THURSDAY MARCH 6, 1997 'CAKE DECORATING' WITH DOLORES777 AND PWD SUGAR

LACE POINTS

Cake above shows Lace Points (and 'curtains') done with tip#00. I squeezed the royal icing through a nylon stocking so it would be smooth enough to go through the #00 tip.
The tiny bouquet of violets are made of gumpaste. The birds and embroidery are royal icing. See discussion below. There is a lot of information! This is from an old AOL chat. (These chatas are no longer able to be done).
Pwd sugar's part: March 6, 1997

- you want how much cake? Proportions. You want what on your cake? (lace points, odd size pans, use of ribbon or pearls)

 As cake decorators we never know what our customers are going to ask for next. A three tiered wedding cake to serve 25. A cake in the shape of an airplane (3d of course) to serve 200. Or they want a tall as you can get it brides cake to serve 500 people. Lets start with a three tiered cake to serve 25. That is a little baby wedding cake. If you only do one layer in each tier and do 11 - 8 and 5 inch rounds that is possible. But most decorators don't have the odd size pans. She probably has in mind a cake that will serve more people. Even if you do the smallest tiered Wilton pans two layers each you will have over 60 servings according to Wilton's figures. Explain to the bride how big the servings are and how big the cakes will be and let her make a decision as to whether to pay for more cake because that is the look she wants or to scale down to a two layer cake in small sizes. Remember that a tiered wedding cake looks proportionally better if it has a triangular shape. I prefer to see a three to four inch difference in tier sizes such as a 14 - 10 and 6 or a 12 - 9 and 6. Just remember to keep it as proportionate as possible from top to bottom. By that I mean a cake that is a 14 - 12 and 6 will not look balanced. Too big and straight at the bottom for the small top cake. A 15 - 11 and 7 would give you approximately the same amount of cake and be more balanced. My shop has pans in 1 inch increments from 4 inches to 18 inches to be able to balance the sizes as much as possible. Check your local cake shop for the availability of the odd size pans. They should be able to order the odd sizes from Parrish's. They make a good quality pan and several shapes and sizes that are not available from Wilton's. Besides the odd sizes round pans we love their straight sided rectangle shaped pans. If you do not have a local shop you can e-mail or call Dolores for information since she does own a retail supply shop. (513) 896-7089, or Country kitchen 1-219-482-4835 also has these round pans from a 5 to a 15 inch in their retail catalog.

 A cake in the shape of an airplane (3d of course) to serve 200? I had a bride who wanted this for a grooms cake. It was a small sleek air force training plane. The only place that actual cake could be used was down the center. It would have taken a huge non-cake frame (wings are to thin for cake - you would have to cover Plexiglas, metal, or wood with icing) just to hold 200 serving just in the middle. After I explained to her just how big this cake was going to be she changed her mind. She then ordered 12 x 18 sheet cakes to serve with some being cut in the kitchen and brought to the table and the others as the center piece on the table with the 3-d plane on top with the top decorated like the runway. She still got her plane but on a smaller and more manageable scale.  Or they want a tall as you can get it brides cake to serve 500 people. Do you know about half pans? Half pans are available from 16" round up to 24" round that I know of. If you only have a household oven and need to be able to make a very large cake these are very handy. Measure the inside of your oven. Draw the size off on a piece of newspaper and then you can figure out the maximum size pan your oven will take. My biggest oven actually measures 21 x 28 but the largest pan I could possibly put in there would be an 18 by 24. Remember half pans will fit from corner to corner so the 24 inch half pans fit nicely there. A 24 inch two layer tier will serve at least 200 people. The sizes I like to use for 515 servings are 24-20-16-13-10-7. Six tiers and if you use the 9 1/2 inch legs that go through the cake your cake should stand approximately 5 foot tall with a cake top. That means you are probably going to need a tall person or a ladder to put those top tiers on. Remember that is 5 foot besides the almost 3 foot for the table underneath the cake. So the top of that cake is going to be about 8 foot from the floor. Should be lots of fun to serve and dismantle if you are a person of average height.  One little trick we use in our work area is to mark the top of the work table nearest the mixers with the oven sizes. I have three ovens and they are all different sizes. We pull all of the pans we need for one flavor and then arrange them in the spaces drawn off for each oven. We fill all of those pans, put them in the ovens and arrange more pans on the table, fill and bake until all of the cakes in all of the flavors are baked.

