Thursday, June 19, 1997 at 9 PM ET in the Kitchen Conference Room -- Cake Decorating with Dolores777 and Pwd sugar "Why did that cake fall? And many hints for wedding cakes."

HELLO KITCHEN THIS IS THE CAKE DECORATING CHAT HOUR WELCOME TO ALL NEWCOMERS TO OUR LIVE CHATS! WE ARE CHATTING ABOUT CAKE DECORATING..9-10PM EST... ...HOPE YOU ALL ENJOY. FEEL FREE TO JOIN THE FUN...

PWD SUGAR'S PART:

"WHY DID THAT CAKE FALL? AND MANY OTHER HINTS" When I was little my mother would never let us run, skate or hop in the kitchen when there was a cake in the oven. We had to tiptoe in the kitchen. She said we would make the cake fall. Lol now when a cake falls I think of that and wish I had that simple an explanation. 1. THE RECEIPE MAY NOT BE RIGHT FOR YOUR ALTITUDE. The kaluaha fudge cake receipe that I have was given to me by a gal in california. She was really generous to share this receipe. When I got home I baked it and it fell. I thought I had done something wrong so it tried baking it again and again it fell. I was thoroughly frustrated. Over the next few months I baked it several times being very particular to follow the receipe exactly. And every time I just got more frustrated. Then one day out of the blue I happened to realize that she is living at sea level and we are at a much higher elevation. I added some flour and bingo the receipe now has worked great for many years.

Pwd Sugar: Remember wooden floors give more - more bounce to the ounce LOL

2. BAKE THE CAKE UNTIL IT IS DONE BUT NOT DRY. Now that is sometimes a neat trick. If you have an oven with a window in it you can observe that when a cake is baking it gets very tall and rounded on top. As it gets close to being done the top begins to flatten out and sinks slightly. This is one way to tell it is about done. If I open the oven door and the cake is very high and rounded I know to shut the door and give it somemore time. If I touched it at this point in backing the cake would fall. If the cake looks like it is about done then touch the cake in the middle and if it immediatly bounces back it is done and ready to be removed from the oven. If it leaves a slight depression it needs to stay in the oven for another 5 minutes or so.

About every two or three years I make new cake strips from terry cloth. I cut four inch wide strips, fold them over (2 inches wide) and serge or zig zag stitch around all four sides. The finished strip is then about 2 inches wide. I have about 12 different lengths hanging on my pegboard next to the pan storage. Above each length of strips is a small 2 by 4 inch laminated paper with a list of the pans that particular strip will fit. For instance a 38" long strip will fit a 12 inch round, 9 x 12 oval, a 12 inch hexagon and a 12 inch petal pan. I soak these strips in cold water, wring them out and wrap them tightly around the outside edges of the pan. These strips keep the outsides of the cake from baking faster and lower than the center of your cakes. The square pans and the heart pan tip need an extra short piece wrapped around those corners. Pin the strip securely with a safety pin - leaving the pin handle sticking out from the side of the pan for easy removal. When these strips have been used weekly for a year or two they begin to become weak and tear easily. I cut the stronger sections into four to six inch lengths to use on the square pan corners. I usually make as many as 11 of the same length from a 45 inch wide piece of terry cloth. So when one becomes weak it is discarded and a new one replaces it. I only make new ones every two or three years so that isn't too bad. Grease and flour only the bottoms of your cake pans. If you grease the sides the cake cannot climb up the sides and the edges will bake lower than the center.

Keep a pan coat made up in an empty Crisco can to spread thinly on the Bottom of your pans with a sturdy brush. This is the mixture that sees to work well for us. 2 cups of Crisco, 3/4 cup oil and 3 cups of flour. Mix and beat well and this will actually fill a 3 lb crisco can and a little over. This receipe is a little different than the one I gave you a year ago. We were having trouble with the icing on some of our cakes turning to liquid next to the cakes. We finally figured out that it was too much oil in our pan coat. Since we have changed this we have had no problems with the icing turning to liquid and coming loose from the cakes.

