Toba Garrett's cookie book (Glace Icing) and calls for: 1# confectioner's sugar, 90 ml water or milk (I use water), 126 gm light corn syrup, flavoring of choice. You mix the water/milk with the sugar until competely blended, then add the corn syrup. For outlining the cookie, you add more sugar until the icing is stiff then use a #2 tip to outline the cookie. You use the straight icing to flood the outline. I like this icing well enough, except it just takes forever to dry. Even the extras I made - after 18 hours - aren't thoroughly dry. Am I just not giving it enough time? Any ideas? Tips? Suggestions?

I think unmolding from the muffin tins will make your life (or someone's life) miserable after the first week. You could bake them in ramekins (but then, why not just do a pot de creme or some other type of pudding or custard). You might just have to bite the bullet and get some rings - they're inexpensive, and they will make your life a little less stressful when it comes to cheesecake. I did buy some individual 3" removeable bottom pans, but they are a pain and I don't use them. The rings I use are 3" round and 1" high, I bought them from Parrish's years ago and they were cheap. I make full sheets of biscuit (which keep, well wrapped, for about a week so I always start the week making it - I can get about 40-42 from a full sheet). Or you could use a graham crumb crust (I use these for individual key lime "pies" and you need to have a small 3" or smaller pan to tamp the crumbs down, you need a heaping 1/4 cup of crumbs for these). I spray the rings well, use them to cut out circles from the biscuit and then fill the rings with whatever kind of cheesecake I'm making. Bake at 300 for however long you need (25-35 again depending) and let cool. You can either wait and time it right to slide the rings off (usually a minimum of about 45 mins or so) or you can stick 'em in the walk in and torch the rings to unmold. For service, you just have to put 'em on a plate and garnish and go. The downside to this method is dealing with the crust - it's a whole extra step if you use biscuit, and a little more time consuming with the crumbs. The white choc chzcake I use has a layer of chopped toffee in the middle; the most popular is a tie between caramel chzcake and the plain Oreo one from the oreo cookie site - (and I thought we were all over the cookies and cream craze...) a good source of inspiration is the book Cheesecake Extraordinare by Mary Crownover.

My favorite coffee extract is from Albert Uster, but it has peanut oil in it. So when someone orders a mocha or coffee flavored cake, buttercream, cheesecake etc, I always ask about allergies. If there are none, I use the AU product (and I always write it clearly on the box for desserts that contain it); if there are, I use the powdered espresso from Medaglia D'Oro. It is a small jar and I dissolve a TBL in a tiny bit of water. Have you thought about flavoring the milk chocolate part of that triple layer mousse with orange instead of coffee? I've always thought a touch of orange brought a lot out of milk chocolate. (and I do not particularly care for orange or milk chocolate!)

I think this is where what you're used to is what makes the difference. But as others have said, get as much mixer for the money as you (she) can get and go for the largest capacity you can afford on the budget you're working with. (for the eggfoam/flour part of your post: If I am making a tiny batch of biscuit -sponge cake in a full sheet pan - for which you beat whole eggs, yolks and sugar to the ribbon, and I use the bowl-lift 5 qt KA, I remove the bowl from the mixer and use a strainer to add the flour - when you're adding flour to an eggfoam batter such as this, it needs to be dispersed evenly and dumping it in from parchment (regardless of whether it was sifted first) would cause lumps of flour in the batter. Were I to use my unbelievably useless tilt-head Viking, I would still remove the bowl and do the same thing.)

I have several bowl-lift KAs and Hobarts and a tilt-head Viking; I like the bowl lift better, but it could be that I'm just more used to that. Depends on how often your friend will be using it; for occasional use, I'm sure the tilt head is fine. Don't stop asking questions, it isn't like you have to pay to ask them!!!

