Gwhit

My favorite cakes are nice and simple in appearance. Smooth icing, nice piping. Great! Your cake came out fantastic and I am sure it tasted as good. What was underneath that great icing job? ← It was a really yummy carrot cake, that was filled with an icing made from white chocolate, cream cheese and whipped cream. The icing on the outside was an Italian Meringue Buttercream.

Thanks for your kind comments. I appreciate it especially from people who do this full time. Someday I would like to be able to do this full time, but right now I can't afford to give up my full time job. Thanks again, Gayle

We have finally downloaded the pictures from the wedding which I did the cake for. Thanks for all your help. She just wanted a simple cake with real flowers and I think it turned out ok for an amateur.

Well the photo worked,but it went on top of my message. Will have to keep practicing. I mentioned that I had copied if from a cake on the back of one of my Fine Cooking Magazines. I will post the wedding cake once I get it downloaded. Gayle

I have not downloaded our wedding photos yet, but I thought I would practice trying to post a picture. This was the shower cake I did for my niece. I copied it from you on the back of one of my Fine Cooking Magazines.

Thanks for your best wishes. Hopefully I have enough flowers, I have 14 roses, and several stems of the orchids, berries and fresia, as well as some leaves for filler. If not, I can just run to the florist one more time because they are just around the corner. It is cloudy here now, but the sun is supposed to come out so it should be a wonderful day. GO

Thank you for your very quick replies. Well I have just finished icing the cake, with no piping as yet and it looks pretty good. My sister actually made the cake so I had to do some fancy trimming to make the layers even. A few of the layers were different heights, though they were supposed to be the same, and the 14" kind of caved in a little in the centre. Luckily I could use some of the trimmed pieces to kind of fill in the hollow part so it is now all level. It is a carrot cake and she used pineapply pieces so cutting it was a little harder than normal, but all is ok so far. The room is air conditioned all the time so that is good. I confirmed I do have the use of the fridge, but as you mention Kmemphis I don't want my cake to smell like onions so I will see what goodies the cake will be sharing space with. I got the flowers from someone here in town that advises no pesticides and they have really good quality so that should be ok. Thanks for the tips on how to do the cascade. I think that I will do as you suggest and get them all organized and ready to go before hand and then when I drop off the cake make the judgement then. If the fridge is good then I will put them on the cake ahead of time, but if I have to leave the cake out I will put them on after the ceremony. It is family, and my sister has said just to do whatever works best she no pressure there. I seem to only do these cakes for family and friends and I am invited to their weddings which makes the timing hard. Next week I am doing another cake, this time for actual money and am not going to the wedding so I should be a little more relaxed. I will try to post a picture if I can figure out how to. I know there are instructions on the site somewhere. Thanks again and wish me luck. Gayle

Hello. I am making my nieces wedding cake and will be using real flowers. I have done this before and find the flowers stand up quite will if I stick them directly in the cake. However, I am wondering if anyone out there that does this for a living could advise me. The wedding is a 3:00pm and the reception starts at 5:30pm. They will be serving the cake for dessert so probably around 7:30pm. I can deliver the cake from 12:00pm onward the day of the wedding. My dilema is can I put the flowers in the cake around 1:00pm and will they last in an air conditioned room. I may also be able to leave the cake in the fridge at the hall. Or would you suggest I rush to the hall after the service and do it then. I am a little nervous about doing it after the service because the flower design she wants I have not before and it may take a little while for me to get it right. It is four teirs and she wants the flowers cascading down all the tiers. I am using mainly roses and orchids with some other small filler flowers. The wedding is tomorrow, 17 June so I know this is late, but I am just starting to panic a little bit. I had initially intended to do it after the service but that is starting to stress me. Thanks for any help you can give me, everyone here is so great. Gayle

Hello. I made the Pumpkin Streusel Tart from the Fine Cooking Magazing for our Canadian Thanksgiving and it was very good. It also had bourbon in it. The recipe may be on their website. It calls for a 10" pan but I only have a 9" and 11" so used the 11" and it worked out very well. It sounds like it might be similar to the recipe mentioned above from the Epicurous. Gayle

Thank you so much for this demonstration. Though I just do cakes as a hobby I have thought it would be fun to attempt one of these and now I know how. I just finished my son's wedding cake which turned out really great. I used hemming ruler to mark a straight line on the cake so guess my ideas are right up their with the pros. I have learned so much from this forum so thank you again. GO

It can be quite difficult to get the really deep colours without mixing some colours together. By adding a little black it makes the colours deeper. You have to experiment a little and sometimes you end up with mud but I have managed a deep red by adding a touch of black. You can get really nice deep greens by doing the same thing. Art supply stores, or probably the internet have colour wheels which you can use to help you know what colours to mix. As I am just a home cook, I may be off track but that has always worked for me. I am doing a friends wedding cake at the end of the month so can relate. Good luck.

Gobber to me is definately sweet biscuit dough dropped on the fruit then sprinked with a little sugar or even cinnamon. The pastry type does sound interesting, but one reason I like cobbler is the fact that it is easy to make and oh so good. Gayle