Thursday, July 3, 1997 at 9 PM ET in the Kitchen Conference Room -- Cake Decorating with Dolores777 and Pwd sugar. "Help with baking problems" 

FROM DOLORES

BAKING TIPS: I spray my cake pans with Karp's commercial pan spray instead of grease/flouring. I do spray the sides, but Pwd sugar doesn't - whatever works best for you. This just shows that we can be successful and still do things differently.

Beat your cake mixes exactly the time specified on the box. If you lose track, it will only beat more air in if you beat an extra minute. But if you don't beat long enough, your cake may fall while baking. After you fill the pan, tap it on the table a few times to get rid of tunnels of air pockets. Spin the cake pan and bring the batter up around the sides. This helps it bake more level by putting more of the batter around the outer edge where the cake gets hot first.

Bake a cake until its done - NOT exactly what time the box tells you to. To test, I press my finger lightly in the center of the cake, If it BARELY springs back up, I remove it from the oven.

Flatten any humps on the cake as soon as you remove it from the oven - lay a dish towel on the cake and gently press it flat. If cake is over-done, it will just spring back up and you must use a serrated-edges knife to shave the hump off. If cake is lop-sided, shave off the hump and add some scraps of this to the low side. Let set to cool in pans for 10 or more minutes. Turn cake out bottom-up. I turn the cake out onto a cardboard cake circle. I always let the bottom cake get cold, spread icing on it, then place the top layer on, right out of the pan. Let both layers cool several hours before icing it.

Once you've iced the cake, if BUGES occur around the middle - this is because the cakes were put together with humps left on. Once the cake sets awhile the sides will fall down, bulging out the icing. To prevent this, shave off humps and also let the cake set for several hours UNICED. This will give time for it to settle.

SOMEONE GAVE ME THESE GOOD HINTS ON THE WEB SOME TIME AGO: Why limit the fun to cakes? Pastry bags are among the most useful and versatile tools of the kitchen. Besides decorating cakes, you can also use them to fill appetizers like stuffed mushrooms, fill eclairs or cream puffs, and craft uniformed drop cookies like macaroons.

There are two kinds of pastry bags: nylon bags and polyester bags. Nylon bags are good for whipped-cream based fillings, but not fat-based fillings like buttercreams. Fat-based fillings work better with polyester bags because they're thicker and they protect the grease from seeping through the bag as the heat from your hands warms the filling.

TUBE BE OR NOT TUBE BE, THAT IS THE QUESTION - You can use pastry bags with or without a tube on the end. Tubes ensure proper and consistent size when you're making drop cookies or decorating cakes. When uniformity is not as important, such as when you're filling mushrooms or jelly doughnuts, you'll want to go tubeless. Without a tube, you can also add fruits, nuts or even chocolate chips to your filling and they'll easily pass through the opening.

GETTING READY - When you're filling a pastry bag, begin by folding over the edges of the bag. Fill the bag by inserting a spoonful or spatula full of your filling, to remove the spatula close your hand around the top of the bag and pull out the spoon or spatula leaving the filling inside. Do this until the bag is no more than 2/3 full. You don't want the filling to get too warm from your hands before you get started decorating. You're better off refilling the bag several times. You can also rest the pastry bag in an empty glass while you are filling it to keep both hands free.

Next, twist the top of the bag closed and squeeze until the air bubble comes out. This is called "burping the bag." Now you're ready to go piping wild. Continue squeezing the bag and turning the top until you've used all the filling.

PROPER CLEAN-UP: Proper care of your pastry bag and tubes can ensure long life (for the bag and tubes, not you). It's best not to soak the bag for a long time in soapy water. This will break down the inner lining and cause seepage or even worse, breakage when you're trying to pipe.

Always rinse well after each use and remove the tube and coupler. A mild detergent may be necessary for a short period of time after you've used a fat based filling. Another cleansing solution is to use hot water along with a little vinegar. Stretch out and hang to dry (again, the bag, not you).

