You win some you lose some

Okay, I was bad tonight and didn't do any piping. I need to work on them more tomorrow night and this weekend. However, I did try taking the snowflakes I did yesterday off the wax paper. I learned something useful. I really need to make each snowflake on an individual piece of waxed paper and leave them on the paper until it is time to put them on the cake. This means 1) that I need to make a hell of a lot of snowflakes so that I can have lots of extras for breakage. Considering I broke all but about 3 I pulled off the waxed paper from last night I'm hoping that the indivdual pieces of paper might make life easier. 2) It means I need to set aside a boat load of time for setting up the cake. I think we need to be there right about 3 pm when they get the hall and make sure the cake table is the first thing set up. Once we get the cake set up we can help with the other stuff but we need to make sure that the cake is done first. Otherwise we'll run out of time.

40 done

Written 1/29/03



Goal obtained! I worked out earlier that I have 10 days until the wedding and in a perfect world I would like to have 400 snowflakes to allow plenty for a saftey margin. So, of course, that means 40 snowflakes a night. I'm not sure we're going to make it but at least tonight I got it done. It only took about 2 hours. I took a break for dinner in the middle for about an hour and my hands don't even feel bad. I probably could have done another tray (20 snowflakes) but I decided that I want to be able to pipe tomorrow so it was time to stop.

Snowflake update

Written 1/28/03 11:02 pm



Alan is not home yet and Tirzah left about half an hour ago. After a nice dinner of salad, bread and pork chops we started working on snowflakes. Wilton says use royal icing and a number 2 tip. we tried that and every one of the snowflakes we tried to pick up broke. Tirzah tried one with a number 4 tip and much thinner icing. I'm not sure about the thinner icing. I think that a more medium icing with a number 4 tip might work better,

Icing woes

Written 1/28/03



We went back to Alan's house and started baking. We did an 8 inch cake and a 6 inch. I had a slight problem with the 6 inch cooking all the way through which I will have to work out, but otherwise the cake seemed to go really well. We also made 3 trays of brownies, two for Tirzah's office and one for the party. I need to remember to clean the oven this weekend though. I was not as pleased with the frosting however. Somehow when I think of ganache I think of the cake I made for Havorc's cornoatio and the frosting that guy made. So when Tirzah made the White chocolate Ganache and it never got beyond the pourable consistancy I was disappointed. We managed to save it by adding lots of powdered sugar but it wasn't what I had in mind. We ended up putting a coat of the white chocolate fudge on the outside of the cake (nuke the fudge in the microwave for 30-45 seconds at 50% power to make it spreadable). Then we coated the outside of the fudge with the frosting. Of course all lovely whithe chocolate is not actually white it is Ivory colored. This means that the icing is not nearly as white as I wanted. finally we finished and drove through the snow to the Super Bowl party.


When I tasted the cake I loved the actual cake. The texture and flavor were exactly what I am looking for although I need to find a way to infuse the cake more with the framoise. The cake had a very definate line of demarcation for where the framboise did not sink far enough into the cake. The frosting is another matter. By the time we put the icing on top of the fudge there was almost 1/4 inch of the "frosting" in some places. This is BY FAR too much. I don't really feel that the icing added to the cake and I think I want to propose to Tirzah that we just do the fudge if not find something completely new. The problem with new of course, is a time issue. We have to dgo clean up Alan's house (yes I got a complaint about the way the house was left) and then start the snowflakes tonight.

Ouch!

Written 1/27/03

So I was right, not a cheap weekend. Later on I will try and remember to list my recipets. Friday night Tirzah came over and we went to the movies and then Saturday morning we got up bright and early to go to breakfast with Cameron and Connie. We then went to Resturant Depot where in addition to an 11 lb bar of white chocolate we found a flat of raspberries. We might go back and get those later. We also found qurts of heavy whipping cream. All these things of wonderful...and expensive.


Then on to Michaels picking up a 40% off one item coupon from Mom on the way. We bought the candelight cake stand I've been wanting which might end up having to do with Fl's cake but we're not sure yet. On to Frands cake and candy, actually the cheapest stop of the day as the only thing we needed from there was cake boxes. I forgot to get one of the boxes I will need so I'll need to go at some point and pick up onther one but I will probably go to ABC Sugar Art for that one just for the change. We also showed Fran the pictures of the Max cakes which I have hung in my office this morning.


On to Kitchen's Etc since Fran's didn't have a cake stand we liked. There Tirzah found one that she bought and we will probably used for the cake. Then Tirzah and I split up and I made a stop by Barnes and Noble picking up a new piece of cake porn. Add Safeway and Food Lion on Sunday morning and you can see why I'm feeling poor!

Now which cake am I making?

Written 1/23/03

Last night in addition to making fudge I pulled out my cake bible and found a couple of white chocolate cakes to try. We will see how it goes.


I called Fran's and found out that during the winter they are only open from 10 to 5. Grrr. We will have to go Saturday after Resturant Depot. So it looks like the order of things will be Resturant Depot, Michaels, Frans. Somehow I'm thinking this will not be a cheap weekend for me. Luckily I have cake supply money coming.