Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Why didn't I ever think of that!

I was watching some show on Food network the other day and the chef was making a cake with icing similar in consistency to the one I use on my chocolate layer cake. (The icing that creates a MESS because it's liquidy at first and it runs down the side and puddles at the bottom and gets chocolate all over the serving tray.)

However, the chef on the TV was NOT making a royal mess like I do. How did he avoid this? Why - he put the cake on top of a cooling rack to frost it! What a novel idea. All the extra icing falls down through the holes of the cooling rack and then you just move the cake to a pretty clean serving tray when you're done. Ingenious, I tell you! (And if you've been doing this for years feel free to gloat in your comments. I'm a little slow sometimes.)

Now to figure out how to get my cakes to not be lopsided. . . though asymetrical cakes ARE in style these days. . .

5 comments:

  1. I have this happen to me a lot :) It's all good!

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  2. That is a great idea. I've never thought about doing that before either. As for helping your cakes to be even...do you cakes always lean to the same side? If so it could be because your oven bakes hotter on one side than the other. To remedy that you can put another pan under your cake pan on the low side to even out the cooking (but this can turn out to be a mess too). Or just try putting your cake on the far left or far right of your oven and see what happens.

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  3. Whenever my cakes are uneven I use (unflavored) floss sliced off the rounded top or bump...just enough that it leaves the cake mostly flat. Fill between the layers with whatever (cream, fruit, etc) in a way that it'll ensure the top piece ends up flat.

    That way once it's frosted no one will know the difference, plus you get to eat a little cake (the part you "cut" off) for "taste testing" without ruining the cake you serve to guests. :)

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  4. what do you do with all the icing that drips through the cooling rack - guess we could eat it :-)---by the way, do you still owe me a cake? smile....

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  5. Hey Nicole! Another way to avoid being messy when icing a cake is to place strips of parchment paper under the edge of the cake, already on your presentation dish. ice the cake, then simply remove the parchment paper strips. This way, you don't have to worry about transferring an already iced cake to your serving dish. Also, you can flip the top layer of your cake over so that the pan bottom side is on top, giving you a flat surface to work with when presenting.

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