Thursday, September 25, 1997 at 9 PM ET in the Kitchen Conference Room -- Cake Decorating with Dolores777 and Pwd sugar- Join in a lively discussion on: "Clever pan usage...what CAN you do with all those pans? - More baking hints"

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...

DON'T FORGET TO TURN ON YOUR LOG TO RECORD OUR CHAT TONIGHT: TO DO: AT THE TOP OF YOUR AOL MENU, CLICK ON <<FILE>>, SCROLL DOWN TO <<LOG MANAGER>> CLICK ON OPEN LOG...... AND SAVE-AS ---ANY NAME ...CAKECHAT.LOG (ETC) IN A FOLDER (DIRECTORY) TITLED CHATLOG... AFTER YOU EXIT AOL YOU CAN USE ANY WORD PROCESSOR TO OPEN AND READ IT. 

DOLORES' PART

TOPIC: "Clever pan usage...what CAN you do with all those pans? - More baking hints"

WHAT PANS ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT TO OWN? When I worked at home I was NOT 'pan poor.' I had what I needed but I never fell for all those character pans where fads come and go quickly. For wedding cakes I did have four of 6, 8, 10-inch pans, at least two 12, 14, 16 and one 18-inch. Plus 'specialty pans' like the BALL pan, DOLL WONDER MOLD, BOOK pan, PETITE DOLL pan etc. You can do so much with these. And of course the sheet cake pans...8 1/2x11 (1-mix), 11x15 (2-mix), 12x18 (3-mix)...several of the 8 1/2x11 (Wilton doesn't make this one. We DO carry it). I also have heart, oval, octagon and square pan sets.

CHARACTER PANS: I bought character pans mostly, if I could use them for more than one style of cake. So many of the really good ones are gone now. I really liked the rag doll pan (made a great Santa, Wonder Woman, Umpire, Ball player, Strawberry Shortcake, Spider Man, and of course, Raggedy Ann). The petite bear pan is essential! Make a bear (many kinds) or make a frog cake (the eyes go where the 'ears' are).This cake proves you can bake cakes in any kind of tin, NOT just cake pans!

WHAT ALL TYPES OF CAKES CAN YOU MAKE IN THAT ONE PAN?

1. ROUND PANS - can be used as double rings for a wedding shower (any size) --- baby buggy (1-12" & 2-6"(wheels)...put a small round cake atop a sheet cake to make a special design (or to add the extra servings needed too). --- I made a beer can with 4 pans stacked (cardboard with straws between center 2 for support). --- I even added half a ball to 4 six-inch cakes for R2-D2, arms styrofoam. --- What else but baskets of flowers too!

2. SHEET CAKE PANS - The 8 1/2x11" makes a great RED WAGON!...Oreos for wheels...elevate over a sheet of styrofoam...straws together for the handle. Add a bear or clown riding in it...etc. --- Before character pans I use to cut up an 8 1/2x11" to make a car (see photos on my web site). --- 'DRIVER'S LICENSE' cake for a 16 year old? Use a license to copy, wrap a photo in plastic wrap and add - or just a rose. This is so popular we have made a stencil. Get creative with the writing...silly stuff. --- 'Cars of different shapes/colors --- FLOAT.' I used one 8 1/2x11 with a 6"square cake on top, made a royal icing gazebo, placed a graduate in the gazebo. Pulled it with a toy tractor...add football player figures, flags, etc. --- 2 different-sized sheet cakes stacked for a wedding or shower cake...makes an old-fashioned looking cake I think. --- A lot of you know already about my 'box of roses' cake (pict. on my web site w/dir..

3. COMBINE 'UM - 8 1/2x11 with an 8" round...makes a great New Year's eve clock. --- 8 1/2x11 with an 8" heart cake for showers etc. --- WEDDING OR SHOWER CAKE: A sheet cake, set of pillars/plates and the half ball 'dome' on top...add the couple and decorations. (DO use straws for support!) --- I suppose the best combo I ever did was my daughter's baby shower cake for my grandson to be. "Look out world, here I come" (from the book "WHAT DO YOU SAY") I used a horse shoe cake for a rainbow, a half ball for the 'world' and an 8" round cake elevated with a baby and clouds. (Later I made this for P & G when I made their show booth cakes that time so some of you may have this picture already).

