MeDeMi

Thank you everyone! I'm going to try out some of the new ideas and I'll let you know what happens.

Both things happen... sometimes just some of the liner pops off the cupcake, and other times they come completely off. Also, they're EXTREMELY delicate as far as handling them-a cupcake can be perfectly in the liner and I'll pick it up to box it and "POP" off comes the liner!!! Grrr! The liners I buy are from a craft store and a grocery store-but they do fit the pans. (I've had that happen with the wrong sized liners to pan-also very frustrating!!!) The liners aside-the cupcakes look fine-not sunken, mis-shapen, or tunnelling internally. I've tried putting them into a fresh liner after baking, but those liners don't stay on either. The ribbons take forever to tie and also don't stay on. I don't know what else to try!

I'm in Chicago-so there are definitely times that humidity here is miserable, but then there are times that it's not a problem. I don't know if the amount of time mixing the batter would make a difference because sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn't. I know the spraying of the liners seems counter-intuitive but I did it because the oil based cakes weren't having the problem and I was trying to mimic them... until they started to have the "popping" problem. Plus, for a while it did work!!! AGHAGHAHGAAGHA!!!

I'm desperate! I make all my cakes from scratch and use the same recipe for cakes and cupcakes. My white cupcakes have this irritating habit of popping out of the paper liners. I don't know what to do!!! They look awful! I've had to throw out the really bad ones, but there are times that I've got to use some of them to fill an order. I've tried everything I can think of... *underfilling the liner to give the cake room to grow *overfilling the liner so that there is absolutely no paper not covered in cupcake *completely cooling the cupcakes in the pan *removing the cupcakes when totally hot *removing the cupcakes when semi-cooled *leaving them at room temp *putting them in the cooler *freezing them *spraying the liners with pan spray *not spraying the liners with anything *baking them way in advance *baking them the day of the event *baking them a day or two before the event *adding extra leavener The weird thing is ALL of these things have worked and then they suddenly stop working. I guess that means that they're not really working at all. This used to only happen to the white cupcakes, which I make with butter. My chocolate and carrot cakes are made with oil, and it wasn't happening with them. That's why I tried spraying the liners with the pan spray-to make the liners greasy like the other cakes. Well, now, it's happening to all of the cakes!!! I'm not doing anything different-same liners, same recipe, same pans, same oven, same person scaling, mixing and baking (me). The other thing is that sometimes they start out fine and then suddenly the liners just pop off of them. There truly doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason. None of the cakes are dry-even the cupcakes that popped out of their papers aren't dry. I always taste test the bad ones to see if I can finally catch what's happening. It's getting so bad that when people order cupcakes I kind of shudder inside. Is there anything I can do to prevent this??? I'm desperate. I've got a wedding coming up and they're ordering 300 cupcakes. I just can't bear having to throw that many cupcakes out and start again. Please help!

It's definitely possible that I put it on too thick-I wanted to be sure to completely cover the white styro with my "choc frosting". Should I be doing several thin coats (next time) so it doesn't crack? This time I will fill in the cracks (thanks for the tip) and sand it down. I highly recommend this to anyone who makes dummy cakes (once I figure it out)! It was CHEAP to do. The 60 pound bucket of joint compound cost about $10 and I only needed about 4 1/2 lbs to cover five styros! To make a choc frosting look-a-like I used 1 lb joint compound + 2 oz of dark brown acrylic paint. (It's the color of a whipped choc mousse.)

(Dead thread resurrection warning!!) I have to make a dummy cake to be displayed at a pretty important event. I don't like fondant and don't use it in my shop. In fact, it's a marketing point of mine that I don't use it. So, my dilemma is what to cover dummy cakes with? Well, I stumbled across this thread and loved the idea of using joint compound and acrylic paint to "frost" the dummies. I just frosted 5 dummies and they looked fabulous and I was so excited. Well, as they started to dry they also all CRACKED!!! Why? What do I do to fix them? I mixed the paint right into the joint compound; was that the right thing to do? Was I supposed to use the white joint compound to frost with, let it dry and then paint the cakes the right color? That didn't seem right. Please please please help! It's really important that this cake be nearly flawless, and right now it's pretty flawed! Thank you!

My customer has decided to go with the candied spiced nuts, but I did google for honeycombs and you can buy actual honeycombs! I've never heard of the candy so I just assumed you were talking about actual honeycombs dipped in chocolate, but it all sounds good to me! Thanks, as always, for all your help!

I like the idea of the candied spicy nuts because it would offset all the sweet stuff, but I really like the idea of the chocolate dipped honeycomb because she asked for something unique. Only problem is I don't know where to buy honeycombs... any ideas?

I have a customer who has ordered some goodies for her daughter's surprise 30th b-day party. So far she has ordered truffles, caramels and marshmallows. She wants a fourth item, and for some reason I'm drawing a complete blank. I'm looking for something fairly easy and not too expensive to make. Also, the item needs to be able to be individually wrapped and somewhat sturdy because it will be placed in a Chinese food take-out carton with the other goodies. (On top of each carton she's putting a customized fortune cookie, so I don't think another cookies would be a good option.) Any ideas out there?? I don't know why I'm having such a hard time with this so thanks (yet again) for all your help!

Thanks again, everyone. It's funny because I've been doing this for years and I've never had as many problems as I've been having lately! The simplest things have been bombing, and I can only attribute it to stress. I have made ganache a million times-I've made it in the microwave for goodness sakes! In fifteen years I've made ONE ganache that broke. (I remember it because it happened a few months ago and I was so shocked because it had never happened to me before!) But that ganache broke while I was whipping it, not while I was cooling it down. (The stupid phone kept ringing and I had to keep turning off the mixer and coming back to it and I just got distracted. Excuses, excuses! Ha ha!) Honestly, I think because it's my shop now I desperately want everything to be perfect and I'm going a bit overboard on the anal retentiveness! Anyway, it turned out beautiful. I have a lovely picture of the finished cake, but I don't know how to post pictures otherwise I'd post it here!

