LCS

After much Googling, I did find ONE thing from the Cake Central message board- that adding milk makes the cake too moist. One woman reported: "I baked 3 cakes this weekend, 2 for the first time with milk instead of water, and the 3rd with water as usual. The 2 milk cakes came out of the pan sticking to the pan, so parts of the edges are not there. My water one came out fine, as usual. The texture of the milk cakes are more crumbly also. Think I'll stick to water!" Has anyone experienced this?

I wish I could remember where I read this, but I read an article that said it's better to use cocoa powder in cake recipes that don't call for milk because milk somehow negatively affects the cocoa powder (I can't remember their reasoning though). Any truth to that? If so, how does it negatively affect it? I currently use a chocolate cake recipe that just so happens not to contain milk. But I've been toying around with my vanilla cake recipe (technique is different and I also added milk) and the texture came out better. I'd like to try this for my chocolate cake as well, but maybe I'd just be wasting ingredients and time...?

I'm not sure if you're referring to mark-up or gross margin. If your customer is doubling his/her cost, this is a 50% gross margin and I don't think it's ridiculous at all. Just look at the economics. Let's say an item is $1.00 wholesale and resale price is $1.50; the cost of goods is 66% and gross margin is 33%. Gross margin is always calculated as a percentage of sales price, not cost. If the same item is resold for $2.00, cost of goods is 50% and gross margin is 50%. If I buy 12 items @1.00 wholesale for a total of $12.00 and charge $1.50 retail, I have to sell eight items just to break even. Hopefully, I'll sell the remaining four items and make a profit. But the shrinkage mentioned by JasonTrue is all too common. If one item gets tossed, the gross profit on the whole deal is $4.50. Then there are costs associated with packaging, whether it's a sheet of paper & bag for take-out, a disposable plate, a napkin.... say 5 cents for each sale. That's another .55 off the profit.... and on and on ... So the actual margin is very slim. While I may accept 33% on some items, I would expect a higher gross margin on others. Especially if I wanted to stay in business. ← I'm talking mark up. I sell something for $28, they turn around and sell it for $60. I sell something for $33, they sell it for $72.

One place I sell to marks everything up 100% or more. It's ridiculous.

For a 9" size, I use 3" high cake pans as well (ditched the springforms years ago) and I always use a bain marie. I pull them out of the oven and let them cool at room temperature for an hour, then chill in the fridge for 6 hours.

This company is great! I saw them at the ICES convention in DC and at the Atlantic Bakery Expo in Atlantic City. I had them demo for us at the Philadelphia Pastry Society as well. Their stencils are great as well as their customer service. *thumbs up*

Sadly it was discovered that Emes is not vegetarian. They've been lying all these years... http://www.vegparadise.com/news53.html

Haha! I guess we were posting at the same time!

I just found the wooden ones. They are gorgeous, but I'm back to the shrink wrapping and feeling guilty about trees and not sure how these could be reused. Meh.

Thanks for posting the links! I just checked them out, and those are the ones I just mentioned that my competitor uses. I REALLY like those too b/c of how they look and also b/c it'll biodegrade (unlike plastic), but at least plastic can be reused and I could put a little blurb on my label about ways to recycle the loaf container or something. Jackal mentioned those birch ones and I'm dying to see those. I'm sure it's pricey, but I bet they look GREAT and for where I'll be selling these, they won't mind at all paying extra for nice packaging. I still do like the idea of a plastic lid being popped on so simply instead of having to shrink wrap. Also, from the customer point of view, when a slice of two is removed, they can put the lid back on instead of having to cover it up with plastic wrap.

Oooo. Wooden? That sounds nice. I'll keep my eye on their website. I'm trying to load it right now and it's just not working. Wendy, you're right; ads for those are all over the place, but when I need it, I can't seem to find it! Isn't that always how it goes? Hahaha. I just looked through 2 trade mags last night and couldn't find it. I've seen those brown paper ones with the fleur-de-lis on them, but a local competitor already uses those for their quick breads so I'm looking for something different.

Definitely not the same thing! Hehe! What I'm talking about are loaf pans you can bake in, stick a lid on with a label, then straight to the retail shelf.

I'm looking for plastic bake in loaf pans with lids. I've only seen them in black which I don't mind, but wondered if they come in other colors? Also, for those of you who use them, do they hold quick breads well? For how long? Do they do well in the freezer?

I have both and they're the same. I do notice that Ateco's tips are prone to rust if you're not careful to dry them well.

This is the very reason why I bought a Commercial (as opposed to Professional) mixer. Put your mixers up on eBay and pick up a K5 Commercial at your local restaurant supply store. Done and done.

I thought to condense the rest of the replies... Jeanne, I would love to see the recipe for that spiced vanilla cheesecake! I forgot all about the Cake Bible. My husband and I bought a house in mid-July and I haven't unpacked all of my books yet. I would love to see the chestnut mousse recipe. I think you've got a great idea; layered with white chocolate mousse between chocolate cake layers would be stellar. Katie, Apple cider makes me think CAKE. Apple cider cake with little chunks of apple. Pastry cream filling and iced with.... hmmm I don't know? Dejah, What's kuchen? I've never heard of it. Saffy, I grew up in Hawaii and have never had a quince. What do they taste like? I've seen them in cookbooks, but never seen them for sale. I would think Whole Foods would carry something like that, but I just haven't seen it. Where else should I be looking? Thanks to everyone for their suggestions. It really got my juices flowing!

