Cake Craft discussions and questions thread

[Kanga]

Made a start to dh's cake http://www.flickr.com/photos/55548057@N02/10082903576/

Fww I like the sound of both your cake ideas but I'd probably go with the malteser ones, especially if he doesnt really do cake!

[Kanga]

Cake is done, picture on Flickr. Against the odds as dh & ds were unwell yesterday but I managed to get it done. Just hope dh can actually eat it tomorrow!

[blackberrycrimble]

Cakey musings, please excuse the ramble.

I'm thinking of shutting down my cake business. These are my reasons:
- it doesn't make any money, there are too many people doing it, people aren't prepared to pay for the effort put in.
- I'm not good enough at it. I don't want to be good at it, I want to be excellent. I'm not. I have very little experience, and not enough knowledge for making high end wedding cakes, which is what I really want to do. I can't see how I would become good enough to do that.
- I'm losing the love for what I can do. The stress of delivering takes the joy out of it. A new enquiry doesn't make me excited, it fills me with dread.
- for the turnover I have, the interruption to the house isn't worth it, and to have a higher turnover (and therefore make money) I can't see how we'd be able to work properly in our domestic food prep room any more.
- insurance is a headache. I've had to get special house insurance and even that doesn't cover me to have people to the house to collect orders.
- I really need premises, but that means more money, and would need me to be better at it.
- It isn't really that flexible. I can't really do it with the children in the house. There are definite deadlines that cannot be shifted at all, so everything else stops. Fluff had a vomiting bug last week. Luckily she was over it and out of the 48hr window before I had to start on the cakes I was making for a fair, but it made me realise that I am flying by the seat of my pants on that. Again, more insurance needed.
- I don't think I'm cut out to work for myself. I'm not motivated by money but I seem to need external expectations to achieve.
- I was a much better civil servant than I am a businesswoman (and than I am a cake decorator).
- the vast majority of my orders are from friends. If I wanted to keep it up as a hobby I suspect there'd be plenty of opportunity.

My reasons not to boil down to pride and not liking to move on.

Ramble over. Just needed to write it all down. Thanks.

Sorry mods for submitting this with a k word in it!

[Kanga]

I know I've asked very similar questions before but I get a bit paranoid! If I bake a cake Thursday afternoon and ice it Friday, it'll be ok for a party on Saturday won't it?

[Biddy]

Wow Kanga the Pacman cake looks awesome! Very impressed did your DH feel well enough to eat it?

As for your question, If the top and sides are covered in fondant icing then the cake should last several days in a tin, so Saturday shouldn't be a problem.

Eta: any other icing will be fine too for a day! If it's cream cheese or a buttercream with milk then I would keep it in the fridge until Saturday myself but I don't know if that's actually necessary.

[Kanga]

Thanks biddy, that is what I thought. Still might try & bake it Friday morning but its for a friend & she is picking it up Friday so we'll see if timings work out!

And yes, dh did eat some of his birthday cake. He still wasn't really 100% but had to try some!

[Bod]

Can someone share their Madeira cake recipe with me please. I need to start ordering the ingredients to make a 6, 8, 10 and 11 inch round cake so I can make ds birthday cake.
Thanks

[PerpetualMadness]

BC probably has a better one but this is mine:

9in sq Madeira cake:
450g butter
450g sugar
8 eggs
450g sr flour
230g plain flour
Juice and rind 2 lemons or 1 tbsp vanilla

Cream butter and sugar til pale and fluffy (ca 5 min). Beat eggs and vanilla then beat in a dribble at a time. Sift in flours and fold in with metal spoon. (add lemon here if not using vanilla). Pour into greased lined 9in sq tin and scoop mixture up the sides so you can see tin in the middle. Place in middle of oven with a baking tray on shelf above. Remove from oven and cool in tin before moving to wire rack.

160 C, 1h40 (covered in foil at 1h20 then checked at 10 min intervals).

9 inch round:
6 Eggs
338g Sugar
338g Butter
338g self raising flour
173g Plain flour
3/4tbsp Vanilla essence

1h30, cover at 1h10

[PerpetualMadness]

Also, wow that's an awful lot of cake!

[Bod]

Thanks PM
how do I size up/down for the different sized tins?
And yes, I know it's a huge amount of cake - we have 27 kids coming plus we invited both parents...... I was originally just doing a 6, 8 and 10 inch but then I won't have any left overs for our neighbours (we always give cake to 3 of our neighbours)

[PerpetualMadness]

I had loads of cake leftover from 9 inch square with a 30 kid party. Loads.

I do geometry to scale up down. I work out the volume and how much bigger or smaller then adjust all quantities by that amount.

[PerpetualMadness]

My quantities are for deep cakes (think my pans are 3.5 inches deep).

[blackberrycrimble]

Madeira is actually my weak point so I'd use PMs!

Size, I agree you are going to have a LOT of cake.

This: http://www.chrissyscakes.co.uk/portion-guide.html is a helpful guide, and suggests that you are looking at a minimum of 100 portions.

Also, are you stacking them? If so, the difference in step-size at the bottom might look odd.

[Bod]

I went with a 6,8 and 10 and did 2 layers - all of the 10 inch went and half of the 8 inch too so we have some to give to the neighbours and some leftovers for us. Will try and put a pic on flicker

Edited to add the flicker link
https://m.flickr.com/#/photos/83479856@N02/13968852870/

[Splash]

That cake looks fab Bod. What a happy boy! Well done. My cakes never turn out how I imagine them to.