Just wondering for those of you who have tried recipes from this book, what your thoughts were...they sound delicious. Just wanted some opinions. I want to venture into the world of scratch cakes. Thanks.

I've had the WBH book for quite some time and had never tried any recipes from it....until last night. Although I used a boxed Dark Chocolate Fudge cake, I filled it with their Oreo filling (2 1/2 C. Heavy cream, 1/4 C 10x sugar, 1 tsp pure vanilla xtract and 20 crushed Oreos), and OOOOHHHH MMMMMYYYY GOOOOSSSSHHH was it delicious! I honestly don't think I've ever had something so delicious in my mouth before. I brought the cake to work for another dept other than my own, and it was gone in 20 minutes. My dept even collected $30 and has asked me to bring in another one tomorrow because they heard all the mmmmmm's coming from next door! I iced it with the Easy Chocolate Buttercream recipe that's posted here and drizzled chocolate ganache around the edges/down the sides of the cake. I can't imagine how much better it would be if I made their cake recipe!
Cammie

I used the CC pound cake as the bottom layer of my daughter's birthday cake a couple of weeks ago, huge hit with both the kids and adults, the only thing that I noticed was a slight sour taste from time to time, not sure if that comes from the cream cheese or sour cream. I have also used the cupcake recipe for a party although it does not yield many cupcakes around a dozen. Today I used the cookies & cream filing on a double chocolate cake, very yummy. Last night I attempted the chocolate cake recipe and the cake fell apart on me, I was in shock, this is the first time that I have had a cake literally crumble on me, I think I might have tried to take it out of the pan too soon and it was still to hot to remove. Anyway - hope it helps

I just got my copy of the book in the mail today and I'm thumbing through it right now. I can't wait to try Julie's Chocolate Peanut Butter Swirl Cheesecake, it sounds awesome.

I've made several recipes from this book, but no "regular" cakes!

My opinions of the recipes I've tried so far:

*House Buttercream pg. 36- I hesitate to even say this here, because most Cake Central folks who've mentioned this recipe have loved it, but I hated this icing. That's probably because I don't really like shortening in my buttercream. It looked beautiful and fluffy, but tasted greasy and horrible to me.
Don't get mad, folks! This is just my opinion and I certainly won't look down on you if you liked this icing.

*Julie's Chocolate Peanut Butter Swirl Cheesecake pg. 48- You use a 10-inch springform pan for this cheesecake. It makes A LOT! I made it as one of many desserts for my mom's wedding reception last year, but we had too much and it never got set out. It ended up in my freezer...and then little by little into my stomach! lol It was really good, frozen or thawed. I would have liked the peanut butter flavor to be a little stronger, but other than that is was quite tasty. It calls for chunky peanut butter, but I think creamy would work well, too.

*Truffle Cake pg. 53- Chocolate heaven! This is seriously rich, intense stuff. Don't serve it to the kids. Invest in good quality chocolate for this recipe--it's worth it. This is the only dessert my husband wants for his birthday now.

*Cookies and Cream filling pg. 65- Simple but delicious! I could eat this with a spoon...wait, I do believe I've done that It makes a divine filling for chocolate or butter cake.

I look forward to reading what other CC members have tried!

The Banana Cake & French Custard on pgs. 86 & 87 are really, really great! The cake turned out perfectly the first time I made it and every time since then. I followed their filling suggestion & used the French Custard....perfectly wonderful with that cake! I frosted it with ganache...talk about YUM! lol I've also used the French Custard in other cakes and folded fruit into it...frozen and fresh...both were delicious. Though, if you use frozen, rinse/drain it well and use less than you would if using fresh.

Orange Butter Cake & Orange Mousse, pgs. 90 & 92....really great tasting! The cake is very moist, I guess due to both the amount of milk & orange juice in it...not wet, but more moist than, say, Duncan Hines 'Butter Recipe Golden' cake mix, which I think is just right, as far as moisture goes...lol. I think next time I'll reduce them both just a tad and see if it works ok. Only because the addition of the Orange Mousse adds more moisture & I'd hate for it to end up mushy or soggy if I made it for a customer with that or another very moist filling. Other than that, no problems...plus it smells heavenly!! By the time it's done, your whole house smells of that wonderful, fresh, clean citrus aroma...I love that! lol I covered this one in ganache once (delicious) and another time with a vanilla buttercream. I also filled it with whipped choc. ganache once and used the orange curd part of the orange mousse recipe and added it to my regular vanilla buttercream...really good! Next, I think I'll try the Orange Mousse as a filling on a chocolate cake w/ganache.

I, too, love the Cookies and Cream!! It's so simple and sooooo perfectly yummy! It makes a pretty big batch...I've never used a whole batch on one cake, and I'm pretty liberal with my fillings, I think...but 6 cups is a lot. And since there's cream in it, you need to use it up so it doesn't go bad. Even my DH, who loves oreos but doesn't like them mixed into things, was eating this one out of the bowl when he didn't think I was looking!! lol (He was actually getting spoonfuls of it and putting it in a bowl and then used another spoon to eat it with...but still, right out of the bowl I'd mixed it in and had it in the fridge...lol) I'd planned on using it for 3 different small cakes I had to do one week & I kept wondering why/how it was disappearing. He'd been eating it for his dessert every night with a glass of milk after I'd gone to bed!

