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Onigami Nanashi posted:I'm making a lemon bastard version of smittenkitchen's best birthday cake (http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2009/07/best-birthday-cake/) and I wanted to make the best sour cream frosting to go with it, but her version is a chocolate sour cream which I didn't want to do with a lemon cake. I made this cake in May, and I loved the frosting Deb uses, it did actually have a sweet-sour taste. Her frosting recipe has 4x as much sour cream as the one you used, so that's probably the reason yours tasted mostly like sugar instead of sour cream. I haven't tested this idea, but could it be possible to just sub white chocolate chips in for the semi-sweet in Deb's recipe? Lemon + white chocolate seems like a good combination, not too overpowering. Good luck! got some chores tonight fucked around with this message at 03:03 on Aug 23, 2014 |
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Aug 23, 2014 02:29
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I made a basic yellow cake with a strawberry filling and chocolate icing a few weeks ago for my mother's birthday. Not a very exciting combination, but it turned out wonderfully. I don't have any pictures worth showing, though, because I am absolutely terrible at decorating cakes, and the finished cake was just a boring brown cylinder. Any suggestions on learning some basic decorating skills? There is a Michaels near me that has some cake decorating classes coming up, are those worth it at all?
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Aug 23, 2014 05:37
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So what's the preference with regards to using Canola Oil versus using Butter? I have heard canola oil makes things lighter and fluffier while butter makes things a little more dense. Is any of that true? Nutritionally, they're both high calorie but not toxically unhealthy or anything, right?
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Aug 25, 2014 18:56
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Third Murderer posted:I made a basic yellow cake with a strawberry filling and chocolate icing a few weeks ago for my mother's birthday. Not a very exciting combination, but it turned out wonderfully. I don't have any pictures worth showing, though, because I am absolutely terrible at decorating cakes, and the finished cake was just a boring brown cylinder. Any suggestions on learning some basic decorating skills? There is a Michaels near me that has some cake decorating classes coming up, are those worth it at all? I took a cake decorating class at Michaels store once (6+ years ago) and it was basically one giant advertisement for WiltonŽ brand everything. I mean, I learned a couple of things, but honestly? I'd head to YouTube before I'd take one again.
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Aug 25, 2014 22:17
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Well, that's kind of disappointing, but not really surprising. I guess I'll just have to look up some good videos and spend an evening piping flowers onto wax paper for practice. At least Youtube is free!
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Aug 26, 2014 02:42
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Made Dobos Torte as a birthday cake. It is super amazing and yet very simple. Recipe 
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Sep 7, 2014 21:29
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That looks delicious and I salute you  . How was the frosting? I'm hesitant to use raw eggs in something that's unrefrigerated.
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Sep 8, 2014 01:57
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Brennanite posted:That looks delicious and I salute you The frosting had a great texture. I think there is a lot to vary to taste with the type of chocolate used. With the chocolate I used it ended up just slightly too sweet overall (for me). I think that if I make it again then I'll make the frosting with a stronger darker chocolate.
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Sep 8, 2014 12:23
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Brennanite posted:That looks delicious and I salute you They sell pasteurized eggs in the shell for situations like this!
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Sep 8, 2014 13:11
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And if you have a sous vizzle machine you can pasteurize your own eggs.
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Sep 8, 2014 14:26
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Twins had their 1st birthday party this weekend. My fiance made a classic cream cake with peaches ontop and raspberries and nutella and some other stuff in the middle. Also bilberry pie with whipped vanilla cream, chocolate chip muffins and some homemade cookies (and some storebought):  Bonus kid pics   (My mom knitted the cap) 
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Sep 16, 2014 09:44
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Third Murderer posted:I made a basic yellow cake with a strawberry filling and chocolate icing a few weeks ago for my mother's birthday. Not a very exciting combination, but it turned out wonderfully. I don't have any pictures worth showing, though, because I am absolutely terrible at decorating cakes, and the finished cake was just a boring brown cylinder. Any suggestions on learning some basic decorating skills? There is a Michaels near me that has some cake decorating classes coming up, are those worth it at all? This is a free class on craftsy that goes over the basics of doing a cake. It includes putting a tiered cake together but even if you're doing only one tier, the process of leveling, torting, trimming is useful because a flat cake gives you a nice surface to decorate on. Then it goes over the icing process, with crumb coat and final coat. I found it really useful for going through the basic process: http://www.craftsy.com/class/modern-buttercream/110?_ct=sbqii-sqjuweho-qbb&_ctp=110,3 I think one of the easier ways to make a cake look nice is to do some sort of buttercream stripe or ruffle, especially one that has more of a rustic look because then you don't have to do it perfectly. As already mentioned you can find a lot on youtube. Here's one on rustic buttercream effects: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oD9HFlNnlbU Piping with a ribbon tip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93BdP2tobeQ And just search around, there's tons of stuff on there.