Satin Ice fondant makes a red fondant - it's available in 2# or 5# buckets. Go to www.satinfinefoods.com for more info and to place an order. I don't use this brand for plain/ivory/chocolate fondant, but their colors are ok. The other alternative is to use the chocolate plastique that Anne (chefpeon) mentioned in a previous thread. You could use the red candy melt things from the craft store or if you had powdered red coloring use that to color the white chocolate. I'd never used it before, but it was great! I might have overheated the chocolate /corn syrup because it was pretty oily when I spread it in the pan (I dabbed at it with a paper towel because I couldn't leave well enough alone) but it reabsorbed by the next day (you really want it to set overnight for best handling, I found). And it was so much fun to work with - at least for modeling! I don't know what it would be like to knead and roll out, but maybe you could do a 10" round cake and model different red hats (some berets, sun hats, sombreros, top hats, caps) and put them around the top edge of the cake. And then make a red and or purple chocolate ribbon to go around the middle of the cake....

I always have to add more oil to the white to get it to the right consistency; the dark sometimes doesn't even need any oil! And if I'm trying to color the white, it does get a little clumpy and I have to add more oil. Yeah, I didn't think I needed to spend the $, but I wondered why it (a separate product) exists and what people who do use it think of it.

Every so often, I think I should buy writing chocolate .... why I don't know, because usually I throw a handful of chips in a small glass cup, and zap it for a few seconds, stir, pour into a cornetta and write. The advantage is that I always have chips (dark, milk, white) and I usually only write on cakes at the end of the week (Fridays and/or Saturday morning) so I don't have to worry about keeping the chocolate filled cornetta around. So I just got off the phone with my Swiss Chalet rep and he's telling me this is great stuff, softer, he'd love to send me some to try, etc, etc. What do you all use to write messages on your cakes...? Do you use writing chocolate? Why or why not?

The Matisse raspberry seems more intense or "true" to me; Hero is good but sweeter to my taste. The texture, as I remember, is a little softer - Hero is more solid (firmer) right out of the bucket but softens up with a few stirs of a spoon or spatula. I can't always get the Matisse from my distributor, but I think Ambassador Fine Foods has it (AFF doesn't have a local presence here in Boston). In fact, I haven't used Matisse in over a year, that's how long it's been since they had it. Sigh...

Hear, hear... depending on the design a client wants, I tell them to NOT choose a mousse or pastry cream/fruit filled cake but to opt for buttercream instead. I know how long it will take me to work on that cake, plus once it is finished and delivered, it will be on display for some number of hours and I tell them I don't want the risk. In fact, just this week, a client wanted a tiered cheesecake and I told them that while I know there are other vendors out there who routinely do this, I don't. She ended up choosing individual cheesecakes for the guests and a small display cake from carrot cake. When I'm busy, I have put fondant covered cakes in the walkin, but even after the fondant/cake equalizes (and the fondant sweats, it doesn't matter what the label says, they all do it), it seems to me that the texture changes and it isn't an improvement. So now I plan my work to avoid that when possible. I have my own reach-in for my finished work (because I needed it at my previous kitchen) - a True, which is not humid, per se; but everything sweats in it (and the temp is always below 40) and I wish there was a way to make it drier. But that's beside the point... But back to the color part of the question..... You're right about the black, some have more green undertones (Chefmaster) and others don't (Sugarflair). I like the idea of the powdered color, because it is true - the more color you add, the consistency changes and the taste (especially with blue) doesn't get any better either. The client agreed that blue would be better as an accessory color, thank goodness! I am going to look into the Americolor brand, thanks for the tip. I buy the Sugarflair from Beryl's and the Squires colors from them (www.squires-group.co.uk) and they have a fuschia that is to die for.... joshalow, did you use the Americolor for the cake you shared with us? It looks great, and that color looks like it will work for my design...

A client of mine wants to use the color navy blue on her cake (it's one of those Alice-in-Wonderland styles so it will be covered in fondant). I've never been able to get a true navy no matter how much color I use (and I like the English Sugarflair and Squires Kitchen paste colors, which come in a wider variety of blue). When I've tried to color the fondant in advance, I get a purplish-blue, not a real navy. I've suggested to her that we use some other colors (sage green, yellow, salmon) for the base color of each cake, and go with blue (among others)for accents. But I know that Polly Schoonmaker and others get a dark blue in their designs, so my question is how do they do that? (Santa did bring me an airbrush for Christmas, which I wanted for coloring flowers, but maybe airbrushing is the way to go?But those designers don't look like their cakes are airbrushed....) Thanks for your help...

