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When making wedding cakes, you often need a large amount of batter but don't have a recipe that makes the quantity that you need. Often 6, 8, or even 10 times the amount of a normal recipe to get all the tiers done. As you know, multiplying a cake batter to that quantity often doesn't work. What adjustments are necessary when trying to make large batches? Would it help if there is a particular recipe to look at? Of course, the alternative is to make it in small batches, but that takes so much longer... Thanks!

I’m making desserts for an afternoon tea for 20 (a bridal shower), in mid-June. I’m getting paid for the first time (yikes!). I wanted advice on my menu and also on quantities. I want to have items that are easy to pick up or are pre-cut. I need things that I can make ahead. I can probably make one item that needs to be cold, but no more. And no hazelnut since the mother, my friend, hates them. I’ve read all related posts in egullet I could find. These 2 were most helpful: First Catering Job and Formal Tea. They are from a couple of years ago and I wonder if anyone has more ideas, or can recommend the already mentioned. So far I have: A large tray of assorted cookies including Earl Grey shortbread, a layered shortbread, alfajores (cookies filled with dulce de leche), oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, raspberry shortbread squares (the kind you grate the frozen dough and layer it with raspberry jam). And probably Maida Heatter's Miami Peanut Flats, for something salty. And plain shortbread. Lemon-cocount tartlettes. Mini high-hat cupcakes (chocolate cake with Italian meringue, dipped in chocolate) Chocolate-caramel mini-tarts Scones (probably plain and strawberry). Served with cream (clotted?) and jam or preserves. The bride loves scones...and lives in London...no pressure Questions: 1. What else should I make? I would like to make at least one more thing that is not made individually, like a cake, that I could cut. I would rather not make brownies. I like the idea of poundcake finger sandwiches with strawberries but not sure how to make them look nice. Carrot cake? An almond cake? 2. I would like something with almond, but can't decide on what. 3. What flavor am I missing? 4. Is this enough? 5. How many of the small tarts should I make? 20? 6. How about a bowl of strawberries with cream? They are in season now. Other fruit? 7. Can I get away with whipped cream (chantilly)? 8. What to charge? I’m thinking $12-15 per person, but with fruit and clotted cream extra. Too high? Too low? There are no budget constraints but I want to be fair considering it’s my first job but also the amount of work involved. I welcome any and all advice. Thanks!

Some friends of mine are of the conception that I know my way around a kitchen (Probably because I talk of my sourdough baking all the time *S*). They have asked me do to a chocolate cake for their child's baptism party. I have about one week to experiment, but I don't mind doing the cake(s) 2-3 times as "practice runs". I've read through a lot of the material in the eGullet "let's make the perfect chocolate cake" thread , and are starting to get an Idea of what's going on when baking such a thing... (Plastic wrapping, freezing, low temperatures, tooth picks and all that stuff.) In my head, I have this Idea of a very dark chocolate cake with a dark "mirror" frosting If you know what I mean. I've seen some photos on this forum I believe, but I was not able to recall where. That's what I really want to do. I want loads of High quality unhealthy delicious chocolate, I'll probably gain a few pounds just tasting and baking, but who cares .-) I also don't mind jumping in to learn to swim, so ideas on fancy toppings and presentation ideas are also welcome .-) So! If anyone can point me in the right direction for a recipe for the cake, maybe a "Ganache" and a black mirror frosting... I'd be very happy. I will of course post my progress in this thread. The b-party is 11. June, So I better start practicing some techniques .-) Maybe this can be one of thos experiments on how a totallty beginner cake-baker can get help from experienced ones to create a masterpiece in only one week !? Only time will show I guess

