CCChefPwd: I have Shirley here with me tonight as my guest.  Say hello room
Bridal1: Give them a hand - Dol and Pwd!!
CCChefDol: Hi Shirley!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Shavkin: Hi, Shirley!
CCChefPwd: Blushing   : < )
CCChefMeg: Hi Shirley! Enjoy!
Bridal1: Hi Shirley - Manbeck???
L2jlu2: hello Shirley
CCChefPwd: Yes Carolyn
CCChefDol: did you all finish those flowers Pwd?
CCChefPwd: Not yet - we are working on them and probably will be for a couple more days
CCChefPwd: So far we have peace roses, gold roses, lillies, anemones and leaves made

DOLORES' PART
With this being graduation weekend here, I have a problem thinking of anything else. We will easily do 100 or more huge sheet cakes for Saturday alone. We are getting very selective about taking any new customers...and LOL...weeding out the nasty ones. We just tell difficult people we are booked. We recently found out from a friend in another bakery that they do the same. I suppose nasty people won't be able to get a cake at all around here soon. We consider them 'nasty' when they keep on ordering but complain about something on every cake they get. We keep a list that we check. (I found out, so does the other bakery I mentioned...gee I thought that was my idea LOL).

CCChefPwd: So does the other bakery Dol?
CCChefDol: yes...we both keep books on those people

LARGE CAKES:   I probably don't do nearly as large of cakes as decorators do in some areas. 500 servings is very rare here. The average wedding cake in my area serves around 150. We have many very small, spur of the moment weddings. I contribute the lower number of guests to our hectic lifestyle. Most woman here have careers. Then, a quarter of the population is affiliated with the university. These people don't live anywhere near their families...so smaller weddings. It seems like people don't have time to plan at all anymore. I have 7 wedding cakes this weekend. Only 2 are good size. One is a 16-12-8 and the other is a 14-12-10-6. Others are 2 tiers. I don't deliver the 2-tier cakes, so that at least makes life a little easier.
     In country towns away from big cities people still do have large weddings, but not here.
     BIG cakes are the most fun because it allows you to have plenty of cake to build and create with. There is no use to worry about HOW any of this is done until the time comes and you have a special order. I've built flat buildings that are no trouble and then tall buildings. Most of the time you can get by with square pans used for wedding cakes.

But, one of the biggest cakes I ever made was for St. Mary's church in Oxford (where I live). I had to build the church out of sheet cakes...in the shape of...and to serve 600 people. I placed it on a large 1/2 inch thick plywood board. I built the cake up with my sheet cakes and put straws between for support. I also made tiny little royal icing trims and doors. I shared this cake in my newsletter about 2 months ago if you would like to see it. Delivering it was NO fun either LOL. I had to deliver it all in one piece. It was so heavy it was all my husband and I could do to lift and carry it. The celebration (a church anniversary), was in the Oxford coliseum and I don't think there is a building any bigger than that coliseum! I thought I'd die before I got to the table to set the cake on.

ST. MARY’S CHURCH  <---click to view the picture
I’m sorry this picture is not more clear. But I think you will understand the concept. It is a replica of St. Mary’s Church in Oxford, Ohio. The cake may not look BIG, but it was! It served about 600 people. I "built" it by stacking sheet cakes for the main part of the church. The cake weighed over 100 pounds. It was all that my husband and I could do together, to deliver it to Millet Hall (the HUGE coliseum in Oxford). It felt like we carried it for miles! I had it on a 1/2" thick plywood board, wrapped in contact paper. …wishing for a cart…now carts are usually available. This was 20 years ago.

METHOD:
ASSEMBLY NOTES: In building this cake, I started with a sheet cake / icing on top / dowels / another sheet cake placed
on a foil-covered board (cover both back & front), icing, dowels, another sheet cake, etc. until it is tall enough. It is very
important that the cake stay perfectly straight as you build it up. And it is important for the sheet cakes to all be very flat. (If
they are lower on the corners, add pieces of cake until they appear level). Once I had the sheet cakes stacked, I trimmed
off for the roof. This cake required a lot of trimming.

TIP: When you trim off and then must ice over CUT cake, use thinned icing for the crumb coating first.

WINDOWS: I spread piping gel on wafer paper, let that dry, then attached the windows with piping gel on the back for ‘glue.’
SUGAR BIBLE: In the ‘yard’ front/right, there is a sugar bible.
CROSSES: The crosses were made by a member of the church - too tall. But its the sentiment that counts.
TOP: A 6" cake is perched atop holding the cross with filigree pillars between that and the next 6" square cake.

NOTES: When I’ve had requests to ‘build’ buildings, etc., I always go to the premises and draw the building in as much perspective
as possible. Then I sit down and plan what shape or sizes of cakes will be required. 