4. BALL pan - I've used it for a ball, --- the 'world' (half of it) --- one half for top of wedding cakes and add icing flowers to be well-mounded. (You don't have to fill it clear up when a smaller mound is needed). --- Basket ball (ice brownish orange and smooth with paper towel for the texture). --- A huge golf ball (white and punch holes for realism). --- TREE - use half the pan

5. WONDERMOLD DOLL CAKE PAN - Of course use this for all kinds of doll cakes! But also for HILL, or 'over-the-hill, etc. --- Makes a great red-white-blue Fourth of July cake.

MaraTLee: Dolores, you forgot --A haystack for fall theme cakes

6. PETITE DOLL PAN - My specialty since I wrote the book on it! Book: "100 PETITE DOLL PAN CHARACTERS YOU CAN CREAT" $6.99 And available under books on my web site. It is easier for me to name what you CAN'T do with this pan! You CAN make characters and items such as: football (2-together on-side), a teepee, bear, dog, bunny, bassinet, pig (2-together on-side w/marshmallow feet & ears. Bells (cut cake in half), witch, apple (ice red then w/red piping gel, stiffen buttercream/form worm), baseball hat, basket, graduate, egg, turkey (on my web site), hills for skier, beautician (dowels for 'curlers,' basketball, bride, Santa, money bag, clown, any nursery rhyme character, fodder shock, ...on & on!

7. BOOK PAN - Use this pan for almost any occasion! Draw or add an edible image on one side, the message on the other --- Confirmation...with a bible verse --- I've used this a lot to make a BIBLE...pipe tip 5 black line at bottom for binding, add bible verse, a cross etc. --- and of course, for birthdays. 'Happy Mother's Day Mommy' book with vertically written YOU DON'T HAVE IT - THEY DON'T MAKE IT!

SKATES - I wanted to make roller skates. I baked batter in 2 Campbell soup cans for the 'boot' pats and a 6" square cake for the 'shoe' part. (This cake won me 1st prize and is pictured in Wilton's Celebrate II book (out of print now).

BASSINETTE - Bake this in a 'ham' can. It is the perfect oval shape. I made the bassinet 'hood' using a cake box but you can probably think of an edible hood. Tip 104 ruffles make great side decorations

TRACTOR: One bread loaf pan and two 6" round cakes - elevate the loaf cake on styrofoam, stand the 6" cakes on side and glue to the loaf cake with icing. Decorate as a tractor. Small wheels are Oreos... Steering wheel...I used an Oreo on a straw. too.

YOU HAVE IT AND DON'T KNOW IT -

1. PETAL PAN makes a wonderful APRON...cut off one scallop for the top...decorate edge with 104 ruffle, add tiny flowers around and tip 104 ribbon ties. Use a large pretzel for the trunk - add icing for more thickness...place 'baby' in the tree top...message...'rock-a-bye-baby'...

2. WILTON LONG LOAF PAN - (Makes one of our VERY most popular cakes EVER!) Cut the loaf cake into 4 blocks/ice & place on a 14-inch sheet cake board. Add a 8" round 2-layer cake. Decorate in appropriate colors -MANY THEMES: Mickey Mouse --- Winnie-the-pooh figures --- --- Semi Trucks --- baby shower with a bassinets on top --- AND MORE! We place straws in the blocks & place the 8" cake on a 10" foil-covered cake board. It is delivered in 2 boxes and the customer sets it together with no problem at all. At times we have had orders for 6 of these in one week!

Enough! I didn't know I had so many ideas...I could go on for hours! I'm sure that many of you have also made some pretty fantastic cakes. Lets hear YOUR ideas as soon as Pwd sugar is finished with her part, okay?. 

ANNOUNCING: I am getting much closer to placing a message board on my web page. It should be ready in a couple of weeks now. I will let you know when its done. Then you can go there and write requests or give help to anyone and everyone on the web. I think this will be fun.

We have several new additions to my ANNOUNCEMENT page. Be sure to check there for DOS info. Also, DO send me yours in similar format please.

EARLENE'S PART

#1. Don't buy the special shaped pans unless you really neeeeeeeedddd them. If there is a way you can do a design for a customer without that special shaped pan - and the customer will still be happy - use the other method. To spend $9 to $17 dollars for a pan. Take half a day to do that cake and charge the customer $12 is not good business. Your time is worth more than that. plus the ingredient cost in that cake.