Personally, I like Matisse brand best, but use Hero because it is easier to get and it's pretty good. I prefer the w/o pips (seeds) because I also use this for skimcoating my chocolate cake layers for my raspberry truffle cakes. Works great for linzertortes.

Annie, you have just SAVED my life! Or at least added years back onto it! I am going to ditch the gum paste skier in favor of modeling chocolate, I've been wanting to try it (but all I have is Schokinag WC in chips, the only Guittard white I can get is the cookie drops, which are kinda waxy, but maybe that is a good thing for modeling chocolate...) and the skier's legs in all truth are looking kinda lame. I had been thinking three tiers, 11, 8, 5 because this is for a - you guessed! bar mitzvah and it "only needs to serve 40 but I want WOW" and I can stack it and use the scraps to pad out the sides. I was planning on fondant snow, but after that I was completely lost. You're my hero today! Now for the happy dance... thank you thank you thank you!

I'm modeling a (stand-up) skier for this coming Saturday, and started today so I'd be able to use it by Saturday. I'm also modeling several styles of legs/torso just in case I want something different depending on how the final product comes out - I'm not a skier myself (and have never been on a ski slope!) so designing a ski mountain cake is this week's stress for me If I am starting late (say, Friday night with the aforementioned skier!) and time doesn't allow for something to dry completely, I go for straight gum paste with some tylose or CMC added and try to make sure the figure is leaning on something or has some part of the design for support (Dumbo's ears are pinned back onto the body, for example) I have several books by Debbie Brown and Masie Parish - both are UK based sugar artists with excellent instructions on modeling figures (people, animals, scenes - now if only one of them were a skier!!

When you've modeled the figure (arms, torso, legs, whatever), how do you position it while it dries? Perhaps the wrinkling occurs if whatever you're using for support flexes? I sometimes make a thick bed of cornstarch (to protect a rounded shape like legs) in a sheet pan and leave it for a few days. Other shapes - like a beach umbrella, need to dry over a bowl and that needs to be liberally dusted with cornstarch and carefully moved over the drying period to prevent sticking to the support (and breaking). I also blend gum paste and fondant and change the ratio depending on what I'm modeling.

I think it the antibacterial stuff CanadianBakin' mentions is called Purell - I bought some when they had a little promotional bottle attached to a larger one. Keep the little bottle (like a sample size) with me all the time. Comes in handy! It just disappears into your hands, no sticky-ness after you rub it in.

Thank you for the recommendation; McGills told me they weren't able to find the magazine and it may have been discontinued by the publisher. Thanks! Jeanne

Years ago, I could buy a magazine devoted to wedding cakes called Bride to Be (a different magazine entirely from Modern Wedding Cakes and Chocolates) from a source here in the US. Since the cake decorating supplier retired last year, I've been unable to find another seller for this magazine. Can anyone recommend a local bookstore that carries this title, be willing to deal with an internet order and ship to the US? I can buy Modern Wedding Cakes and Chocolates directly from the publisher (Wildfire) but I cannot locate the publisher for the Bride to Be Wedding Cakes. Maybe in more recent editions the publisher prints email/web URL but in the few issues I have, there's nothing of the sort! Any help is much appreciated! Thanks! Jeanne

After making dozens of buche de noel this year, I'm curious about how others do theirs so thought I'd ask. I make mine with a yellow or chocolate sponge (biscuit), and fill it with a flavored (hazelnut, chocolate, raspberry or cappuccino) meringue buttercream, and pipe on dark chocolate ganache, with the little knot in the middle; with sugar snow, some meringue mushrooms and marzipan holly. I wish I'd taken a picture to show, sorry. The roll is about a half-sheet wide (I offer one size only because I don't want to deal with sizing, etc. - I'm rolling the long side) and I cover the ends with ganache to prevent it from drying out. I was at a gourmet store today, and the one they featured looked as if it were also made from sponge cake, but the ends were exposed. It looked as if there was a thin layer of ganache on the sponge cake and then a layer of buttercream. It also looked like chocolate buttercream (grained with a comb) on the outside, decorated with gum paste holly and petit fours presents. They had lots of different sizes, so I think they must roll from the short end of the sheet pan. So ... tell us about your buche de noel!