Here's what I've done so far... I'm in the process of moving and a lot of my stuff is in a box somewhere so I can't get my hands on a robot coupe or my stick blender. I put the ganache in a bowl and periodically stirred it with a rubber spatula until it was room temp. I then put it in the mixer on "stir" with the paddle and have been slowly stirring it. Within five minutes it came together-nice and glossy and perfectly smooth. It's been going for about an hour and a half. I took your advice, rraaflaub, and stuck a small amount in the cooler because I figured there was no point in trying to fix it if it was going to break again once I stuck it in the cooler. Anyway, the small amount I stuck in the cooler has set up very firm and it's completely smooth! So... so far so good. Thanks everybody for your help.

Thanks for the suggestions. I hadn't read the replies until just now, so what I did was take the ganache out of the cooler and let it sit at room temp overnight. I was hoping that the graininess would dissolve. Last night I noticed after it had been out of the cooler for about half an hour that the ganache that had splashed up on the sides of the bowl had warmed up and it wasn't grainy. I was hoping that would happen to the whole thing. When I checked it this morning it was still grainy. So, I re-melted the whole thing. I wish I'd read these replies first!!! Now I've got a big huge oil slick on top and chocolate underneath. It's even worse! I don't need it until tomorrow, so worse comes to worse I just re-make it but I hate to waste this much chocolate and cream! I'm going to keep gently stirring it as it cools to see if maybe magically it comes together, but I don't have high hopes. If it does come together will it be noticeable in the finished cake? Since the cake is being filled and frosted with it it will be very noticeable if something is wrong with the ganache. Should I just cut my losses and make it new? I don't want to lose this customer.

Hmm... something strange has happened to my ganache. I have an order for a ganache cake (filled and frosted). I made the ganache a few hours ago. After the chocolate was completely combined with the hot cream I put the warm ganache in an ice bath to cool it down and continued to stir it periodically. Once it was completely cooled I covered the bowl with plastic wrap and put it in the cooler. (I want it completely chilled because I'm going to lightly whip it so I can frost with it.) I just went and checked on it and it's beautiful to look at (nice and glossy), but when I took a spoonful I detected a grainy texture. The graininess instantaneously dissolves on my tongue, but it's definitely there when I first taste it. The only thing I did differently than normal was that I used Plugra butter instead of regular old American butter. (I had a chunk sitting in the cooler and I couldn't resist the temptation.) Could that have made a difference? Do you think it will incorporate when I whip it? Or, because the cake will be served at room temp will it not be noticeable? Has anyone else had this problem with ganache? FYI... I just recently opened my own shop so this whole post may be paranoia driven because now it's my name on the product and not someone else's! I have, however, found that suddenly I'm having trouble making the simplest things that I've made 1000's of times! (You don't even want to hear my caramel woes!) It's really frustrating!

Your flowers and leaves are beautiful! My last job (before I went out on my own) I had to make leaves and my boss was extremely anal retentive. He had this really time consuming way of making leaves that not only took forever but because there were so many steps there were so many more chances of destroying the leaf as you were manipulating it through the steps. Plus, it took three of us to do it. It was really insane! If he was in the shop we would have to do it his way, but the second he left we were doing it our (much quicker) way! I wish we'd thought of your "sausage" technique!

Just the other day a friend grilled some pineapple and smeared nutella on the warm pineapple. We also made french toast for breakfast and put the nutella on that.

It sounds like Ambyre has already made up her mind, but for anyone else looking for other options I wanted to make one other suggestion. I teach Baking and Pastry at a culinary school and this past semester we made a wedding cake and a sweet table for a couple. They had 130 guests and we charged them $150 for a four tier cake and all of the sweets. They wouldn't have gotten that price from a bakery and I doubt they could even make it at home for that much. Find a flexible school that is willing to work with you. My students loved it because it gave them real world experience and they got to do something they wouldn't normally do. Outside of teaching I am a cake decorator so I was able to step in and fix anything that looked amateur-ish. The bride was very happy with the results. The only downside for the bride and groom is that they had to arrange for someone to pick everything up and deliver it to the reception, but even that wasn't a big deal. Also, because it's coming from a licensed facility there was no problem with the banquet hall allowing food from an outside source. A LOT of places won't allow food from an unlicensed kitchen into their facility. Before setting out to make your own cake I'd definitely check to see if you can even bring it in. I used to live in MN and I know there were several places that wouldn't even allow edible favors to be brought in (like Jordan Almonds or those candy bars where you print the customized labels). Many times the couple didn't even know they weren't allowed to bring the stuff in until they were there to set it out and they were told no. I'd be very upset if I bought that stuff and wasn't able to use it, but I'd be inconsolable if they refused to let me bring in my cake!

The first job I ever had was answering phones at a pizza place when I was 14. Needless to say I was VERY young and VERY gullible. The guys that worked there took great joy in tormenting and corrupting the young and naive "phone girls"-(yes, that was my politically correct job title!) One night we were getting slammed and the guy who was making the pizzas tore one of the crusts. He yelled to me to go in the walk-in and get the dough patch kit. I spent a good long while in the cooler searching every shelf and couldn't find it. I finally came out and told him I couldn't find it and he sent me to ask another cook where it was. That cook told me where to look and when I still couldn't find it he sent me to ask the GM... and on and on. It was pretty embarrassing-but I do have a sense of humor so I found it pretty funny when I finally figured it out!