[Any words of wisdom for a tv neophyte?]

Thank you all so very much for your wonderful words. Here's the deal: I have

4.5 minutes to do my demo. I've spoken with the producer many times. I'm preparing

a lot of product for the demo, as well as for propping the table. I will have rehearsal time, too,

before we actually do the demo. I, too, am verbose by nature, and I've been told I'm bossy.

I'm trying to remind myself I'm not teaching them to be my assistants, or interns, so I (a)

don't have to be so exacting and (b) if it's not perfect I have to laugh it off!

I'm also being taped for Good Morning America's satellite radio show, so that will be an extra

rehearsal time, too.

Set your DVRs and TiVo's...I'm on Wed., April 4 in the last half hour of the show.

Thank you all so much! I love EGullet!

[Any words of wisdom for a tv neophyte?]

Perhaps I should post this in the appropriate Food Media forum, but I thought I'd start here.

I'm going to do a cookie demo this upcoming week on Good Morning America. I'm bringing a lot of product with me, and I'll be doing the demo with the anchors of that show. It's exciting, and obviously, I want it to go well. I've spoken with the producer, and I've got my marching instructions, but if anyone has some good advice for me, I'd love to hear what you have to say.

I'm also going to do GMA's Satellite Radio show, but that's all talk, no action, so to speak.

[Spice Cake recipes]

Also K8, I agree with you on lemon in the cream cheese frosting!  I've tasted orange cream cheese frosting on a gingerbread cake, and didn't care for it.  Too strong an orange flavor for me, instead of that bright citrus-y taste I go for.   Try infusing

star anise in cream when you do a ganache, be it a chocolate ganache, mocha or caramel.  It's fabulous!

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I am going to try that star anise thing for truffles. Thanks for the idea. I'm doing some green tea ones too.

And yes the lemon disappears in the cream cheeses stuff and it becomes something else that's really delicious. But the orange just tastes orangey and that's not bad but it's orange cream cheese. Anway. Each to their own...and ours is better.

I have a t-shirt that says, "One Tough Cookie".

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I agree....has anyone tested lime in cream cheese frosting? I'll bet that's great, too. I always, put lemon juice in my royal icing because it cuts the sweetness, and helps the royal set up nicely. I have found myself out of lemons and have substituted lime. DELISH!

I have a baseball t-shirt that says One Tough Cookie, too!

But, to make this relevant to spice cake, Penzeys also has a "cake spice" blend that I used when

I worked with another baker. We just added it to vanilla cake, and it was surprisingly good!

[Spice Cake recipes]

Carolyn, I do not have a recipe but have you tried the Viet Nam cinnamon???? Oh my soul, it is sooooo good!!! I've seen it at the major grocery stores labeled as Saigon cinnamon put out by Durkee or McCormack or something. I got mine off of King Arthur's. Just tremendous flavor - sort of a muted red hot cinnamon burst. Just really worth your while if you're doing spice stuff.

You could just take a regular recipe that you like & put in that cinnamon alone for an A+ gold star cake! Way good!

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I wholeheartedly concur. Vietnamese cinnamon is THE spiciest! And, it's not a sweet cinnamon,

so it could be used in savory recipes (I'm hardpressed to think of one right now).

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We use it on salmon sometimes.

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Salmon....delicious! I now remember that I use it in all my Moroccan-esque recipes...like chick-pea soup, and lemon chicken. Also K8, I agree with you on lemon in the cream cheese frosting! I've tasted orange cream cheese frosting on a gingerbread cake, and didn't care for it. Too strong an orange flavor for me, instead of that bright citrus-y taste I go for. Try infusing

star anise in cream when you do a ganache, be it a chocolate ganache, mocha or caramel. It's fabulous!

[Spice Cake recipes]

Carolyn, I do not have a recipe but have you tried the Viet Nam cinnamon???? Oh my soul, it is sooooo good!!! I've seen it at the major grocery stores labeled as Saigon cinnamon put out by Durkee or McCormack or something. I got mine off of King Arthur's. Just tremendous flavor - sort of a muted red hot cinnamon burst. Just really worth your while if you're doing spice stuff.

You could just take a regular recipe that you like & put in that cinnamon alone for an A+ gold star cake! Way good!

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I wholeheartedly concur. Vietnamese cinnamon is THE spiciest! And, it's not a sweet cinnamon,

so it could be used in savory recipes (I'm hardpressed to think of one right now). I sprinkle it on my morning latte every day, too! If anyone is interested, it can be bought at Penzey's, or

in NYC at Aphrodesia, a fantastic herb and spice store.

[The Best Sugar Cookie]

Here's my favorite food tip of all time:  roll out cookies using powdered sugar (10x, confectioner's, icing sugar, whatever you call it) instead of flour.  Re-rolled cookies get more crispy instead of getting tough.