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Sep 30, 2014 00:00
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I made a Hello Kitty cake for my daughter's third birthday. Egg-, gluten- and dairy-free: sponge made from gluten-free cake mix stabilized with xanthan gum, whisked together with oat milk, and filled and decorated with vanilla "buttercream" made from dairy-free unsalted margarine, powdered sugar, a splash of glucose syrup, vanilla and a few drops red food colouring. It was actually quite good for a birthday cake, both the sponge and the filling/frosting.   The "buttercream" was very nice to work with, even if I just winged it. The cat was made with a chocolate "pen" and I'm just relieved it didn't turn out any worse. Kid was overjoyed, and that's what counts in the end. Force de Fappe fucked around with this message at 09:16 on Sep 30, 2014 |
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Sep 30, 2014 09:14
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That's pretty impressive! I made an everything-free loaf of bread once, but I never tried a cake.mich posted:This is a free class on craftsy that goes over the basics of doing a cake. [etc.] This is great, thank you! 
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Oct 1, 2014 03:57
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I've recently started baking cakes as a hobby, and while I've been getting amazing flavors from them, I've had an issue with my cheesecakes cracking on top. I'm making another one tonight, are there ways to effectively combat the cracks that form?
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Oct 21, 2014 16:28
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Big McHuge posted:I've recently started baking cakes as a hobby, and while I've been getting amazing flavors from them, I've had an issue with my cheesecakes cracking on top. I'm making another one tonight, are there ways to effectively combat the cracks that form? Before it gets completely done, turn off the oven and crack the door. Or if you're refrigerating it soon after taking it out of the oven, stop that. Let it come down to room temp fully before refrigerating. AFAIK, cracking is caused by it cooling too quickly.
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Oct 21, 2014 16:56
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One of the cheesecakes I've had luck with has you first turn off the oven and crack the door, then cool it on top of the oven, and only then pop it in the fridge. It's a bit involved but the slower it goes the better your chances of a smooth top. Also I think it helps if you run a knife around the edge of the pan, that way if/when it does shrink it is less likely to pull apart.
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Oct 21, 2014 22:28
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Learned that the hard way at thanksgiving last year 
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Oct 21, 2014 22:34
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Going with New York style can also be handy, with enough sour cream topping you can cover the deepest of cracks.
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Oct 21, 2014 23:04
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Slifter posted:One of the cheesecakes I've had luck with has you first turn off the oven and crack the door, then cool it on top of the oven, and only then pop it in the fridge. It's a bit involved but the slower it goes the better your chances of a smooth top. Also I think it helps if you run a knife around the edge of the pan, that way if/when it does shrink it is less likely to pull apart. At what point do you run the knife around the edge? (I'm very, very, very new to the cooking/baking stuff)
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Oct 21, 2014 23:26
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Big McHuge posted:At what point do you run the knife around the edge? No worries, we all start somewhere. I'd do it right after you turn off the heat.
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Oct 24, 2014 01:13
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Hi, I'm new. I'm Marilyn. I'm self-taught, and love seeing everyone's cakes here. Serious talent!  I made a cake for my friends' rustic fall wedding. It's a tiramisu cake- coffee cake/white cake layers, whipped mascarpone filling, and a Baileys swiss buttercream meringue frosting. I did gumpaste maple leaves and fondant oak leaves. The ribbon is also fondant.  My friend's birthday cake. Lemon cake, blueberry orange marmalade and lemon/orange zest whipped cream cheese frosting. If you're pie curious.. ;D  Apple pecan cheese cake with a pecan graham cracker crust.
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Oct 27, 2014 04:36
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If you live somewhere in Southern California let me know so I can steal those cakes and pies from your kitchen. Well...the tiramisu and the pie ones. The lemon cake one looks fantastic, but if I am going to eat cake I'm gonna go pretty hard, you know? Those leaves are cute as hell, too. Everything looks fantastically delicious. Wonderful.
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Oct 27, 2014 06:52
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Jinglebrained posted:If you're pie curious.. ;D  I'm gonna need to know how this is made.
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Oct 28, 2014 01:55
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I don't have anything to contribute except that I am very pie curious.
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Oct 28, 2014 04:49
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For that apple cheesecake are you basically just baking a normal cheesecake and then spooning on/decorating that topping once the pie cools? I would assume you mix a litttle of that topping into the cheesecake batter before baking as well, right? About how much?