A few members, notably akwa & Alex Stupak and xdrixn, all pro pastry chefs, asked about a new thread starting from a NY Forum thread about a new dessert restaurant. New Dessert Restaurant I threw this up as a thought over there... "True, and by my earlier post I didn't mean to imply that I thought Stupak is not soulful. Indeed, a Clio dessert menu I saw that a friend who dined there a few years ago brought back was inspirational. The menu items I saw from Alinea seemed very sci fi, more so then even Adria, and Sams desserts, from what I've seen, always seem connected to dessert, does that make sense? Provocative, unusual at times but always looking ( and sounding) delicious. The "chocolate band" of Stupaks seemed sort of "cold" and that was a surprise to me. Either way would be a rough decision. Maybe wd50 would afford him a chance to work some of those "classic" angles back in while leaving him the room to experiment with ingredients, etc." Alex and akwa said this (edited)... "QUOTE(akwa @ Jun 6 2006, 01:43 PM) shouldnt this be a different thread wg From Alex Stupak "im agreeing with akwa on this one.........if anyone wants to start a thread on dessert philosophy and approach im all for it cause i have a lot to say...." Alex Stupak, a GREAT pastry chef who is currently at Alinea in Chicago, which most would say is one of the most forward thinking restaurants in the US, was recently profiled with a signature dessert in Pastry Art & Design. One of the things he mentioned was coming into pastry and desserts from the savory side and how he never ( if I'm remembering this correctly) mentored under a pastry chef. That's something many have done, gotten into it from the "hot" side. Pichet Ong came into it that way, I believe. Many pastry chefs have also been self taught,like Pat Coston, to name but one. Then there are others, like Sam Mason or Nicole Kaplan, who started out from the gitgo in pastry. I think both staged with Pierre Herme at some point and other pastry chefs even though Mason also staged or worked with a chef whom I consider the premier French savory & dessert chef operating in the US, Michel Richard. Will this make a difference in how dessert is approached, looks wise especially? Is one reigned in or freed by what they have encountered ? Here 'ya go!

This weekend I made my second-ever wedding cake. Here's a picture: <img src="http://www.amarisse.net/tempimages/drewjocake2.jpg"> And here are a couple of questions for you pro's... 1. It was REALLY hot in my house all day Saturday. The cake was too big to fit into either of my refrigerators, so it was at room temp when the outdoor air started taxing the a/c (esp. with the doors open/shut/open all day.) I used wooden dowels to help keep the layers from slipping, but we wound up making Leaning Tower of Pisa jokes before the end of the day! (Fortunately, it never looked like it was actually in jeopardy of falling, but it just didn't look even and professional.) Any tips? 2. The bride really liked the frosted grapes I used on the first cake I made, and she wanted them on her own cake top. I obliged, but found the end result... I dunno... a little disappointing? Maybe the grapes just clashed with the daisies & stuff. Any ideas on how I could have incorporated the grapes, but with a little more flair? I'll admit that by the time I got to that point, I was utterly exhausted from prepping not just the cake, but all the reception food, the house, and the grounds... but I can't even really think of much I could have done differently, in hindsight, either. 3. I've not been brave enough to try dividing layers with columns, yet. Any warnings or advice before I get myself roped into make another cake and decide to give it a shot? Thanks in advance!

I'm thinking of making Martha Stewart's Hummingbird Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting for a birthday party. Has anyone made it before? http://www.marthastewart.com/page.jhtml?ty...MSL&site=living http://www.marthastewart.com/page.jhtml?ty...rue&resultNo=15 It will have to be made the day before, as I'll be taking it to a cabin several hours away from my home. We'll be arriving near suppertime, so I would like to frost the cake at home .Do you think the icing will hold up to the drive? I'll put it in a foam cooler, but don't know if that's cold enough.

none of the supermarkets around me carry it--A & P , Shop Rite, Weis, Stop & Go (or whatever it's called). any sighting of it anywhere? Z

My son has made a new friend on the block. She's a sparkly little blonde who's folks are having a house warming/ kindergarten graduation party next week. It's a potluck and I'd like to bring a dessert. I thought her allergies were limited to dairy and wheat, found this great recipe for a dairy and wheat free chocolate roulade. No go. Mom says no chocolate or almond flour either and to make it nearly impossible, sugar's not so good. I could just bring something for everyone but I REALLY want to make something that this little blondie can enjoy too. I just know that my friends here can do better than fruit with a honey glaze, right? Rice pudding? I've never made it but am wondering if it could be made with rice or coconut milk and honey?

I made the Tribute cake from Alice Medrich's Bittersweet...it's three devil's food cake layers (baked in three pans) and whipped chocolate ganache filling with a chocolate glaze. The cake was really good...chocolatey but not heavy. However, when i slice it and put it onto a saucer, the cake layers separate! For some reason, the whipped filling and cake layers don't stick together. Anybody have any ideas as to why this happened and how to fix it?

