Day 1: The Cake Countdown

Yesterday was a bit long on my knee.  First, I went out to lunch with a couple of friends from work which was very fun.  We went to a place downtown I'd never been to before that's either still owned or was owned by that guy from Springfield who was on The Bachelor. Funny, I don't remember his name at all because I never watched that show but it was big watercooler talk around town that season.  The restaurant's name is Trolley's. I liked it. The interior is fun, the food is great, and hanging with my friends...priceless. :-)

The afternoon was spent getting layers of cake up to the point of being able to spend today sitting at the table decorating.

I'll show you where I am now and then I'll walk through it step by step. Remember Jordan's cake will be a black/white 8" round and Isaac's is a sculpted Kenworth cab:

Gene pointed out that I lost a little perspective at the bottom of the rig and he's right. IF I were selling this cake, you'd probably have pics of me making Gene hold up the thing on spatulas while I added another layer to the bottom. Instead I'm going to cheat and regain perspective on the bottom by hiding it.  You'll see how I do that tomorrow.

All of this prep getting them to this stage took about 3 hours, counting the trip to Party City for extra supplies.  Usually I'm fairly organized but sometimes you forget what you have and what you've run out of. I ended up having to go buy this plastic tray for Isaac's cake because I had no rectangle cakeboards in the house.  Rounds, but no rectangles. But then, neither did Party City, which was disappointing. There must have been a cake decorator run on them.  They had tons of the big ones that are about 24" x 20" but I wasn't in the mood to cut in half scalloped edged cardboards and I wasn't in the mood to spend another hour driving across town in 4pm traffic to Michael's, so instead I bought this plastic tray for about $2.50.  It will come in handy later for a potluck or something.

Starting with Jordan's cake, I leveled each layer off using a thin bladed bread knife. The layer was very close to level but even if it's perfect, I still take the top skin off because, in my experience, you need the rough open cake to hold the fillings. Every time I try to put fillings on the slick top skin of a layer they always end up making all the layers above slide around.

Besides, this is Gene's favorite part. He loves to eat sweet things for breakfast with his coffee and those top "skins" are the softest, gooeyest part of the cake.  As I was piling "the Gene plate" with the cake skins and a dab of the filling for glaze, he walked into the kitchen, his eyes got big and he said "Are those for meeeeeee?"  "Of course."  "Oh boy!" he said, "That will be great with a cup of coffee!" (Predictable but lovable.)  Okay, so it's been quite a while since I baked cake, obviously.  He's so excited to eat breakfast this morning.  He's also generous. He took the chocolate skins/buttercream glaze across the street to the neighbor who was cutely hinting around for chocolate cake the other day.

Here's the beginning of Gene's breakfast. Two more layers were added so it's quite a little pastry now.

After I leveled/de-skinned the first layer, I piped an icing "dam" around the edge so the filling wouldn't wander out and try to play with the buttercream frosting for the outside of the cake.  Then I spooned the filling into the middle and placed the next layer, repeating until all three layers were used.

I did learn one thing. Hey, when you're too old and too wise to learn something in any skill then you might as well hang it up, right?  I did not realize that when I froze the layers they would shrink.  I'd never frozen cakes before. I know that most bakeries do but when I had my business (ran out of a friend's pub kitchen) I made everything fresh. But this time, with my bum knee, I knew there was no way I could stand all the hours it would take to bake and decorate in the same day.  I knew I had to split it up over several days.  I'm already taking Vicodin around the clock the last two days to be able to do what I'm doing the way it is.  So I made all the layers last week and froze them.  They came out beautifully moist but my lovely thick strawberry layers shrunk so that I wasn't comfortable torting the two of them into four.  Instead I baked another layer, set it aside to cool while I worked on Isaac's cake and made the Party City run, and then went back and finishe dup Jordan's cake. So keep that in the back of your mind if you decide to freeze cake layers.

Once all three layers were put together with the filling, I crumb coated the whole cake. Crumb coating is where you take whatever buttercream you're using, thin it down a bit and spread a thin layer over the cake and set it aside to dry. This seals in the crumbs so they don't rise up to the top of the frosting and it creates a moisture barrier so the cake doesn't dry out.

Let's talk about cakes and fillings for a second.  I could try to impress you and say that the cakes for my nieces and nephew are all from scratch using farmer's market organically grown strawberries and butter that I'd churned myself but that wouldn't be true. If I learned nothing else in decorating cakes and being a banquet planner it's that these two cliches are true:  There's a time and place for everything AND know your audience.  I could have made everything to MY taste but I'm not baking these for me.  They're for Jordan and Isaac.  Jordan wants a sophisticated look for her cake but she's like me in that she's a very sentimental traditionalist. The tradition in our family her whole life has been kid's cake: Betty Crocker strawberry.  For filling mixed strawberry pie filling with thick buttercream. It's what she wants and what she'll get. I feel no righteous burning to "convert" her to grown up food when it comes to her birthday cakes until she wants something more adult.  Then I'll go to town with making upscale treats for her on a different level.

