Sunday, July 5, 2009

Happy 4th of July


P1060654
Originally uploaded by Christsstar

The baby is settling herself into enough of a routine that I have time to bake again.

I tried something different with this cake and it turned out bad. It was way dense and just didn't taste right.

And it was too warm in the kitchen for the buttercream frosting, so it was all melty and not cooperating either.

Of course, before I made this cake, I decided in all seriousness that I want to try to learn enough to bake to make money, with the ultimate goal of opening a bakery. However, I recognize that may be a long way off. In the meantime, I need to practice. I'm going to offer to make birthday cakes and fun goodies for people at work and on the block and any other friends/family who want it.

My next step in the process of cake making and general baking is to make a fondant (a real and good one) and improve piping. For the piping I need to make a royal frosting; it's supposed to me thicker frosting that is more sturdy and cooperative. For the fondant, I need to find food-grace glycerin. I'm not sure where to find it.

My next project is another stab at Tiramisu; a request from my mom.

After that, I'm going to try to make a cake shaped like Andrew's guitar.

I'm totally addicted to all the cake shows on TV. There are now three that I DVR regularly; Amazing Wedding Cakes on WE, Cake Boss on TLC, and Ace of Cakes on Food Network.

What I need is a cake show that will teach me how to do the decorating and such, not just show the drama of the shops.

I wish I could go to culinary school and/or be an intern at a bakery; but unfortunately, the bill still need to be paid.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love Ace of Cakes! Duff is my hero! Actually, I want to grow up to be Mary Alice.

Catherine said...

What about taking community college culinary classes? The first one is way boring and practically all you do is cut up stuff and make broth. The next two classes are Understanding Culinary Techniques I and II. But after that you should be able to take a baking/pastry class or two. Perhaps the culinary techniques will teach stuff about pastry as well?

They might sell fondant stuff at Michaels.

majellamom said...

Food grade glycerin is available at any craft store, and usually at Walmart in their cake decorating aisle. I know that Michael's offers Wilton decorating classes, but it's probably a lot easier to learn from someone who does cake decorating. I learned from my MIL, and she teaches 4-H girls...you could look into finding out if there is someone in your area that volunteers to teach 4-H cake decorating, and come up with some sort of trade (you help supervise and teach lower level cake decorating - like level 1, all they can do is place things on a cake, no tips allowed - in exchange for some upper level lessons?

As for fondant, if you ever find a good tasting recipe, please let me know...that stuff tastes awful!