 Cakestmper: I like the styrofoam sample, much better than visualizing a cigarette pack size.

 Do you have a problem with you customers knowing just what a serving size is? When i was in ok to judge a show last fall I stayed with a very talented gal who shared this with me. She had a piece of styrofoam cut to the size of a wedding cake serving and covered with cream color taffeta. When a bride wants to know just how big a serving is she pulls this out and visually this looks like a big piece of cake. So far I have managed to at least cut the styrofoam. Lol it does help a bride and her mom in being able to show a size that they can actually tell what they are paying for. If you do birthday cakes as well as wedding cakes you might want to cut two sizes. A 2 by 2 by 2 for birthday cakes and a 1 by 2 by 4 for wedding cakes. That is that I am assuming your cakes bake the full 2 inches high. If not you need to cut your sample styrofoam accordingly.

 You want what on your cake? I have had customers ask for Texas things such as the Texas shape, horseshoes, cactus, and brands. A crocheted doily over the cake (of course - done in icing). Edible pearls. Sea shells. 3-d fish. To scale basketballs. Golf balls. I guess there is really nothing that they won't ask for if you will do it. I draw the line at x-rated cakes. Refusing those is easy for me. As your skills grow you will probably be able to figure out a way to do all of those things in cake and icing. If you are new at this, that little two letter word is available for cake decorators too. We just forget to use it sometimes. No is an option if you don't know how, don't want to try to figure out how or just don't want to do it again. We can turn orders down because we just don't want to do them. Although my husband thinks I don't know how to use that word no. Lol

 How do you figure how much ribbon or pearls to buy to go on a cake? How many lace points should I make? First you need to know the circumference of your cakes. A tape measure is handy or I have made a chart that Dolores has posted in her web page that will help you. One column (B) gives you the circumference of all of the pans listed. This chart is used frequently in my business. There is an explanation page that goes with it should explain how to use it. Now if you know the circumference of all of your cakes. Add those figures together and divide by feet or yards to know the minimum amount you will need.

 Are the pearls straight around the cakes or draped? Is there just one row or several? Is the ribbon just around the cake or do you need enough for bows to? Are the lace points small or large? Are they straight or scalloped on the cake. Do they hang under the edge of the separator plates? If so are those plates larger than the cake? These things must be taken into consideration to make an educated guess at how much more ribbon, pearls or lace points you will need. I have a very popular lace point that measures about 1 1/4 inch across. It is very sturdy (made with a 1 and a 2 tip) and I usually have very little breakage. This particular lace point hangs from the edge of the separator plate just under the cake. Since it is large I need far fewer of that pattern than I would a pattern that only measures 1/2 inch across. The column (E) that gives you how many lace points to make assumes your lace points are 1 inch in width and allows for some breakage. It does not allow enough for a deep scallop design on the side of a cake. The numbers in the column e of that chart are guide numbers only - not exactly how many you will need. That number depends on the size of the lace point and it also depends on how sturdy and strong your royal icing is.

 I have made edible pearls from white chocolate paste and brushed them with pearl dust. That was for single strand of pearls that was to look like a necklace laid on the cake - not pearls all around the cake.

 A hint for Carolyn Wanke, San Antonio - if you have a real aversion to using the fake plastic pearls and have extra time to play, you can put some of the silver or gold dragees in a strainer and wash the silver or gold off. Lay them out to dry, when dry brush with pearl dust and then place on the cake with tweezers.

Dolores' part:

Press release::::::if you have never been to a Ohio ICES (International Cake Exploration Societe') day of sharing then are you in luck, for the Ohio members of ices are hosting a whole weekend of sharing in Columbus, Ohio. The full weekend (April 26 & 27 - Saturday and Sunday) will have approximately 20 sugar art demonstrations and a Saturday night "round robin." There will be vendors there to supply you with all your decorating needs. Also included in your registration is dinner on Saturday and a luncheon on Sunday.