I do have one disclaimer to make about the cakes.  Maybe it should be an apology of sorts. I was raised by a cake decorating mom who initiated me into her kitchen when I was eight. I've said several times that my first full sized wedding cake that I made completely by myself was in the Webster County Fair, Youth Division, when I was twelve. So I've been baking for a while.  My mother was a taskmaster about baking.  Her favorite saying was "white cake should be white", meaning do NOT overbake cake. I totally believe her and my motto is the same. There's actually nothing wrong with using a mix now and then.  Dry, disgusting cakes don't come from being made from mixes. They are created from improperly baking cakes from mixes.  Don't get me wrong.  From scratch is always better. I'm just saying you're not a horrible person for using a cake mix once in a while if you know how to bake a cake without overbaking it.

However, I haven't baked in a while so when you look at those strawberry layers they are practically burnt by my standards. I cringe to have photos of them on display. If my knee wasn't gimp, I would have thrown them away and started all over.  But sometimes you have to do what you can do in the moment.  This is the first year I've been able to bake the kids' cakes in several years so to save my knee I chose to leave the the layers as they were and move on.  We'll all survive a slightly too dark cake for one year, I think.  By the time I get to Sydney's in July and Kaylee's in September, I'll be back on my game.  For more information on my background go to this post "A Fridge Full of Food...and nothing to eat" and for baking tips and more photos go to my article "Seven Professional Secrets to Baking Great Cake" at Dabbling Mum. 

This is what my cake layers normally look like:

Now, on to Isaac's cake. Isaac likes marbled cake. He doesn't care if the chocolate and vanilla are mixed, he just likes them together so I simply baked chocolate and yellow (I didn't want to waste the egg yolks) cake and then put them together however it worked.  He'll love cutting in to find a surprise of flavors.

Starting with a 9x13 chocolate cake, I measured it into thirds and marked it with toothpicks. Using the toothpicks and ruler as a guide I sliced it with a bread knife.  The bread knife is key.  You need the thin blade and the serated edge to get through the layers without destroying or smooshing them.

Next, I leveled/de-skinned each section. Again, same reason. You need the layers as flat as possible but also because the top skin is very slick when you put buttercream on it and the whole thing would slide apart.

Then the same stacking takes place as with Jordan's cake.  To split the big cake into thirds, I wound up with three 9x4 sections.  Then I had the smaller yellow cake that I made a fourth layer for the cab and then used the leftover bits to form the base of the truck where the trailer is attached and put them all together with buttercream in between.

Then came the carving.  You know, I'll admit up front I was a little nervous because you can shave more off but you can't put it back on easily if you cut away too much.  Then once it was done I had to take a break to make my hands stop shaking. It's natural.  I have a lot of time and emotion invested in this thing. I want it to be something Isaac remembers as a very cool birthday cake.  With those kids, even though they're not mine-mine, they'll always be mine in my heart, and I'm a big believer that not only are we, as adults in the "it takes a village to raise a child" sense teaching them good values and lessons they need to live their adult lives by, we're also responsible for making their good memories.  My childhood had many great times and wonderful people in it but there was also a lot of pain and ugliness.  I can't change that and I forgave it a long time ago, but I'm very motivated to be someone in these kids' lives who helps them be able to say "Hey, I had some kickass times as a kid and people who loved me unconditionally.  I'm somebody special."

To carve I measured the truck in the photos to get some basic dimensions, marked those out with toothpicks and then let the bread knife do it's bad boy job.

Once the carving was done, the entire cake was covered in the crumb coat and set aside to "rest".

Today I'll start where I left off and finish decorating. The hard part's done.

Comments

[sher]

Fabulous post! I loved seeigng all the steps. And your crumb coating is wonderful. I never get mine that smooth. I guess that's why you're a pro! I'm glad you had all of this to do while you knee hurts. It lets you focus on something other than the pain. OK--I'm sure looking forward to seeing the finished cakes.

[Glenna]

Thanks, Sher! Wait until the post tomorrow. I just finished both cakes and I'm very pleased with how they turned out. I think Jordan and Isaac will dig them.

Hey, yeah, not to whine but I'm going to--now my knee still hurts but my hands are swollen and hurt worse! That's why I don't do cakes professionally anymore!

[Kristina]

I feel like I should switch hands with you....you have such wonderful talent!!

[Alisha]

Oh I can't wait to see the finished cakes. They look fabulous already!

I had to laugh at Gene's breakfast ... I love those "extra" cake tops.

[Denzylle]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/showbiz/showbiznews.html?in_article_id=457080&in_page_id=1773

[MyKitchenInHalfCups]

Absolutely think these are fabulous, the development process is terrific!
You are right there is a place for everything even box cakes!
So looking forward to the end vision here.
Be kind to the knee.

[Glenna]

Kristina--You're so sweet. Thank you!

Alisha--Ahhh..you are apparently familiar with the "cake tops" breakfast or snack. :-)

1/2 cups--thank you so much. This has been really fun.

[Kt]

Holy shite. I'm extremely impressed. The truck is very impressive.

Oh, and THANK YOU for FINALLY explaining to me why every single one of my multiple layer cakes has turned out lopsided. My mom's an incredible baker, but cakes aren't her thing -- so I was on my own trying to figure the details out when I started baking. If I weren't going out of town this week, I would be baking a layer cake just for practice.

[Glenna]

Kt--Thanks for your reaction! That was great. Hey, so glad I could help. When you get back in town be sure and bake just for fun.