I find this easier than messing about with paper and chilling and peeling.

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For what it's worth, I only roll my dough between parchment sheets. It's clean and I don't worry

about toughening the dough (although the 10x idea is a good one). Also, I mark on my

parchments how many times I've re-rolled....2 is my limit. That said, if there's a small amount

of twice rolled dough left that I don't use, I will incorporate it with a fresh batch of dough.

And, because I fully ice my cookies, I never worry about them losing moisture.

I also find freezing the dough is perfect for retaining the sharp edges. After I roll the dough, the

sheets are put into the freezer. I then cut, place on baking sheets and refreeze til I'm ready to bake them off. I think they come out very nicely.

My customers love my sugar cookies, which I offer in vanilla and chocolate. For gingerbread, I use

Cooks' Illustrated gingersnaps. They're spicy and delicious!

[Professional pastry pictures]

Maybe this is a silly question, but what exactly is a "cake icer" tip?  Is that a very large petal tip?

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It looks like a basketweave tip on steroids. Flat opening, smooth on one side and serrated on the other. About 2 inches wide. It was designed originally to ice the sides of cakes done in those character pans, but it works great for getting the icing onto the sides of most any cake. Wilton #789, I believe.

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Thanks...the minute I posted that I knew I shouldn't have. I have that tip, and use it, but

just don't call it a cake icer tip...new lingo for me.

[Professional pastry pictures]

Thanks everyone!  and sorry it's taken me so long to respond; we've been getting slammed at work and I had this wedding cake to make:

This is the only description the MOB would give me for this cake:

the look should be of a pretty pristine moist cake  sitting with the woodland nature effect going over it like looking into

a corner of the forest floor. Seeing green ti leaves/perhaps bark below the cake and orchids and these tiny ferns. Perhaps some moss

in the bright green as well, might be spun sugar/ or I can bring you my real moss? Dew like effects.What ever looks like Hilo

forest floor. You can make tiny branches  as you showed me on your orchid cake effect.

Yet very simple, and natural. People will look and wonder, how perfect the cake is relating to the natural world. Pristine and perfect. simple

Everything except the moss (that's colored rice noodles is gumpaste: cymbidium, oncidium and dendrobium orchids, ohia bark, uluhe ferns (curly burgundy things). The branches are chocolate covered floral taped wires.

I use a cake icer tip, an offset spatula and a dough knife/bench scraper to ice. I use a cooked sugar, all butter buttercream. I apply the icing using the tip and a large pastry bag, spread everything evenly with the spatula and then use the dough knife to smooth.

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Maybe this is a silly question, but what exactly is a "cake icer" tip? Is that a very large petal tip?

Your smoothing is beyond....absolutely beyond.

[Professional pastry pictures]

MPShort, you bc'd cakes are magnificent. The smoothest smoothing job I've ever seen!

Inspiring, absolutely inspiring!

[Gingerbread Houses - Pictures]

Thanks,Pam, for actually getting the picture on, and thanks for the compliment, Domestic Goddess.

I probably wrote it earlier, but my piece was inspired by the movie "Marie Antoinette", which I absolutely adored. I thought it would be cute to put my dog (a Papillon) in this fantasy version

of Marie Antoinette's Le Petit Trianon. Although architecturally, the piece wasn't that complicated,

it took hours of work for me. The front piece was actually bigger than the other 3 sides, so I had

to build it on a piece of styrofoam to create the appearance of it being built into a berm.

Then I used cookie cutters to trace shapes of what would be the grass gardens. And, the candy store people loved me...all those jelly beans for the cobblestones.

Anyway, it was my first gbh, and I have a newfound respect for them and the people who do them.

[Gingerbread Houses - Pictures]

Fabulous! And, the gingerbread house website you provided the link for is great, too. I just did

my first gbh for a charity event here in NYC. I chose to do a very scaled down version of

Marie Antoinette's private refuge, Le Petit Trianon. And, because there was a menagerie at Versailles during MA's and her husband Louis XVI tenure, I did some animal cookies, too.

And, just for good measure, I included my own dog, Mitzi, in this crazy thing.

I'd add a photo of mine, but I can't figure out how to insert a photo. Any suggestions?

[Croquembouche: Tips & Techniques]

Are there heating pads that can keep caramel that hot? You dont mean the type of heating pads you would use for a sore neck, do you? They wouldnt generate nearly enough heat to keep the caramel fluid. A stove burner, which you're likely to be making the caramel on anyway, would work just fine.

We were taught in school that a regular heating pad might keep the pan at the proper temperature longer, without really cooking it. It would act as insulation.