CASTLES: In August I have a HUGE wedding cake to make in the shape of a castle. The girl drew a very sensible sketch and made it easy for me. I researched more, through my cake books. I liked a little from this and a little from that one. I made copies of the pictures. The bride came back and I showed her what I found. She then finalized how she wanted it to look. I'm doing four 14 inch 1-layer cakes, for the 'grounds' and three 16 inch cakes tiered up for the castle, then with turrets (towers). Some pieces will be made with royal icing...balconies etc. I think I'll cover the turrets with rolled fondant icing and brick pattern. I have a brick roller for texture. She wants the castle to be white. She wants purple irises and yellow roses. I bought the irises but I am going to add the yellow fuzzy stamens to make them look real. I'll pipe yellow icing on then dust with yellow sugar for the fuzzy look. I'm making the roses out of gumpaste. The flowers will be around the base.
    I plan on doing a 'dry run' of this castle for the ICES show. Then just today a reporter from our newspaper came in and wanted to do a feature story about me and my shop in the "LIFESTYLES" section, ...so I MUST get the castle done for the picture. It will be fun sharing it with my friends. You WILL see pictures of this one. It isn't like I can put a cake such as this in my window...no room and most people would never pay what it is worth. A cake like this MUST be shared.
     I've only charged $1.50 per serving for it (to serve 500 people). I know that is cheap but it makes me too up tight doing it and I'll just feel better. I would never do a replica for the cheap price.

PRICING: Pricing is the hard part. I want to do something different <so much> that I could do it for free just for the fun of it LOL. Each one of these large cakes are going to represent some very special event. Who knows what event. You could never create guidelines. So, the best way is to think about what you will do for a day or two and call the customer back with the price. This way you won't cheat them or you.

L2jlu2: How do you build things like that, do you need special support for it?
CCChefDol: L2...I'll treat it just like any tiered cake. Even though its 3 - 16" double layers straight up, I'll add straws
as always
CCChefPwd: Every cake must have supports - sculptures or tiered wedding cakes
L2jlu2: please put picture on your web, when you do this, is sound beautifl

I have included a couple of photographs for Dolores to add to this chat info.
1. The very large Elisha cake
2. The TI calculator cake

The biggest cakes I have done were for a church.  Every year that church had a big celebration for their anniversary with a special theme, special guests (such as one of the traveling gospel quartets) and a large special cake.  I think the largest one of those was for a 20th Anniversary Reunion.  The theme was click here---> "The year of Elisha".   They moved the church service to the Municipal Auditorium because our church was to small to hold all of the people expected that day.  Normal attendance at that church was around 200 - 300 and they were expecting 1400 that day.  The pastor of that church was very creative and gave me some real challenges over the 8 years we were there.  He wanted "The year of Elisha" in lights.  Elisha in his chariot to sit on top of the cake and he wanted that to fly off into "heaven" at the appropriate moment.   Plus the cake needed to serve a lot of people.  In the first place I only had a home oven and one 5 quart Kitchenaid mixer.   At that time I had never attempted anything this large or complicated. That was the biggest cake and probably the biggest challenge I ever had.

Gigimama: Boy, he didn't want much, did he? LOL
CCChefDol: I'd rather a special cake was big, I can do a better design I think

 The following is taken from the June 10, 1997 Chat Info (with a few additions here and there) http://w3.one.net/~proicer/aolchats/aolchats.htm is the address for the AOL past chats. Just click on the ones you want to read if you want to make a click for picture---> notebook of this information you can print all of these - You will need a very large notebook if you want all of this info on hand.

This cake to actually served 1008 but only the top two inches of each tier was edible. The rest of the cake was a wooden dummy shell that looked like cake and had to be decorated like it was real 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 9,249 people.  I spent most of one month just making the wings and roses that went on this cake.  Any of you who have ever made these wing pieces know they are very time consuming.

CCChefDol: went through the door Pwd?
CCChefPwd: No it had to be put together on site
CCChefDol: oh, thought that was a bit wide
Icing Wiz: How much do you charge for such a large cake?
Simdelish: i assume since it was 4 church, you charged only for the ingredients, pwd?
CCChefPwd: It was free Icing  -  it was a long time ago and they did pay for the cakes and icing

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 haven’t  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 am in the morning backstage at the municipal auditorium and I know it was at least 10 pm 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.

More information on other cakes that were done for that particular church are included in a chat for July 24, 1997.  That web page address is http://w3.one.net/~proicer/aolchats/aolchats.htm

CCChefDol: what tip did you use for the wings Pwd?
CCChefPwd: Probably 2 and 3 - that was before I knew you could actually get icing through a #1 tip  LOL
CCChefDol: I pictured you using tip 1 - or smaller - and not knowing what you know now.

One of the largest  weddings I ever did the cakes for had a Brides cake for 300 and a Groom’s cake for 250.  That wedding had an attendance of over 1000 people.  The brides mother had also ordered 36 dozen cookies to serve guests plus finger foods.  Needless to say they had no cake left.
Another wedding had a wedding cake for 430 servings and another 100 servings in the grooms cake.  I may only do two or three weddings of this size a year.  Most of the weddings I do need cake to serve an average of 200  - 300 servings in both cakes.

