Thursday, July 10, 1997 at 9 PM ET in the Kitchen Conference Room -- Cake Decorating with Dolores777 and Pwd sugar. "The Biggest cakes we ever did." Share your stories with us.

This week's chat room was especially full for some reason. Could vacations all be over? The screen rolled over so fast that most of us couldn't read it fast enough. I will try and gather the info together as best I can. 

COMMENTS:

EARLENE'S PART:

The Biggest cakes we ever did. Share your stories with us.

I think the biggest cake I ever did was a cake to actually serve 2016 people but only the top two inches of each tier were edible. The rest of the cake was a wooden dummy shell that looked like cake. The bottom tier measured 3 1/2 feet wide, 8 feet long and 12 inches tall (remember only the top 2 inches were real cake). The middle tier was 2 1/2 feet wide, 6 feet long and 10 inches tall. The top tier was 4 feet long, 1 foot wide and 8 inches tall. If this had been all real cake it would have been enough cake to serve 18,642 people.

If I had known what I was doing then I would have had a hissey.

We had just moved to Lubbock and had joined a church that had a huge anniversary celebration each year. They brought in a special quartet, had "dinner on the grounds" and an all day celebration. This pastor found out that I was a cake decorator and challenged my abilities. At that time I had been doing cakes (self-taught) for about 5 years. Believe me I was not a knowledgeable cake decorator at that time. This was before ICES, before I knew about any classes, you know back in Noah's time. About 30 years ago. The theme that year was "the year of Elisha". He wanted a huge cake with red roses, very pretty, and Elisha was to ascend into heaven from the top of this cake. Right!!!!!!! I told him I would put the cake together but he would have to get someone else to do Elisha and the ascension part. I was not into miracles of the man made kind. A gal who became one of my best friends got that job. I had received the mail box news for several years and in one of those magazines was a pattern for South African wings. I thought those could be made to look very showy to go around this huge cake. So I enlarged a pattern to two sizes (big and huge). The big ones went all the way around each tier at about 6 inch intervals and the huge ones went on each corner. This was a learning experience - it took me all one week just to make these wings. This is where I learned what a tiny little bit of egg yolk will do to fresh egg white royal icing. That is an absolute no - no. All of the wings made with that batch were not usable. They broke - thank goodness I realized what was happening before I made too many from that batch. But it sure made a lasting impression for me. I am very careful now to see that everything used in making royal icing is super clean - totally grease free.

It took 92 of the big wings so I probably made at least 125 to allow for breakage and 12 of the huge wings so I probably made at least 20 of those. If you have never made South African wings - they are very, very, very time consuming. Then there were hundreds of 104 red roses to make. I only had one oven at the time and only one mixer. So we asked one of the bakeries to actually bake the cakes and make the icing. Because this cake was so big it had to be assembled and decorated on site. And this pastor always wanted the cake to be a surprise - so he didn't want anyone except those of us who were working on it to know what it was going to look like. The bottom tier also had "the year of Elisha!" In lights on the front of the cake. The person who had built the wooden shell also had to wire and drill holes in the front of this cake for red Christmas lights to write in script "the year of Elisha!" Then we put red buttercream stars around the lights to make the lettering really show up when the lights were turned on.

All of the wings and roses were made and boxed. Cardboard had to be cut to cover all of the wooden surfaces where the actual cake would go. And enough tips, spatulas, paper towels, bags and etc. Assembled for a friend and I to actually decorate this cake on site. I picked up the cakes - still in the pans (but with liners under them) and buckets of icing from the bakery. We had to have several tables just to put all of the stuff - just to begin working. Icing this cake was a feat in itself. We started on the cake at 8 in the morning backstage at the municipal auditorium and I know it was at least 10 on Saturday night before we finished. There was also a scheduled event in the municipal auditorium that Saturday night. So after we finished the cake, then we had to stay there to protect it from all of the curious people who were back stage. Someone called the newspaper and before we new it we were having our picture made. That cake made the newspaper on Sunday morning and blew that surprise. When the cake was presented all of the house lights were turned off and the cake lights were on. Then they turned on the house lights so people could see the whole cake and then Elisha sailed off into the air from the top of the cake. This was a real production. Then they ate it and the pastor began planning for the next year. He came up with some real challenges for me in the following years. I'll tell you more about those on July 24th. Every cake I ever did for this church had something that moved or it did something. He had an over active imagination and I sure learned a lot doing these cakes.

FROM Caroline Haney, OH ICES state rep:

CHOCOLATE PIZZA

Green Cherries slice top to bottom Represent Green Peppers Raisins represent black olives Whole Almonds sliced flat represent mushrooms shredded coconut 1/3 c. represents onions Candied Pineapple chunks represent sausage

Use 1/8 to 1/4 c. of each depending on what you like. Melt the remaining 3 oz. of white almond bark and drizzle over the top of your pizza like mozzarella cheese. Cool well at least one hour before serving. Can be sliced like a pizza or served in chunks. These Pizza's make wonderful gifts 

DOLORES' PART

Weddings in our area tend not to be very large. Rarely do I have a cake to serve more than 450 people. I think the reason is that families are so transient around here. They go off to college and move away - or they find a job in another state. Most women work too. So families and friends become scattered. Years ago, before I started doing cakes (1964) families and friends stayed close together, thus weddings were larger. Sad really.