I don't know why but I seem to try recipes the way they're suggested first...like with WBH - I've tried these cakes with the suggested/companion fillings as they are in the book. Then I start thinking about other combinations that would be tasty...not because they aren't great as they are, but it just gets me to think more about what will be good together. I have to say that, for some reason, these are the only scratch cakes, other than a pound cake recipe I have, that have turned out with little, if any, problems...and tasted great, to boot! Maybe the recipes are super-perfected, maybe I'm getting better at scratch cakes, or maybe I'm just getting lucky...lol. I don't know, but I keep having wonderful results with WBH recipes.

wow...thanks everyone...i will try one for myself....such great reviews ...thanks!!!!!!

I've made a few...

1. White cake - too fluffy

2. House buttercream - not good. This was my last attempt at shortening in frosting. I thought boiling the water would break down the waxy feel, but no luck.

3. Oreo filling - Decent but more of a casual filling. They don't hold up in a cake for too long. After a day or two the whipping cream dissolves.

4. Chocolate cake - average

That's all I can remember off the top of my head. I think I've tried the truffle cake too, but I can't recall that one.

This is so great! I was about to ask the same question as princessjellybean and now I have the answer.

I have also made their chocolate butter cake and it's good. Very moist (even a few days after baked) and very simple to make.

I made their chocolate cupcakes and wasn't that crazy about them. They're not very chocolaty (sp.) and a little dense... Maybe I did something wrong since their other recipes seem to be so good.

Has anybody tried making the grandmarnier cheesecake??? It sounds so delicious!

HollyPJ, when you made the peanut butter cheesecake, did you also make the cookies they suggest and then use that for cheesecake? I was just wondering if they were any good.

I filled a cake (chocolate bourbon coconut cake, recipe by Colette Peters) with the WBH orange curd mousse and it was really yummy!!

This Sunday I'm making the hazelnut cake filled with nutella chocolate mousse. I will post my opinion on it.

Inma

could one of you ladies post the oreo filling recipe? pleeeease!! ... it sounds soooo good.... I must check out this book ... since I'm pretty new at baking I stick to the doctored mixes .. but I would like to graduate to scratch cakes sometime ...

I've made the house buttercream and Kaye's buttercream (IMBC). The House buttercream is a little greasy. I had to add some more sugar because it really wasn't that sweet to my taste. (I think i used a full 2lb bag + a little more to get it to my liking.)
Kaye's Buttercream is AWESOME! I wish i could afford to make it more often, but that's a lot of egg whites in it, plus my smoothing skills are not that stellar.

The chocolate butter cake i thought was very tasty, but since its made with cake flour its a bit crumbly. Not as moist as I'm used to. I'm sure adding a bit more liquid will help that out.

The Pasty Cream was very good, but i would add slightly less whipped cream too it. I thought it was not a good balance of whipped cream to custard.

The Chocolate Glaze was just OMG!

The Cookies and cream filling was just AWESOME! I had no problem with it holding up for a few days longer than just whipped cream. I think the oreos acted as a stabilizer in it. But if you do want it to hold up longer and have some doubts just add some piping gel before you mix in the cookies.

Overall i've found all the recipes i've made from it so far to be good. They all need a bit of tweaking, but really there aren't many recipes out there that couldn't use a little bit of tweaking.
My only big gripe with the books is that the recipes are for very large portions. Obviously the book was written by a retail/wholesale bakery so they are going to have large portions, but i wish they had scaled them down just a bit more. I'm annoyed with having to do all that math when i'm baking.

thanks hn87519... can't wait to try it

Just thought I would add that today I made the Golden Butter Cake...very good. It was a little hard to handle, though, when I was leveling & torting it, only because it's very tender...but that's no biggie really. It had a nice crumb, I thought...slightly light in texture, but moist and tender...yummy!

Ok, so I made the Hazelnut cake on Sunday for my valentine's cake and it was really good. The batter is pretty thick so I was concerned it would turn out to be too heavy but no, it's moist and delicious. I love the crunch from the hazelnuts. I filled it with the recommended nutella mousse and it was to die for. I spread a little bit of nutella on each layer before filling and the taste was wonderful. I iced it with Italian Meringue Buttercream (not the one from the book) and it was just perfect. Great treat for Valentine's day!

Inma

The recipes in that book all look so good. I have not had a chance to try any of them yet. I scanned the entire book and stored it on one of my hard drives then I decided to transfer the entire thing to a flash drive.

I made the chocolate peanut butter swirl cheesecake last weekend and I agree with HollyPJ, it needs more peanut butter flavor. It is good regardless, but IMO it needs to either be a peanut butter cheesecake with chocolate swirl or a chocolate cheesecake with a peanut butter swirl. You lose something with it being 1/2 and 1/2 equally. I plan on playing with the recipe and making it better for my taste.