Pastry bags are wonderful tools for sprucing up not only dessert, but also your main meal. Next time you make your family mashed potatoes, surprise them by piping the potatoes into rosettes on their plates. You can also make flavored butters by softening your butter adding pureed strawberries or chives or whatever sounds good and piping them onto butter plates and chilling. You will really wow them with your beautiful presentation.

TASTY TIP: Since most fillings are fat based, you should use a separate pastry bag for egg white-based piping. Otherwise, you risk contaminating your egg whites by fat that could deflate them. Your royal icing and meringue shells will never be fluffier.

EARLENE'S PART

This week we had a problem again with a cake recipe. Liz McMillan had shared her banana nut cake recipe with me several years ago. I don't get calls for this cake very often and did not remember that it tends to fall. Well it happened again. I called Gail (her mom) and double checked that I had the recipe right. Yep, it was right. Then I asked her if where they live is close to sea level. Yes - they are sea level or close to it. So now I at least know where to start to fix this recipe. When you live at a higher altitude you must decrease the liquid or increase the dry ingredients to compensate for the altitude change.

MaraTLee: Pwd, you can coat your nuts also with flour...same reason.....

Many of you have been asking for the name of a good gumpaste flower instruction book. Brand new and hot off of the press is an outstanding new book by Scott Clark Woolley and Michael G. Farace called cakes by design. You can order this book from http://www.amazon.com The book came in at a cost of 35.45 with the shipping costs. This is the best gumpaste instruction book I have seen to date. It has the flowers that we get requested to do and more. Several different basketweave techniques Instructions for several kinds of bows Excellent instructions for making butterflies Beautiful, exquisite cakes and lots of instructions. If you are a beginner this book will blow your mind If you are a master you will appreciate the beautiful workmanship in this book. One of my favorites cakes in this book is on page 39. Flowers and filigree with royal icing lattice, lace points, scrolls, lilies, roses and tiny mums and natural greenery. Beautifully done. I did ask Scott several years ago what he charged for a cake like the one on the cover of this book. He told me at that time that the cake was $60.00 per serving. I hope I have a customer someday willing to pay that much for a cake of this quality. Pure edible art.

Last night I had an hour phone conversation with betty Newman may in California. This talented lady was my first (1976) professional cake decorating teacher and introduced me to the vast wonderful world of sugar art. She told us about the new ices show coming to Dallas in 1977 and I feel a big debt of gratitude toward this dear lady for her inspiration, teaching and sharing over the years. She was one of the people who helped form and create the ices organization. A super talented lady who inspired many of us. If you have a copy of the new American cake decorating magazine, she was the teacher who taught Carolyn Wanke and myself how to do the cake on page 64 in a class in Abilene, Texas. Carolyn and I had both had previous Lambeth classes so she gave us this one cake to do which took us all week long. She did keep us busy. The rest of the class were just learning the Lambeth techniques and they each did three simpler design cakes. I have the instructions for these four Lambeth cakes on video. The three simpler cakes are on one tape and the one Carolyn and I did is on another tape.

One of the best hints that I have received from these chats is this. Before putting your chocolate chips in your cake batter coat them with flour and they won't sink to the bottom of your cake batter. This really works. Thank you to whoever shared that several months ago.

Have a wonderful holiday tomorrow. Don't we have a lot to be thankful for. Homemade ice cream and hamburgers cooked on the grill. Yum yum some of us will still be working to get those cakes out for Saturday and Sunday. Even though we may have to work it is because we had the freedom to choose that - not because someone made us do this.

ICES NAME TAG FOR THE CONVENTION - Earlene has designed a special name tag you can wear at the convention so you can meet one another from our fun on the computer. Print it from here- or if you are using Netscape, you can save the Image as a file and then print your name on it using your computer. If you must print it, be sure to fill in your name below the CAKE using a sharpie pen (not-smearing and shows up well).

More ICES info:

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