I'm so mystical
  • shonao

New to this community

As the title says, I am new to this community. I have been making cakes and such for friends for a few years now, and along the way it evolved, and blossomed into a home business. My cakes started out quite rough looking (IMO, though my friends would tell you otherwise...I'll share some of them later, and you can decide! *lol*) and tasting amazing, to starting to look as good as they taste.

I must admit though, I have become quite the anti-sweets person since I started all this! I am no longer the person who suggests we split a dessert, or have dessert at all! And when I do want something sweet, I generally want only a bite of something, and that something better NOT be cake! *lol*

I have taken loads of classes over the last year for decorating, and have loved every second of them. Tomorrow I am taking a class that is being taught by Lauren Kitchens, owner of Fancy Cakes by Lauren. She has one one Food Network Challenge, and places second in another.
The class she is teaching is on muppetizing someone in cake. Mercifully she is also local, and friends of my friends. So maybe I can coax other info from her later on! *lol*

In the mean time, here's a few pictures of cakes spanning from the 'not so pretty' stage, and up to the most recent:

( pics under the cut for f-list nice-nessCollapse )
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frye & leela

Abram's 1st birthday...

For my godson's birthday cake (for everyone else but him), I made confetti cake (from a box...don't judge me...lol), icing dyed blue and yellow.  Yellow icing for the lettering, blue for the water.  Blue gel icing and edible sprinkles made the waves.  Cake was topped with rubber duckies.




Abram was giving his own cake to make a mess of, which he did very well.  His older brother helped him make the mess!  His grandmother made that cake.



Jen xmas

AAHHHH! Need help!

I have the Chocolate Passion cookbook by Trish Boyle and Timothy Moriarty.  It consists of recipes from  Chocolatier Magazine and I had a very expensive failure today on a Black Satin Chocolate Raspberry Cake.  Maybe someone can help my figure out how to salvage it.  Fortunately today was a test cake.  I wanted to make it for a party on Saturday night, so I'd like to figure out how to fix whatever I did wrong.

My problem was my icing.  It just didn't thicken.   Here's the recipe:

20 oz semisweet chocolate
1 1/4 cups evaporated milk
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1/4 cup black raspberry liquer
4 teaspoons vanilla extract

Melt the chocolate.
Put the evaporated milk, butter, liqueur and vanilla extract in a food processor fitted with the metal chopping blade.  Add the melted chocolate.  Process for 20 to 30 seconds, until the frosting is thick and creamy.

First problem is that I don't have a food processor.  I tried to use the blender, but once I poured the chocolate in, it went straight to the bottom.  So I poured it all into a bowl and used a hand mixer, but it never stiffened.  It was watery.

Anyone have any ideas?  

My only suspicion is that maybe I should have let the chocolate cool for a while before dumping it in the rest of the mixture.  The instructions didn't say to do that, so I didn't.  

Like I said, this was a test because I've never made this before.  I spent about 50 bucks on ingredients because I wanted to make a big splash at a dinner party I'm going to this weekend, so any advice on thickening frosting if this happens again would be appreciated.

Thanks!
Thanks Squeaktastic

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new to the community...awesome btw. I love making cakes the one above was made for a friends birthday this afternoon. it is a red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting (made from scratch) and little candy circles.


Enjoy