My sister asked me to make the cake for her wedding (which was the 22nd). The 10th was Doc’s birthday, and I used that as an opportunity to test out all the cake baking/making/decorating techniques that I had read about online. His cake turned out moist, good tasting, and good looking; so I decided to go ahead and use the same cake and frosting recipes on my sister’s cake.
This is the finished cake that I made for my sister. She picked out the LEGO toppers for the cake, which I think was a very nice touch.
I wrote last week about the techniques of making crumb coats and freezing the cakes while still warm. I utilized all of these new techniques on the wedding cake, since they worked so well last time. Freezing the cakes truly does make them moister! I froze the sections of the cake that I was going to use, and ate the sections that I cut away without freezing them, and largely preferred the cakes which had been frozen. That being said, I also froze the cakes because that way I could make them ahead of time and decorate them at my leisure. Continue reading “I Made a Wedding Cake”
I used these new techniques to make and decorate Doc’s birthday cake this year. Sorry for the horrible photo, I didn’t know that I was going to blog about crumb coats until after the cake was already eaten, so I used this photo of the cake at a bar.
After years of making cakes, I’ve only just learned about using crumb coats – a thin layer of icing to trap the crumbs – to make the task of icing the cake easier. Another handy trick is to freeze the cake while it is still slightly warm. This inexplicably makes the final (thawed and frosted) cake incredibly moist. Some people suggest that it “traps the moisture in.” Maybe. Heh. Maybe. It also lets you wait indefinitely before decorating your cake. Combined, the techniques are even more powerful: the thin crumb coat freezes hard on the frozen cake, keeping those crumbs good and stuck and letting you glide over it like a frozen lake when giving it the final coat.
To make a crumb coat, all you need to do is spread your frosting over your cake very thinly, not really caring about tearing up crumbs. Let the cake sit for about 15 minutes or so, to let the frosting layer cure and harden, trapping all those crumbs forever in their carbonite-like tomb. Just use the same frosting that you plan on using for the outer coat, so there is no need to have different batches of frosting (unless this is something you really want). Then, after the frosting has cured, put on your final coat of frosting as you would normally. Note that you no longer have any problems with pesky crumbs.
Sure, you could be extra careful and use your mysterious tricks to not get any crumbs in the first layer and call it a day, but honestly I can rarely get that to work. Plus it is so much easier to frost a cold cake.
Some people say they get mixed results with freezing, and also suggest not to crumb coat a frozen cake (they suggest letting it thaw first), because their frosting separates. I use buttercream frosting and I have never had problems with it separating on a frozen cake, but I suppose that is something to keep in mind.
If only I knew it sooner, this trick could have saved me so many tears!
Our friend Dean invited us to spend the weekend with him in Santa Cruz, where he had rented a beach house for a vacation. Whenever Doc and I go to SC, we love to look for clothes in the thrift shops. I found a crazy ballroom gown, which I quickly dubbed the “Circe Lannister dress,” for reasons which should fast become obvious.