OK in the ongoing saga of learning a few things about pastry, i'm trying to figure out the deal with the pie crust my mom has always made. i understand the concept, but i've just never seen another pie crust recipe that works like this. she said it was off an old crisco can, but i can't find any reference to it on the crisco site. (i should clarify before i even start: this is my favorite pie crust, especially when it's surrounding a (NOT ADULTERATED WITH STRAWBERRIES) rhubarb pie. i know it uses crisco instead of butter. i know it's weird. but i'm tellin ya it's great. it's flaky, yet it doesn't fall apart, but it's not tough or anything, which you'd think it would be.) so anyway, you take 2 c of AP flour, and a teaspoon of salt. remove 1/4 of that mixture, and add 1/3 c of water to that to make a paste. then you mix 7/8 c of crisco into the remaining dry ingredients, and you mix it up till it's basically almost like clay--you don't have to worry about keeping it cold or barely mixing or making it like cornmeal or anything. you finish up by mixing the flour-water paste into the flour-crisco paste, but that's where you're careful to make sure you're not overmixing. you end up with a pretty sticky dough that's not real easy to handle, but as i said, it makes for a great pie crust. that's the crust for a 9 or 10 inch double crust pie. so have any of you heard of this? or anything similar? i admit i'm a novice to the baking world, but i've just never seen anything like it.

I'm trying to make the Chocolate Pound Cake from the French Farmhouse Cookbook. The recipe calls for beating egg yolks with sugar, then adding the dry ingredients. Then, you whisk in some butter in three parts and finally fold in egg whites. To add the butter, the recipe says However, the recipe calls for butter at room temperature. How can one whisk room-temperature butter into a cake batter? Won't I end up with clumps of butter in my batter? I thought perhaps it should have been melted butter, but there's no instruction to melt the butter in the recipe. And I assume the recipe should be fine as is, no?

Hi, all - I'd like to make a dessert using the hazelnut-chocolate filled pirouette cookies... my mom loves these Pepperidge Farm cookies, so it would be quite appropriate for mother's day However, I'm not sure which flavors would be good here - something berry sounds good, but then maybe it's better to stay in the chocolate realm? Mom likes pretty much anything, so the options are open. I was first thinking of using the pirouettes to encircle a raspberry-topped cheesecake, but that's probably going to be too heavy after dinner. Now I'm thinking maybe some kind of mousse torte would be better... or maybe a modified tiramisu using pirouettes instead of ladyfingers? All suggestions are welcome and appreciated!

I will be gong on a 7 hour hike this Sunday and it looks like a warm one. This is an annual hike where we each make dessert and have a buffet during the midpoint. I didn't attend last year's first hike but I heard ice cream was to be had! I don't want to go to too much fuss with refrigeration and packing. Rather than make the mundane cookies can eGulleteers suggest something different? I don't mind cookies if it's unique. Someone is going to attempt a Black Forest Cake and another is bringing a pie. Any ideas?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13468807/?GT1=8211 http://www.greatnewwonderfulthemovie.com/

While I do eat eggs, I am put off by the idea of eggs in sweet dishes. I usually select eggless cake recipes or use EnerG egg replacer if the recipe calls for one or two eggs. But the Clementine Cake calls for six eggs, probably because there is no flour in the recipe. Has anyone tried this recipe with fewer or without eggs? I would love to try this cake and even have all the ingredients (including almond meal) on hand, but the six-egg thing is holding me back. I have looked up substitution advice on some baking sites and found no acceptable solution. I was thinking of just forging ahead by cutting down the eggs to three and using the egg replacer. Perhaps this will give me a denser, heavier cake? Or will this be a wasted effort unless six and no less than six eggs are used? Veena

Hi. Going to dinner on Wednesday night as a farewell to my sis who is moving to San Francisco. Wanted to go to Daniel but they didn't have room for us. Her criteria is somewhere with vegetarian options, but most importantly a good cheese course and great dessert. Any ideas on this?

i know that when you bake a cake in a larger size pan, you are "sopposed" to alter the recipe. does anyone not do this and still get good results? i want to make the CI's white cake in a 14 inch pan but am hesitant that it will not turn out well. i really don't want to start altering the recipe since it is one of my favorites. thanks

And foodies in the U.K. know what I'm talking about? Anyone have a recipe? Thanks......Annie

I was hoping someone could help me find an answer to a cake question. I have come across a few recipes for cakes that call for ice water as their liquid. Most of them use the traditional creaming method, in the end alternating dry ingredients with ice water. My best guess is that it seizes up the butter/fat and helps protect the flour from forming gluten. Does anyone know if this is correct?

