The first is my baking experience in preparation for decorating class number 2. We were posed with the challenge of bringing a cake, white icing and colored icing to our class. I made the decision to make the “Gold Cake” recipe from my great grandmother’s recipe book (talked about the cookbook in an earlier post).
Great recipe and lots of fun to make: it called for triple sifting of the flour plus it called for 8 egg yolks beaten separately and then added into the batter slowly. Overall not bad – just took me a while to get it in the oven. One thing I need to do a better job of is letting my butter soften before I start mixing it with the sugar – if its right out of the fridge it doesn’t work so well.
Since we needed an 8” cake for our class I just made one of those and then the rest as cupcakes.
The directions in the recipe called for 2 - 9” cakes though so I had to do some guessing on the time to cook. Seems as though I left them in a little too long – both the cupcakes and the cake were a little on the dry side. The cupcakes I cooked for 15mins and I think I would do 12 or 13 next time and the cake was in for 25 but should have probably come out in 22 or 23 mins. Does anyone have any tips to make a ‘scratch’ cake more moist? All three cakes I’ve made so far have been a little drier than I’d like and I’d appreciate some tips there!
Since I had the cupcakes I figured I should throw some icing on them. I had some leftover chocolate frosting that I put into my decorating bag and piped it on. Looks pretty good for my first solo shot at piping!
Next is the icing – I waited until the next day to make my icing because I was tired of washing bowls and spatulas and mixing cups :).
The frosting recipe was really easy:
1lb of shortening, 2lbs of confectioner’s sugar, ½ cup of milk and 1 ½ tsp of flavoring (I used vanilla with a dash of almond and lemon).
I realized as I was starting the recipe that it was hard just mixing the shortening and sugar so I threw the milk in sooner rather than later and that made it easier to mix up. The icing came out great – tasted just like frosting off a cake in the grocery store!
Since we were decorating with the icing we had to bring in some colors too so I took about three cups of icing out and separated it into little Ziploc containers. Next came the colors! We decided to decorate a fish onto our cake so I chose more tropical colors – orange/salmon for the mouth, teal for the body and yellow for the fins. It was really fun to mix the colors in but didn’t realize that my hands would come out a bit colored. Our teacher gave us a tip on this: rub some Crisco on your hands before you color your icing and any color that gets on your hands will wipe right off!
So its CLASS TIME! My mom and I brought our cake and all of our tools into class and we were ready to decorate. We started by practicing with some new tips – the #12 tip and the #21 tip. The #12 tip would make stars, shells along the bottom etc. The #21 tip is great for tear drop shapes, hearts, and any shape that looks like a blob. Practice makes perfect so we worked on that for a little bit and then it was time to prep our cake.
We cut our cakes in half and ran a thick line of frosting around the edge to act as a dam for the filling. My mom made a delicious coconut frosting for the middle and then we plopped the top of the cake back on. I cut off some of the top so that it would be flat and then it was time to put on our ‘crumb coat.’ I mentioned the crumb coat in my last post but its just a thin layer of frosting you put all over the cake so that it holds the crumbs in when you put the real layer of frosting on. After we let that sit for 10mins or so we put on the real layer of frosting and smoothed it out the best we could. Now its time to get out the colors and decorate! Check out my work of art!
I was very proud to bring it home and show the hubby! We quickly cut into it to see if it tasted as good as it looked....and it did :)
That's a great cake! You may have the new birthday cake job at work :). The fish is really cute :).
ReplyDeleteTo check the doneness of a cake or cupcakes, stick a wooden toothpick (I use wooden chopsticks) into the cake anywhere from 5-10 minutes before the expected done time. If the toothpick comes out with just some crumbs stuck to it, it's done. If it comes out with gooey stuff on it, check again in @ 3-5 minutes.
Ovens don't always cook at the expected temperature. Some times you have to cook a bit longer, sometimes a bit less. My oven seems to run hot so things are done earlier than expected.
Cake dryness is due to overbaking or the recipe itself. Experiment with different recipes. It's why I keep making those chocolate cupcakes cuz I know the recipe rocks!
Thanks Lys! I am having fun trying new recipes! I think my oven might run a little hot too so thats a good tip. I do have a 'cake tester'....no joke, it actually says that on it....just a thin metal stick but it gets its own name!
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