I can't think of many really large cakes I've done. Oh sure, I do the ones with fountain and stairways...4-6 - but the cakes aren't that large, just spread all out with plastic...which I do not care for at all. I like 'pretty' cakes - with pretty icing flowers.

I can't help giving some advice LOL...many people order too much cake for fear they'll run out. Besides, would it really be SO bad to run out of cake? FACTORS TO CONSIDER: 1. When a full meal is served everyone present may not want to eat cake. 2. Serving liquor makes a difference too. This attracts a younger party-going crowd who don't eat as much as they drink. 3. Another factor is what TIME the cake is served. If served very late, not as much will be eaten. Once the band starts to play and liquor is served, some people leave...usually the ones who WOULD have eaten cake. One cake that WAS large (and) stacked was a 18, 14, 10, 6. The biggest problem with a big stacked cake is that is it so heavy. Then, you must worry about tiers slipping. I usually leave stacked cakes in sections, deliver and assemble, adding the bottom borders at the hall. This cake really couldn't be delivered like this very well because it had gum paste flowers all over the sides down around the base. It would have taken me hours to finish at the hall. I borrowed a hall worker to help me carry it into the hall. I was lucky NOT to have had a problem.

Once I had a wedding cake with 7 cake muti-base...that is 7 cakes for the bottom tier - 6 around and one in the center. It was the multi-tier, 16-12-9-8 inch cakes. It had fruit filling in all the layers too...mistake one! None were separated except the top 2. I had to deliver it to Barley Corn's - a party boat on the Ohio river. The ramp was terribly steep. Though I backed down very slowly, the cake that was sitting on the multi-tier slid about 2 inches. I was horrified but I didn't show it! Amazingly, I pushed it back over and the dowels had not slipped. No one but me ever knew. This was another cake that I really didn't want to assemble after delivery either...Because it would have taken me a very long time to place gum paste orchids etc...that cascaded down the sides. Besides that...the boat was late getting to the dock and guests were waiting to board! I would have been SO embarrassed if I'd had a disaster...the cake was for one on my daughter's childhood friends.

One of the biggest all-occasion cake I ever did was a huge cake shaped like St. Mary's church in Oxford, where I live. It was for 700 people. Mostly it was built of sheet cakes stack like a stacked wedding cake, but with straight sides. I put it on a half-inch plywood board. I put 2 cakes together with icing between and on top, a layer of plastic wrap (foil-wrapped cardboards, then I doweled it for support. And added 2 more sheet cakes, etc. until it was as tall as I needed it to be. The church steeple, doors and other parts were made of royal icing. Delivery was the hard part...It was to be served at the coliseum on campus...the only place large enough. Of course I couldn't lift it to deliver it alone. My husband helped me. But we must have walked a mile! And we didn't dare set it on the floor to rest...how would we EVER have lifted it up again. Wish I'd had one of the nice carts we now have! Check out this URL: THE KITCHEN LINK http://www.kitchenlink.com ..........A wonderful and complete kitchen web site! Check out the Message Boards here! Find it from "Club TKL Forums" Lets get some cake decorating subjects started there! I chose just the first message board and it could have kept me busy all day! 

ICES: From Pwd Sugar:

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:

We have had several people asking about how we will recognize each other at ICES recognize each other at the ices convention. We will have special tags that you can get from Diane Shavkin, I do cakes or myself. We will also give you some to pass on when you run into someone else who is online with us. We will write our screen names on the bottom of the tags and hopefully wear them on the right shoulder so we can easily spot each other. They will have a safety pin attached. Then at the Sunday night sharing we will find a table or a corner and have a gathering where we can get acquainted with one another. If there is to many things to check out at the Sunday night sharing we will meet right after or when things begin to slow down a little. We don't want you to miss out on all of the neat stuff just to get acquainted and aren't we mostly night people. With the tags we will be able to stop and talk to each other through the weekend and that should help. Shavkin is also going to be helping with some of the registration so you might be able to pick up your AOL tag there since she will have some of them.

HINT - it you are taking give away things for ICES, please use small safety pins instead of straight pins to pin them on. We do so much hugging at convention that the straight pins can cause some severe discomfort if they happen to get turned the wrong way. 

NEXT WEEK'S CHAT: Thursday, July 17, 1997 at 9 PM ET in the Kitchen Conference Room -- Cake Decorating with Dolores777 and Pwd sugar. Please join us as we decorate some delightful summer dessert cakes for novices!

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