RodneyCk

Self-rising flour will give you a denser cake. You can easily make your own cake flour by adding 2 tablespoons of cornstarch to 3/4 cup of all-purpose "bleached" (very important) flour for every 1 cup of self-rising.

I always try and correct people, but maybe I am actually wrong. James McNair in his Cakes book, a great book btw, made the distinction clear between powdered sugar frostings and buttercream. The later equates to the Italian, Swiss, French meringue buttercreams and the all the neoclassical versions. The previous is the American type, the "cake ladies", which I should actually include "cake men" as well, but you get the point, readily use, mostly, as you pointed out, with large quantities of shortening. As a side, James McNair's powdered sugar frosting (all butter) at least altered the process to include beating the frosting over a double boiler setup, so at least the frosting would be smooth and creamy. In regards to marshmallow fondant, it still has that chemical, false taste. I have never tried it with homemade marshmallows though, not sure if you even can.

But...but.... MY recipe only calls for 1 bottle of red food coloring. ← I'm blind...I'm blind...

Mayhaw Man, I could not agree with you more. I made a severe mistake of posting on one of those "Cake Lady" forums about how I could not understand why anyone would use a mix from a box for their cake, especially when it only takes 10 minutes more to create delicious, pure ingredients, cakes from scratch. The gates of damnation opened and what came pouring out was not pretty. Apparently, to my surprise, there are a lot of cake mix zealots who will defend their boxes to the end, probably even waving them like bibles. Is this fear of not being able to make a scratch cake? I have no idea. The same thing exists with spending countless hours making a decorated fondant cake, complete with gumpaste flowers and embellished relief work, then to have someone pick it all off on the plate in disgust. I don't think taste, for some, is at the heart of the process. Decorating is. Cakes are my thing, I take them personally. The number one rule, for me, is that first and foremost, it must taste good, real good. How many great fine dining experiences can you reflect back on and remember how the dinner was exactly plated? I bet you can remember how it tasted though.

So you think the extact is overpowering? Good to know. I like the orange concentrate or orange flower water suggestion, never thought of the later. Thanks!!!

I have an old recipe that does not use food coloring, but pureed cherries and grenadine syrup. There is something about throwing in 1 1/2 bottles of red food coloring that is a little disturbing to me.

The coffee house around the corner from where I live use to provide (they are supplied by many bakers) the best orange muffins with intense orange flavor. About a year ago, they stopped carrying them, yet to this day, I still think of them often, so sad. They maintained the qualities of a "muffin" but were light, not densely tough like so many, yet not falling into the cake category. I remember an oily orange texture throughout, that was not overly oily to the point of disgusting, but just right. My first thought was maybe they used some sort of moistening syrup, giving them a good dousing after baking. The moisture was evenly distributed from top to bottom, so this may rule out the moistening syrup, unless they were soaked several times, which I doubt is the case. It may just be from the amount of fat (assuming oil, not butter) in the recipe. So, after weeding through many, many orange muffin recipes, I pieced together my very own that should in theory satisfy my quest. I will test it soon and tweak, but I thought I would share and see if anyone else has a recipe, thoughts or suggestions. Thanks in advance. Extremely Orange, Orange Muffins Muffins: 1 cup sugar 1 1/2 cup flour 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon baking soda 3/4 cup cooking oil 2 eggs 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1/2 teaspoon orange extract or orange flavoring 1/4 cup fresh orange juice 2 tablespoons grated orange zest Glaze: 1 teaspoon grated fresh orange zest 1/2 cup sugar 1/4 cup sugar 1/4 cup orange juice (can use undiluted orange concentrate for a more intense flavor) Do not use a hand mixer or commercial mixer for muffins. The key is not to over-mix, so combine by hand. In a large bowl, whisk together the sugar, flour, salt and baking soda. In another bowl, whisk together the oil, eggs, extracts, juice and zest. Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and gently stir with a rubber spatula or wooden spoon until just barely combined. You should be able to see streaks or sprays of flour in the batter. Pour into a greased muffin pan. Bake at 350° F for 10 to 15 minutes. While the muffins are baking, mix the zest and 1/2 cup sugar in a small bowl, set aside. Bring remaining sugar and juice to a simmer in a small saucepan over medium heat; stir to dissolve the sugar and simmer until the mixture is thick and syrupy. It should reduce to about 4 tablespoons. After the baked muffins have cooled 5 minutes, brush the tops with the glaze; then, working one at a time, dip the tops in the orange sugar. Serve.

This is one of those topics that really has no right or wrong answer, since taste in all its form is subjective. However, personally, I love decorating with fondant, but I hate it on my cake, lol. For me, it has more to do with the texture and the marshmallow fondant is even worse, spongy. I also don't want to pick the stuff off my cake to enjoy it, that ain't eating, that is work. Side by side, it will never beat a buttercream in taste, especially the Italian or Swiss meringues.

Good to know. I have and love her current cake decorating book.

I don't think you are the only one who has had a few drinks *scratches head*.