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Oct 28, 2014 05:25
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Drifter posted:For that apple cheesecake are you basically just baking a normal cheesecake and then spooning on/decorating that topping once the pie cools? I would assume you mix a litttle of that topping into the cheesecake batter before baking as well, right? About how much? I appreciate the feedback The crust is graham cracker, pecan, sugar, butter, and just a touch of cinnamon. I chop the pecans pretty fine- sometimes it's easier to put them in a sandwich bag and smash them in there. I do a 2-1 graham cracker/pecan ratio. I pre-bake the crust for 8-10 mins. The cheesecake is just a soft, fluffy cheesecake, I don't like to add the apple mixture to the cheesecake. I do 24 oz. of cream cheese, two or three eggs depending on their size, 3/4 cup of sugar, and maybe a tsp vanilla extract. The apples are granny smith, I slice them up and add white sugar, cinnamon, a bit of brown sugar, and chopped pecans, toss them, and layer them around the cheesecake, I sprinkle the leftover sugar/pecan over the top. Sometimes I add a bit of caramel sauce, but it definitely doesn't need it. It's more for presentation on a slice. I definitely agree with previous posts about letting it rest, I bake it in a water bath for about an hour, turn it off and crack open the oven door for another hour, before putting it in the fridge or anything. I hope that answers!
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Oct 29, 2014 13:40
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I think I may try that apple cheesecake for a Christmas day thing. There's a first time for everything and if it fails, I'll bullshit something else together!
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Dec 16, 2014 00:30
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So the wife wants me to help her make a Christmas fruit cake.... besides being terrified of fruit cakes to start with.... is there a way to make one people will actually enjoy?
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Dec 16, 2014 01:03
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I made a black forest cake! It was super delicious, soft, creamy, and boozy, the way cakes should be. Recipe Notes for next time: - espresso cream for the middle was a tad too sweet, decrease to 2c? - no more moonshine cherries, way too strong... the bing cherries in a jar were already really good - drain the cherries before putting them on the cake instead of fishing them out of the jar, so the syrup won't ruin the beautiful cream 
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Dec 16, 2014 20:42
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That looks pretty loving pro.
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Dec 16, 2014 20:48
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Thanks! I had 2 whole days so it turned out really well. I iced the cake a bit then chilled it for an hour before icing it again. Icing is hard
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Dec 16, 2014 21:14
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I would totally eat the hell out of that cake. Looks great! And it reminds me I want to do a black forest cake with some of the rum cherries I made this year.
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Dec 16, 2014 22:57
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After lurking here for a bit, I decided to post my first two attempts at using fondant. I'm learning as I go and I need a lot more practice, as you can see from the cracks and lumps, but they've been fun to make and the recipients have been thrilled. I just used fondant on these two cakes, but would like to try using gum paste in the future. This was my first attempt using only store-bought fondant. I used two different brands and found the consistency quite different from one another. The flavor was ok, but not great. The rest of the cake was wonderful.   My second attempt included homemade colored fondant (much better taste) and store-bought black fondant. Parts of the fondant were not as smooth as it could have been and seemed to dry out a bit too soon. Probably just due to my lack of cake making skills and the type of fondant. I'm going to keep practicing and trying new recipes and techniques.     Overall, still pretty happy with the results and can't wait to try the next cake.
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Dec 18, 2014 02:20
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Is that a Skyrim enchanting table? I love the details you put in it!
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Dec 18, 2014 05:03
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  These are cakes I delivered last weekend. Pretty happy with them!
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Dec 18, 2014 22:17
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So my friends were having a Lord of the Rings themed birthday party, which was pretty cool because there was a lot of awesome food. I wanted to do something neat, so I decided to be really really ambitious and do a One Ring cake. I started with a standard double-layer chocolate cake, and since I didn't want to throw out the inside, I just cut a small trench around the outer edge to give the idea of separation from the ring and the inside part of the cake. This wasn't too hard, but also didn't turn out how I had envisioned. Through some miracle, I managed to get the frosting to the right-ish color for what I had in mind. For the elvish lettering, I used two small tubes of black gel frosting, rotating them out from the freezer (if they started to get too warm, they became a bit runny). I had never decorated a cake before, and I would not recommend vertically writing in Elvish as a starting point. Half the cake actually does match the inscription on the ring pretty well, but at that point I was having a nervous breakdown so I decided to just freehand it. Who knows, maybe in Elvish it says Death To America or something. I was miserable while making this cake, but in the end I was pretty proud of it. I had planned on baking a batch of eye-shaped cookies and decorating them like the Eye of Sauron (one was going to go in the middle of the cake), but as it turns out getting white frosting to a nice red color is rather challenging, so I ended up with the PinkEye of Sauron cookies, which I just ate on my own out of embarrassment.    And one of me doing my best Gollum impression: 
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Dec 19, 2014 04:33
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That's really cool and looks great!
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Dec 19, 2014 19:20
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Just realized I never posted my cake from Halloween. Glad to see this thread coming back to life!
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Dec 19, 2014 19:36
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We have some talented loving goons in here
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Dec 19, 2014 19:46
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