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

I've just made Rose Levy Berenbaum's Chocolate Chiffon Cake and really like it - light, moist, and very nice texture. BUT I am in search of a more intense, rich, chocolatey flavour with a deeper colour in my chocolate chiffon cake. I have read other posts referring to the recipe from Spago's Chocolate... would that be the one to beat, or are there others out there that would fit the bill? Also in search of the perfect frosting but that's for another thread once I've found the right cake recipe!

Hello! I think I am going to have to ask for a lot of help here coming up... My brother is getting married this fall, and my dad told him I could make his wedding cake because I'd done it before. Truth is, I've done it twice, and both times for close friends who cared more about taste than beauty, since I am no cake decorator, and I'm very much an amateur baker! Luckily, I got out of that by confessing to my brother that I can't decorate with icing - only with fruit. At this point, he asked if I could do the groom's cake. I've done several of those for friends and family - double-decker pineapple upside down cakes, flourless chocolate cakes with strawberry mousse filling and chocolate mirror glaze, tiramisu, tres leches cake, etc all on a grand scale. So, I agree and he gives me his fiance's email address. Well, she really wants a second wedding cake! She would like a square 3-tiered red velvet cake with buttercream icing. My brother is an IU basketball fan, so she would like the top square to have the IU logo in crimson, and the sides of the cakes to have vertical cream and crimson candy stripes, like the IU basketball warm-up pants. Yikes! Thank goodness for the demo on icing a square cake! I've seen demos online about how to stack cakes. I can spend the summer working on getting the buttercream to spread as smooth as possible, since that's always been an issue for me, so the main thing that's left is...red icing? I've tried before with wilson's no-taste red when I made a spiderman cake for my nephew's birthday. I used SOOO much red food coloring, and it still seemed like dark pink to me, plus it stained everyone's teeth and tongues red, which would be a huge no-no for the wedding. I thought about using those gel pens, but when I mentioned it, the bride said that looks too childish, and I agree. We also talked about airbrushing, but I would have to buy everything unless I used one of those wilson aeresol spray cans, and I just doubt that will look as nice. So, what should I do for the red stripes and the IU logo on top? What have I gotten myself into?

For research for a piece I'm writing, and for my father-in-law whose mother's (lost) recipe it was, I'm wondering if someone one knows about this dessert confection. My FIL says it was definitely a dessert treat, not some kind of quiche-like tart. It had a double crust and was heavy on the spinach. It was sublime, I'm told.

I've always wondered about this so now I'm just going to ask.... if I fill a cake with pastry cream (and chopped fruit), how long would you safely leave this at rm temp? I ask because a lot of my clients love the pastry cream filling option I offer, but I usually encourage them to use a buttercream for a wedding cake because it stands out for so long (figure it takes me 1-2 hrs for decorating - and yes, it's covered with fondant, no flames from the other thread please! - then it's delivered an hour or two before the reception starts, it stays out for another 2 or so hours before it is cut/plated). I'm always careful about pastry cream because of all the milk/yolks, etc and I'm nervous about it being out for 4+ hours the way a wedding cake is. I don't typically refrigerate a fondant-covered cake, because I don't like how fondant behaves after refrigeration, and the walk-in I share is humid anyway - but if I had to, I could. I just would hate handling the cake afterwards (no matter what brand of fondant I've used, it always gets condensation on it after refrigeration. The condensation makes for fingerprints when you go to assemble the tiers.) Would it make any difference if I used a mix (the only mix I've seen for pastry cream calls for adding milk and optionally, whipped cream to the powder. I don't think that changes anything, but as I have no experience with pastry cream from a mix....)? Or should I still encourage clients to go with a buttercream with chopped fresh fruit filling in lieu of a pastry cream filling for wedding cakes?

Ok folks - forget the peanut butter - need an original, decadent caramel dessert for birthday that does not have to be refrigerated. Milk chocolate OK - not dark and needing a "show stopper" type as this will be the "present". Thanks