 The bride wants to reduce or make the cake larger than those listed in the book for a particular cake! Will this work? The best way I have found to check this is to use cake cardboards in sizes needed. Set these together...how do they 'fit?' for fitting stairways and fountains, etc., I set the pillars, plates, fountain, stairways, bridges, etc. Together <<<before>>> I even take the order. I want to be very sure the setup will work the way it is planned. Tip: the fountain will fit between 14 inch separator plates and no smaller. Also, use the 13 inch pillars.

THINK ABOUT IT: Dummies cost as much as real cake and they are take as much or more time to handle. Either way, they must be decorated to match.

***you want what on your cake?*** Like Pwd said....there is no end to what people can come up with in shapes and designs. Once I did a wedding cake shaped like an antique car. Yes, 3-d. It was white at least. She didn't need a huge cake, but even at this, it was very heavy and worrisome to deliver...of course, <miles> away! But I do refuse to do cake that I either think won't hold together, or one that I consider in bad taste (x-rated).

 ***lace points*** I have posted some material on lace points already, on my web page. This is in a compressed file that you'll need to download. AOL will uncompress (unzip) the file for you. Patterns are included

 ***odd size pans*** first of all! Measure your oven from side-to-side and from back-to-front to be sure a pan you want to buy will fit in your oven! One way to do this is by checking to see if purchased cardboards in size needed, will fit. Usually wedding cake pans are 6-8-10-12-14-16-18 round. Wilton has several other shapes and other sizes too. All odd ones except the oval shape (maybe) make it harder to ice the cakes. With hexagon or petal-shaped, I treat each 'scallop' or 'side' as if it were a separate cake, icing each petal one-at-a-time.

Also available are "half" pans in 14-16-18-20-24 inch. If your oven is small, then you can use these. You would be baking 4 halves. Put 2 halves together with icing between, spread icing to fill as usual, then crisscross the top 2 in the other direction (with icing between these also). These work great.

 ***use of ribbon or pearls*** with the right combination of pearls, ornaments and frills, dressing up a wedding cake can be quick and easy. For example, we began offering a pearl-draped wedding cake. I have a sample in my window. Customers love it, and I have taken several orders for it already. The key to the overall, deceptively elaborate look is the pearl strands, ribbon bows, etc... On slower days, you can prepare these. The plastic pearl strands I use are pretty sturdy. Because the pearls tend to be a little busy, I like to keep the other decorations simple. As far as pricing goes, add in the cost of the pearls. To drape them on (as you decorate the cake): you should place pearl strands on icing garlands <<<before>>> the icing crusts. Tip: I use pearl strands that I carry in my shop - from our supplier. Besides draping pearls on the icing garlands, I've even found that the 2-in. Strands create a nice lattice effect. You can use them also, for decorations between your tiers and elsewhere. Tip 2: use short pieces you have left from wedding cakes in among icing flowers on birthday or shower cakes.

Next week: "what equipment is considered essential? Where do we get it?"

Question: ...and 'food for thought!' >>how do people feel about having strangers coming to your house to pick up cakes? Have there been any problems? I am nervous - all we hear here on the news is all the bad stuff, and as it is relatively safe here, it is scary back there! How do other home decorators feel about this issue? (From an Internet friend)

 Pwd sugar asked me to give you full details on how to dnld her forms. Here you are: on AOL, use Keyword cooking club/lower-right find 'software libraries'/its in the first one 'chat libraries/click the file/click 'download' (takes 14 min at 28.8 baud). As you log off AOL EARLFORMS.ZIP uncompresses into a directory named EARLFORMS With windows 3.1 use file manager to look at your files/win95 use explorer. You will find 5 files. One text file and 4 GIF files. Double-clicking any file should open it providing you have a graphics program that reads GIF files. No prob on the text file I'm sure. Pwd is having trouble reading the GIFS. Maybe a MAC can't uncompress them. I don't know the answer to this.

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