Carrot cakes and new cookbook...

My son-in-law, Eddie, called and asked if I could have a 1/4 sheet carrot cake ready for him to take to work on Friday as a thank you to his co-workers, as it is his last day at T-Mobile. So I found this great recipe for carrot cake and cream cheese icing in my new cookbook, America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book. The recipe calls for a whole lb. of carrots, which makes the cake moist, and a perfect blend of spices. I'm still having a little problem with my carrot cakes sinking slightly in the center due to high altitude, even though I added a little extra flour. I think next time I will try raising the oven temperature slightly and baking the cake for a shorter time. The cream cheese icing recipe called for an extra ingredient that I have not used before...sour cream. This recipe is not too sweet and whips up very nice and fluffy. This is not an icing you can do detailed decorating with, but it ices the cake very nicely, and tastes great!

Cream Cheese Icing

(2) 8 oz. bricks of cream cheese

10 T. softened butter

2 T. sour cream

1 1/2 t. vanilla extract

2 cups powdered sugar

Beat the cream cheese, butter, sour cream, and vanilla together at med. low speed until smooth. Add the sugar slowly and beat at low speed until smooth. Turn up the mixer speed to med. high, and beat until light and fluffy.

Cake artistry...mixing colors

I have often considered myself an artist. However, because I am a cake decorator and not a painter, my medium is icing instead of paint. My tools are decorating bags, spatulas, and paste and/or airbrush food coloring. My palette is mixing bowls and plastic containers. I thought about this last night as I was decorating the above pictured cake. It had several different shades of browns. When I work with browns, I normally always use chocolate buttercream and add to that, because it tastes better than just using plain old brown paste color. For example, the shoes and the underside of the hat are done with full strength thinned down chocolate buttercream. The upper portion of the hat and jacket were made by adding white buttercream, and for the hair and middle part of the sunflowers, I added a touch of red icing to the chocolate. Even the gray color for the gardening gloves was made from white buttercream, with a touch of chocolate and a very small addition of blue. This was a fun cake to do. I designed it for Michelle, a friend of mine who works at a retirement home...hence the interesting birthday names. I wanted to do something with sunflowers, since this is sunflower season in Colorado, and I thought the woman with the green thumb and large nose added character. The flavor of the cake was strawberry with fresh strawberry mousse.

Finding old cake patterns on line

I hadn't put this design on a wedding cake since we left AZ and I needed to find the pattern so I could get approximately the correct size of scallops. Since I knew which Wilton yearbook it came from, I just googled Wilton cake patterns and then typed in scallop pattern, and walla...there it was. Don't you just love the internet? This was a cake I delivered to Fort Carson. In previous years, I always put this design on a buttercream frosted cake, even though the design was originally meant to be on a fondant covered cake. It always looked OK before, but even looked nicer this time around on the fondant. This was a yellow cake filled with cream cheese and fresh strawberries...yumm. Also, it seems each time I do a cake in fondant, I learn something new. Last night, I discovered that I would probably save time and allot of cornstarch if I had a no stick mat, so I will invest in a silicone treated mat before I do my next fondant cake. The mat that I made myself from clear vinyl ends up sticking when I thought it wouldn't.

Follow-up on Anniversary cake...

The poor little anniversary cake...it just keeps getting forgotten. Bruce forgot to take it to work this morning, so I finally took it over to a friend for her family to enjoy.

Anniversary cakes...and interesting story...this is a first!

I offer an anniversary cake option to my wedding cake customers. Normally, when they order a tiered wedding cake, I do not charge them for the top tier-it is just included in the cost. I also give them the option, however, to pay for the top tier, and then I include a coupon which entitles them to a free anniversary cake for their first anniversary. Many brides prefer this option so they can have a fresh cake for their anniversary. It also means they don't have to use up extra storage space in the freezer. Some more traditional brides still opt out for saving the top tier. So anyway, this next story that I'm about to relay is very interesting to say the least, and a definite first time for me. . .

About 2 weeks ago I received a call from a customer whose wedding cake I had designed a year ago. He said he was calling to order the anniversary cake that he received the coupon for. Then he informed me that he had filed for divorce, and that because his mother paid for the cake, that he would like to order the cake for his mother and himself. He also warned me that his "soon to be X-wife" would possibly call to order a cake also and I should just refuse because his mother was the one that paid for the cake. I let him know that I thought that would most likely not happen. So, then I could hear him having a discussion with his mother in the background about what flavor they wanted to order and when he would like to pick it up. It was agreed that he would pick the cake up last Thursday evening...I would call when the cake was ready. When the cake was finished, I called the customer, and he informed me that he would not be able to pick up the cake that night, but would have to wait until the following evening to pick up the cake. I told him it would not be as fresh, but I would put it in the refrigerator, and he could call before he came. So, here it is late Sunday night-or early Monday morning-and the cake is still sitting in the refrigerator. Bruce will take it to work to share with his co-workers this morning. They will love it, even though it is no longer fresh. And no, I will not do another cake for this inconsiderate customer. Hmm...I wonder why this marriage didn't last.

Detail work...outlining with buttercream

I was looking at some of my cake pictures recently, comparing some of my more recent cakes with some done several years ago. Even though all were nice, the more recent cakes have much better detail and look nicer. I think what has made the difference is that I now use buttercream to outline, instead of piping gel, as I had many years ago. Often, I use chocolate buttercream, the darkness depending on the pattern I'm working with. I think I have also gotten pickier about being exact with my fill-in and detail work. For example, on this last cake I did for a friend's baby shower, I ended up doing the faces over again, because I was unhappy with the way the eyes looked first time around. Took me forever to decorate, but I was happy with the end result.

Fill-in Color Techniques

I received an email recently from someone who had visited my website and blog, asking me about the techniques I used to fill in the color on some of my party cakes, specifically the cakes shown on this post. Thanks to Julie for her question.

After pressing the pattern into the buttercream frosting, I outline the pattern with a normal consistency buttercream. To make the flow-in color, I add liquid paste color to the buttercream, and then thin it with Karo corn syrup. Using writing tips, I flow it into the the outlined pattern.