Yes to all of the above. I would also whip some in a nice vanilla flavored Italian meringue buttercream and make some blueberry filling which I would delightfully wedge between moist layers of white chocolate layer cake. *sigh*

I get mine locally and as many cake decorating supply stores do, they repackage and put their own label on it, usually because they buy in bulk. You can probably google it and find an online retailer that carries it or check your local decorating stores.

Back to the champagne bit again. Here is another idea to get a more concentrated/pronounced champagne taste. Boil down a split of champagne until syrupy. This is great for finishing sauces and particularly seafood as well. Keeps in the freezer. I just love brainstorming, lol.

Well one of my favorite Italian meringue buttercreams calls for roughly 1/4 cup of liquor for every 7 cups. Buttercream is less dense, so you might get away with adding a bit more, but start with this as a base. I am not sure how much of the champaign flavor will shine through in a ganache, especially one with medium tone flavors such as vanilla (extract and ganache) and orange which is why you might want to rethink the concentrated champagne extract. Good luck, have fun and please post your results.

ROFL!!!

That flavor sounds delicious. I love anything orange. My local cake supplier sells champagne extract that is extremely tasty on its own. I can only imagine after working the mojo and mixing it with orange zest and/or orange flavorings, maybe even some candied orange zests, beaten with white chocolate ganache. Sign me up!

Well mine of course! lol. I just had it one day. I must have tested a dozen recipes trying to find the essence of a good chocolate cake. Like I said, the only one that came close to my ideal cake was the Double Chocolate Layer Cake from Epicurious. However, the 4 or 4.5 rating it received here on eGullet, I would have to agree with. It is almost perfect, but still not ideal. So, I set out reading the basics of cake recipe construction and then what ingredients stand out in chocolate cakes, particularily the Devil's Food cakes (key), veg oil or butter, sour cream or buttermilk, white sugar or brown sugar, etc., getting most of the best testing tips from Cook's Illustrated, Alton Brown and Shirley O' Corriher's books. So I wrote a good basic chocolate cake recipe and began the balancing act, both in structure and taste, doing more tests until I achieved the perfect chocolate cake. It is moist, fudgy (important, something the epicurious cake is lacking), yet still maintains all the qualities that are characteristic of a "cake." Everyone, including myself, that has tasted it so far reacts with, "Wow!", and this pleases me. I can assume what your next question will be. I am one that is willing to share most recipes and help with any problem, usually, but this one is my baby. If one day, I ever win the lottery and get to open my own cake making business, this will be my one and only signature recipe, or maybe one of two. I want to work on a white cake recipe next which is a real challenge. The Cook's Illustrated White Layer cake is hard to beat, superb in just about every way. I just love a good challenge, so here we go again.

Well your recipe seems to be on par, all main ingredients roughly close to a 1lb, so that steers me to YOU and/or your oven. When cakes have holes or tunneling there are usually three main reasons, so check all three in no particular order; 1.Oven temperature too high. Use an oven thermometer to check. 2. Undermixing or extreme overmixing (too much gluten.) 3. Too much leavening.

I can recommend three good books on cookies. 1. My favorite for recipes, outstanding recipes, is Southern Living's All-Time Favorite Recipes. They have award winning cookie recipes of all varieties, a great section for holiday cookies, bars, logs, fudge balls, etc. Unfortunately, it is out of print, but you can still buy used copies. Check on Amazon. 2. I have heard that the King Arthur Cookie book or Companion is suppose to be really good, again for recipes. I may have to order this one myself. Again, check Amazon. 3. For decorating, Toba Garrett's Cookie book is the best. Her roll-out cookie recipes are really good and the butter flavor shines, plus she shows you all the insider tips and tricks to decorate. Hope that helps.

Actually Sugarella you may not be far off. At first that was Sarah's hunch, that the water played a role with the leavening. Unfortunately, there is not much I can find on the subject. The complete answer is probably buried with Julia, lol. Also, I did notice on my never-ending search that a lot of Japanese batter recipes kept popping up, lol.

dejaq, it appears we are both correct in our theories. I posted this question on Sarah Phillip's forum, baking911, and she replied with this answer; Thanks for your help.

Zee, I don't think it would be a problem to double the recipe and it should do fine in a 9x13. You might want to throw in an upside down flower nail in the center or use a heating core for even baking, and/or use some moistening (magic) strips around the pan(s). I use this general scaling program for my cake recipes; http://www.fruitfromwashington.com/Recipes...conversions.php The Double Chocolate Cake is the second best recipe I have found so far for chocolate cake, not many can beat it.

You can also make your own coconut milk. Here is a good tutorial; http://asiarecipe.com/cocomilk.html

I don't understand this. Usually everything should be at room temperature in a recipe, so why would you want it to turn icy cold? Also, what in the recipe besides the cold water changes the temperature that it needs regulating?

Actually, cake mixing and pastry mixing share similar techniques. In fact, one of my favorite methods of making yellow and white cake recipes is using the pastry method, where flour and butter is mixed first to form the pea-sized pieces, and then the liquid is added. The reason is the same as I mentioned above. The fat is protecting the flour from forming gluten and results in a tender, light and fluffy crumb. In pastries you get a tender, flakey crust.