[Croquembouche: Tips & Techniques]

Thanks for the help - I'll be making a larger batch of caramel next time, so hopefully it will stay warmer longer. Would putting the bowl over a heat source (like a fondue pot) work, or will that be too much and darken the sugar?

Tongs! That makes sense for serving. I'm going to go look for a sturdy pair...

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A heating pad might work to keep the caramel hot, but not cook it longer.

[RLB & baking powder formulas]

Yes, I did email her at the website. Haven't seen any answer....yet. 

What's interesting to me is that in first entried recipe on page 39 in The Cake Bible, the amt of bp is 19.5 gms, and the recommended cake pan height is 1.5 inches. (for a 9 inch cake)  Then, when you go to the back of the book, and get into the formulas, the cake pan recommended is 2 inches high, and the baking powder amt is 26.08 gms!  On my next try, I will go down to 20 or 21 gms, and try that.

Thank you for your help, though.

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Rest assured that Rose will answer you. I wrote to her and she answered me quite quickly. You might have to go back to where your question appeared on her page and look for her reply under that. I actually was having the same issue with the middle of the cake sinking, and I had verified my calculations and all were ok. Her answer to me was that I should try reducing the bp a little bit as well as letting the cake mix for a bit longer (30sec - 1 min.) to let the structure of the mix build up a bit. Well, I was just very careful about my bp measurements after that, and measured by tsp instead of weight, and let my mix whirr for another 30 seconds min. and haven't had a problem since. I was using her White Butter Cake recipe, but I would try that. Hope it helps, and welcome to eGullet!!

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Great idea about letting it mix longer...and I will definitely check on the RLB site where I hope

I entered my question. Thanks so much for sharing this with me!

[RLB & baking powder formulas]

Somewhere in the Cake Bible is a chart that shows you what amounts of baking powder are needed for different size pans. I think the technique she advocates is to fill one size pan first, then add baking powder to the remaining batter as needed. There's something about a larger pan needing less because of surface tension. I find those charts to be almost inscrutable..Rose factor this...blah blah blah. It all just goes on and on. Too much detail for me.

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Whew! And I thought it was me! I have read that part about filling one pan first, etc.

I haven't tried it, though. Maybe I should...

Thanks for your reply, McDuff.

["Baking: From My Home to Yours" (Part 1)]

Patrick S, your photographs are incredible! They make a great sales tool for the book (It's on my Xmas list  ).

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Thank you, Toliver!

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Patrick, you're obviously a very talented baker. My favorite post of yours is the squaring off

the corners demo! Brilliant.

You may want to kill me, but, have you & the egullet people ever thought about a demo

on food photograhy? For those of us who photo our products for websites, etc., you

could offer a wealth of information.

I'm RUNNING to get Dorie Greenspan's new book! I'm drooling over every single post in this thread!

[RLB & baking powder formulas]

You could always ask her yourself - she regularly responds to questions and comments on her blog.  It's "Real Baking with Rose" at RLB Blog

Have you ever tried just holding back on the bp by 1/2 tsp or so?  Scale out what you think you should use and then subtract in 5 gm increments and see what that does for you.

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Yes, I did email her at the website. Haven't seen any answer....yet.

What's interesting to me is that in first entried recipe on page 39 in The Cake Bible, the amt of bp is 19.5 gms, and the recommended cake pan height is 1.5 inches. (for a 9 inch cake) Then, when you go to the back of the book, and get into the formulas, the cake pan recommended is 2 inches high, and the baking powder amt is 26.08 gms! On my next try, I will go down to 20 or 21 gms, and try that.

Thank you for your help, though.

[RLB & baking powder formulas]

I've been reading the threads on RLB's cakes and buttercreams, but not sure if anyone's run across this dilemna:

I use RLB's All Occasion Downy Yellow Cake recipe (I have a custom cake and cookie business).

I've used the formula given to convert the recipe into all different cake pan sizes. BUT,

my cakes end up being too high, then sink in the middle, have large tunnels and gelatinous tops: clearly the result of too much baking powder. Now, I've recalculated and recalculated and keep coming up with the same amounts. I do, however, use 3 inch deep pans, and I think that's the culprit. (RLB's formula is based on 2 inch pans) The cakes just climb up those walls. I've even calculated the difference between a 2 inch and a 3 inch deep pan, and adjusted my the bp amount by that percentage difference (am I making myself clear?). I think that's the closest I've come to perfecting it.

Does anyone have any words of wisdom? I love this cake because it's absolutely delicious & moist.

My clients love the flavor, too. It's structurally sound (once I level it), and goes with a zillion

different fillings.

PS. I was just reading the thread on baking from Dorie Greenspan's new book. That's a definite must get! Especially after seeing Patrick's beautiful photos!