Yup, caffeine-free coffee beans exist. I'm a bit foggy on how it's done, but I know there's an all natural method that involves water, and a chemical based method. Cranberry orange cheesecake with craisins! *gasp* I do my pumpkin cheesecake on a gingersnap crust so I don't want to seem repetitive, so I think I would do this with a pecan crust. mmmmmm! *wipes drool!* How do you garnish this? Craisins and pecans already add to the cost so I'd have to keep it very simple and inexpensive. At first I thought to pour ganache over the top (just a thin coat) and let some dribble down the sides), but I do have to keep enough chocolate-free items on the menu. I just don't want to leave the top of the cheesecake blank. Also, about how many ounces of craisins per pound of cream cheese? Also, when you rehydrate the craisins, do you do it for like 15 minutes type of thing or overnight? The only time I ever rehydrated fruit was for stollen at one place I worked at years ago... and since it was in booze, we did it well in advance. Oh, and THANK YOU for the cran-orange cheesecake idea!

YAY! I have a FLAVOUR COMBINATION TWIN! (Only on Egullet would you hear something as geeky as that..haha!) Glad I could help! ← I think we have taken things to a new level of geekiness. Hahaha!

Ooooo! I REALLY like your way of thinking! I'm going to work on specifically the gingerbread cake idea this weekend! For fall, I think a little marzipan pear on each portion would look adorable, then for winter, change it to a mini gingerbread man cookie. I've had a mini cutter for years and never had a use for it until now! Between the suggestions you gave me for the orange cheesecake and these suggestions, I hereby dub you my Flavor Combinatoin Twin.

I realize I have a lot here so if you're just skimming through... the things I already have are in bold and the things I need help with are in italics. Thank you. I want to add some new flavors to my menu. With the cakes I sell directly to customers, I can get as crazy as I want. However with wholesale, there's a budget I have to keep in mind so those don't have the pricier ingredients are and aren't as time consuming to make. Or depending on the ingredients or method, I can have a pricier ingredient if it's not time-consuming over all, or vice-versa. Wholesale cakes are also expected to have a longer shelf life... retail gets eaten that night or the next day; wholesale is expected to last 4 days. I've love suggestions for both, but obviously more of the latter. Ideally I'd like to add 2 cakes and 2 cheesecakes. I already have three types of chocolate cake (though I would like a "cold weather specific" one), one almond cake with ganache filling, and one hazelnut cake with ganache and espresso buttercream fillings. Of course I have the standard pumpkin cheesecake. Kahlua cheesecake isn't cold weather specific and I sell it all year round and same goes for my chocolate chunk cheesecake. I'd like to do something with apples or pears, but don't know how to make that work in layer cakes or cheesecakes. I have yet to see any good ideas in any of my books either. I made a delicious peach cake which is just a thick (almost quick bread consistency) batter with peaches pressed in which I think would taste great with apples or pears, but I was thinking of something less "homey", though I guess I should get over it because I know for a fact it would be a huge seller and "homey" desserts are in anyway. I'm thinking of a vanilla bean cheesecake with a mac nut crust with some kid of tropical fruit topping (for when berries are scarce). It can't be fresh fruit. I was thinking of a mango curd. Can I make curd from pineapple juice? I've never tried. Also, I've been looking for recipes for a spring board on the vanilla bean filling and they all have varying amounts of vanilla beans. Where's a good place to start for 3 pounds of cream cheese? One recipe said 2 beans with 1 teaspoon of vanilla and the reviews said it wasn't enough, yet every other recipe I found calls for much less? Vanilla beans aren't cheap so you can see why I'm hesitant to just "play around". For my hazelnut/espresso buttercream cake, I'd like to use chocolate covered coffee beans, but I can't use what's currently available. I need them to be made from fair-trade coffee and chocolate, and on top of that, caffeine-free coffee beans. Yes yes, I realize there's caffeine in chocolate too, but it's a long story to explain why those are my requirements. Making my own will never look like what people are used to seeing and I don't like looking at them anyway. (Is it true that the only way to get them to be big and round if by machine?) So pushing that idea out of my head, would a bark be just too much? A small piece of bark with crushed up beans perhaps? (Just thinking out loud here). What's a good ratio? I'll be posting more questions as they come to me.... thank you for reading.

Thanks to everyone for their suggestions. I forgot to mention that I'm allergic to chocolate (yes I know, very sad, please don't remind me!) I just wanted to try an orange filling so badly that I just just vanilla cookies with chopped toasted almonds since it was quick and I already had the crumbs and almonds. The crust was blah. Next crunch, but that was about it. Short crust recipe (or maybe just flat out buttery shortbread!) for sure with some almond flour with the chopped almonds. Ling, great suggestion on the brittle! It made me think of nougatine cut-outs which would make great decorations. Now only if I can find my nougatine recipe. I haven't made it since school!

Graham cracker does not appeal to me. Vanilla wafer cookies does as well as almonds. Any other suggestions? What about a garnish?

Hi Ruth. It went "ok". I'll try to post a pic this weekend. I still can't remember how to upload pics from my camera so I have to get my husband to do it for me.

I like the El Rey as well, but recently finally tried Albert Uster's high end white chocolate (they have 3 grades) and I like it much better.

Hehehe, this is always my last minute decoration and depending on humidity, may be my back up topper if the sugar melts. I forgot that the bride made glass bead bracelets for her guests so yet another reason to go with the sugar. You could use white chocolate with colored hilights...this dries quickly...use non-water based colors like the colors for tinting candy check here for a sample ←