I have had several E-Mail questions lately on how to do really large sheet cakes for businesses or churches who want a really large amount of servings but not a tiered cake. I have done this style of set up for several church functions and a few other business functions here in town.  Texas Instruments had a special anniversary celebration of their small calculators in the plant here in town and I did a replica of that special anniversary calculator to go on top of a very large two layer sheet cake.  That cake was elevated above the big cake underneath it with two push through plates with pillars.  (Side by side - two 8" plates with the clear push through legs)  That cake had to serve around 250 totally.  The calculator was done from one 12 X 18 and the bottom cake under it was constructed from six two layer 11 X 15’s - three across to look like one very large sheet cake.  So the bottom cake measured 15" by 33"
The bottom cake served 210 and the top cake another 54.

Gigimama: Who knows 1000 people well enough to invite to their wedding??
CCChefPwd: That brides dad was a doctor and the grooms dad was a minister and the groom was a youth minister - they really had a big attendance
Bridal1: That's average for here, too, Pwd.
CCChefDol: see, it depends on the area how big average weddings are...

CAROL'S NOTES: click where highlighted to view the pictures
Picture #1 - This is a group shot of the cake club with the completed cake. (That's me, the first on the left.)
Picture #2 - The club and family members working on placing the cakes and then "stitching" them together with icing.  (I'm up on the table, decorating.)
Picture #3 - This is a corner shot of some of the cakes for a closer view.  The cardinals are from molding chocolate.  This was the cake the mayor chose to make the "first cut".

If you do not get all three pictures, let me know and I will send them to you one at a time.
You know where to find me if you have any questions.  Thanks!

Icing Wiz: oh ok trying to find someone in PA to do a cake for my great uncle
EffieGreen: Wiz where in Pa?
Icing Wiz: Portage
Icing Wiz: I think I will double check it must be near Ohio side
Bridal1: Darlene Horner probably will know of someone as she knows most everyone in PA
CCChefDol: Darlene has email too
(Look on Diane’s email addresses she’s sent us…bet its there.)

Bakn Beth: I was wondering how much I should charge them per cake...10.00?
CCChefDol: Beth, depends on how much they want to budget. But don't be too cheap. Try and do smaller cakes if they don't want to spend much maybe
Bakn Beth: I was going to use the Oval pan with their logo on it.
Bridal1: Sounds nice Beth.
Bakn Beth: thanks I thought so but I wanted to prepare first
CCChefDol: Beth, do you just need to make one cake at a time or a bunch?
Gigimama: Beth, check your lease and make sure it doesn't prohibit operating a home business. My last apartment lease did
Bakn Beth: I was thinking one at a time
Bakn Beth: I use my moms extra kitchen now
CCChefDol: I was thinking that if you had to make a lot at once, oval could be a prob?
Bridal1: Maybe just a one-layer 8" round Beth?
Bakn Beth: yes Bridal that sounds better..but how much do you think?
Bridal1: I think about $5 you could do just an 8" l layer to promote!
Bakn Beth: That sounds good not to expensive but enough to cover costs...and get my name out
Bridal1: Might generate lots of good customers Beth
CCChefPwd: Just be careful doing to cheap a price - they might expect that kind of price again
Bridal1: Beth, the price is for your complex to pay for, right?
CCChefPwd: Better give them the regular price at that time
Bakn Beth: yes for the complex..
Tha503: charge them  a regular price it will help them too, giving out these cakes

Cake Wmn: ChefDol, may I get off the subject and mention ICES conv?
CCChefPwd: ICES Convention - here we come
Cake Wmn: I have room for 1 room mate at the convention plus we have another whole room reserved at the other hotel if any one is interested !
Bridal1: Ckae Wmn - can I check with Anna Maria to see if she wants to share??  Since Barb isn't going
Cake Wmn: Sure Bridal - Barb thought she only wanted 1 room mate
Bridal1: Cake Wmn, I will try to call her and see.  Hate to have her room by herself.

Dee 0946: what is ICES?
Bridal1: ICES is the cake decorator's convention!!
CCChefDol: ICES...Dee, web site: http://www.ices.org
CCChefPwd: Internation Cake Exploration Societe - Icing, Caring, Everyone Sharing convention
Icing Wiz: International cake exploration society
CCChefPwd: for all of us addicted sugar artists
Icing Wiz: it hs about 5,000 members
CCChefDol: we have demos by pros even from other countries

CCChefDol: YES...lets now have OPEN MIKE...please tell us what big cakes you have done
Gigimama: Nope, the largest I've done was my sisters wedding cake, only a 14-10-6
CAKEDOCTOR: I've done the 8-8" bottom cakes with 16 in round then a 10" 8" and 6" rounds.
Tha503: First cake I did for money was a 16 x 16 square 2 layers filled and I only charged them $40!
CCChefDol: Cakedoctor made a Harley logo almost before he learned to do color flow!