#2. If you buy a shaped pan. Trace around that pan on a piece of grocery sack or newspaper and turn it around and see what other designs pop into your head that pan might be used for. sort of like seeing shapes in the clouds. Such as the angel mini pan #2105-e-1131 turn it upside down and the basic shape of a butterfly is there. Simply cut away the cake not needed for the butterfly shape and decorate. there is also a basic bell shape in this angel. The 3-d Christmas tree pan could also be used for a dolls skirt, a teepee, upside down for a vase and etc . Let you imagination go and find more uses for those pans

Dunkccc: I got to looking at the Pocahontas pan and I think I could do the spaceship from Star Wars

#3. Use those pans for salads, Jell-O, breads, and etc. Use the mini pans for muffins for breakfast. Christmas is approaching and those mini pans will make cute molds for special candies for your friends. melt your chocolate - mix in some rice Krispies, pecan pieces, peanuts and etc. Pour that mixture into your pan about 1/2 to 3/4" thick - chill - remove - wrap with the colored saran or cellophane - attach a pretty bow and you have something you or your children have made and that they will enjoy giving. Great teacher gifts. and the kids will love doing this themselves. Nearly all of the mini pans are basic shapes. but, there are a few that have copyrighted characters such as the Loony tune mini pans, Winnie the Pooh, Mickey Mouse, and Dalmatian face. remember you can't sell those copyrighted designs - but you can use them for gifts.

You have them - enjoy them and create some fun for your family. Storage of all those pans does get to be a challenge Put grids on the ceiling and with hooks hang them from the ceiling Stack them in the closet, Put pegboard on all of your walls Hang them around the tops of your kitchen cabinets (where you used to put those pretty plates) Store them in boxes in the basement, garage or attic (be sure and write what pans are in each box or you will Spend more time hunting the pans than using them.) Give up a bedroom to "the pans"

Otherwise all of those pans that we think we can't live without when we begin this venture into cake decorating take up a monumental amount of space. I no longer have any of the specialty character shaped pans. the ones I have accumulated as prizes I have given to my daughter who has small children. She isn't interested in doing cakes except for her children so she appreciates those.

My husband built me a special storage cabinet just for the basic shaped pans that we use all of the time. The rounds, squares and rectangular pans get used almost every week. The hearts, ovals, petals and hexagons get used occasionally. That cabinet has two shelves about 45 inches long with vertical dividers every 2 1/2 inches. The pans are nested and stored on their sides in this storage unit. that way any pan needed is available with a minimum of effort. No stacking and needing the bottom pan on the stack. When I had a shop several years ago we had a shelving unit that the pans were nested and then stacked face up. the least used pans get shifted to the bottom and buy the time you need to use them again you have to wash them again before they can be used. Our kitchens also create some sweet dust - pwd sugar flying in the air - air brush colors drifting around the room. Our own sweet kind of dust - but it still accumulates and attracts bugs and varmints. When you store your pans flat and stack them facing up those bugs and critters can get into the baking surface of your pans. The health department would prefer that we stack them upside down - but that isn't practical and would be very unhandy for us. The next best thing is to store them vertically instead of horizontally.

I would like to see us do a chat in the future on neat cake decorating web sites. If you have a web site or know of a web site could you e-mail Dolores777 or Pwd sugar the information? Please - the web site location (address), basically what is there and what you like about it

HERE ARE A FEW TO START YOU OFF Our Own Dolores's Web Site http://w3.one.net/~proicer/index.html The best of the best web sites - three cheers for all of the information that Dolores has made available for all cake decorators interested. Pwd Sugar's Web Site http://members.aol.com/pwdsugar/private/index.html A few cakes that show a little of what my customers want Dolores did a great job constructing this page for me -thanks again Dee

ICES - http://www.ices.org Information about ices - how it works, how to join, samples from the newsletter with some neat pictures from past shows

American Cake Dec Magazine http://www.cakemag.com How to subscribe - sample articles - check it out Ron Ben-Isreal's Site www.weddingcakes.com Beautiful cakes to dream about Pat Ashby's Web Site http://members.aol.com/orchardste/index.html Gumpaste equipment is available here from orchard products Wilton's http://www.wilton.com Mostly text information Gumpaste Flowers http://www.toburan.com You can order ready made gumpaste flowers thru this web site Wedding Cakes And Business Listing http://members.aol.com/weddlinks/cater.htm Several links to wedding business locations Cake Books In Amazon Book Store http://www.amazon.com You can order your cake books through this book store on the web. 

NEXT WEEK: Thursday, October 2, 1997 at 9 PM ET in the Kitchen Conference Room -- Cake Decorating with Dolores777 "Tricks of the trade" - ways to make it easier. 

ChefMatt22: Made some cookies the other day and I used white Chocolate coating. instead of Chocolate Chips.. Everyone loved them.

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