IF YOUR ICING IS TOO SWEET - ARE YOU ADDING A LITTLE SALT? Salt helps cut the too sweet taste. Be sure it is mixed in thoroughly or your colored icing will have tiny white spots where the salt finally dissolves. DOLORES' PART:

Why did the cake fall....100% because you didn't do something correctly --- unless the people at the reception Hall knocked it over.

LOCATION: WHERE - the reception will be held...out-doors/in-doors etc. A/C or not? Is the Hall air conditioned. IF there is no A/C I would deliver the cake as late as possible. Also, there may be recipes for cake and icings that I would not do...re: butter icing that will melt. Cheese cake that will spoil...etc. ONE DISASTER: I was instructed to deliver the cake at 10am and the reception was not until 8pm. This was in a church but the custodian had rules that the a/c couldn't be turned on until just before the reception time. After the wedding the bride's mother called me to say that the cake had spoiled. In this case I did not return their money. - Nor did they ask me to. It was not my fault. The hall wasn't that hot in the morning and I didn't know the cake was going to set in heat all day. - This was a simple white cake with buttercream icing made with shortening. ...Next time I delivered to that church the a/c was on early. I wonder why! OUTDOOR: For outdoor receptions where the cake will also be outdoors, I try to deliver it just before the crowd arrives. Someone in charge must watch to make sure animals nor birds get to it. I have never had to place a cake in direct sun. But if so, I would make sure to tell them that any icing decorations and icing flowers will fade within a very few minutes.

STURDY CAKES: The sturdiest cakes are those which have the types of pillars that insert through the cake. These require no bottom plate. The pillars are long enough that they go clear through the cake resting on the plate the cake is on. There are several 'safe' styles. As long as all cakes are separated - none stacked - the cake needs no other support. Sugarcraft carries all these and my favorites are: TWO-PLATE SYSTEM: There can be several problems with this set. I always have my students learn with this set because of the pitfalls involved. But I also demo the easier styles I mentioned above. These take some baking and construction care. Of course, you could always use Wilton's GARDEN CAKE SET or their 4 PC.FLOATING TIERS SET. Any amateur could use these with NO knowledge of tiered cake construction at all....Just set the finished cakes on the 'trays' and you're finished. Before I was certain about setup material I used pans or cake dummies/separator plates/pillars to get a better picture of how the cake would go together. For cakes that have multiple cakes for the bottom tier, use cardboard cake circles to plan cake sizes that will look nice. Just lay the circles out as if they were cakes. How would this look? You'll soon see that its best to have 4" difference between each tier. But with the cakes separated...pillars/plates between, even this looks nicer. Not too great for stacked cakes.

NOTE: See my MIMOSA CAKE on AOL as you go into CAKE DECORATING ONLINE - or from my web site HOME PAGE. This cake has a multiple of five eight inch cakes for the bottom tier. NICE when you have a hard time with large cakes - or - they won't fit in your oven!

TIP: If a cake is lopsided, you can still use it. Place a cardboard circle on top of the cake, flip cake over, remove the cardboard circle the cake was sitting on and trim off the high side. If this would make the cake too short, add the piece you shave off to the low side. You can use a ruler to be sure cake is level. Replace the cardboard and flip it upright again. This way you don't have cut cake to try and ice...crumbs.

MY BAKING PROCEDURE: I gave complete instructions for how I organize my baking in a recent chat. See the April 3rd chat content from my web site for my methods. I don't see any way I could develop a faster procedure. Many times my wedding cakes require the entire week or more. It can take several days to make all the flowers...etc.

TAKE A PICTURE: All said and done, IF something DOES happen to the cake....have a picture of it for your records. I had a friend who's cake fell over. If it hadn't been for a waitress telling the bride's mother, no one would ever have known that a worker knocked it over. Before she found this out, she was ready to give the bride a full refund. If you can prove that the cake was not lopsided and was in perfect condition before you left, it may help....They knock it over and the bride still gets a picture LOL.

EXPERIENCE: I made several tiered cakes before I ever took an order for one. It can take years to learn. Practice with other special occasions. I made a very special SIL a 5-tier cake free before I ever made one for a customer.

NEXT WEEK: Thursday, June 26, 1997 at 9 PM ET in the Kitchen Conference Room -- Cake Decorating with Dolores777 and Pwd sugar - "4th of July Fun cake ideas" Lets have a party! 

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