A Thread For All Uk Bakers!!
Decorating By hailinguk Updated 25 Aug 2017 , 10:29am by Magic Mouthfuls
AHelloooooo.... No pm here tiddy :-( and I'd really like one please. I thought everyone wanted one, might save you time just to do everyone or you'll be doing separate ones all day long :-D
My wedding cake went well this morning, just need to watermark the photos then I'll pop them on. On a less positive note, my poor little chap has been puking all day, so I've made the grand total of.... Wait for it.... 3 petals for next week's cake. That is a right pita as hubby is off next week and I really don't want to be caking all week.
Tiddy, I hope your head gives you a break soon, you must be at the end of your tether x
Tiddy the cake is stunning, I agree with the others about the ribbons. Such a shame than you might not enter now but you have to put your health first and like you said there'a always next year. Your hand painting is lovely is that your first try?
Well done Nanny your doing great.
Lizzy hope your little on if feeling better and has stopped puking
AAw Lizzy! There's loads of it about isn't there?! Hope he gets well soon and hope you get to make your flowers.
Tiddy don't pull out. If you can't go cos of your head then fair enough but don't pull out when you've gone to the effort of making it.
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They are stunning. Sadly, I don't have an artistic bone in my body!! I can make cakes, which I'm told takes some amount of artistic ability, but I consider art when you can draw or paint... and I absolutely can't! I'm "artistically challenged" LOL!!!!
I more or less got the roses finished yesterday - I just need to stick a calyx on them. I may need an extra one or two but I've got several 'half roses' so I can always add some petals to them if needs be.
Yesterday we went to Hampshire to stay over at a work friend of my husband's.... I was nervous as I hadn't met him or his other half before. But they were SO lovely and made us all so very welcome. The house is STUNNING and I have serious kitchen envy! LOL!!!!! Anyway, I very, very, very, very rarely drink. I just don't. But I had several glasses of red wine yesterday and woke up with a thumping headache this morning! Anyway, we left there after brunch (about 12.30 by the time we actually left and it took just over an hour and a half to get home) because I needed to get home to do a cake that's being picked up tomorrow morning. I'd baked it, but that was all. AND I AM THE SLOWEST WORKER IN THE WORLD! But I'm pleased to say it's finished. Fortunately it was a very simple design.
I hope you all have something nice planned for the bank holiday tomorrow? We're not really doing anything, actually. My elder son is going to Southwold with a friend and her parents tomorrow. My younger son is going to a friend's... so it's just the hubby and me! We might to and look at bathrooms - we're having a loft conversion soon and so will see what we can get for the en suite.... cheap and cheerful will be the order of the day, LOL!
Righteo.... night night!
AAaaaaaargh! Why didn't any of you tell me how hard it is to ganache a square cake?!
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Original message sent by maisie73
Aaaaaaargh! Why didn't any of you tell me how hard it is to ganache a square cake?!
Just keep building up the sides and scraping off using a bench scraper or straight edge. You want to get your sides at a right angle to the board, so eventually no gaps on the side between your scraper and the cake. I have a big set square I use. Put the cake in the fridge to set between coats of ganache. Don't worry about it being smooth at that point. Once you've built up the sides you can take a hot palette knife or bench scraper to smooth. For the top spread a liberal amount of ganache on then scrape off to level. Mini spirit level comes in handy to check. Any excess from top over sides can be cut off once set.
It'll be ok, honestly- just takes time and patience and lots of bending down and trips to fridge.:-D
Morning all
Glad to hear your stay over went well Suzanne, looking forward to seeing your cake.
I've nothing planned for today either, Mr Roxy has gone back to work today so just gonna enjoy the peace and spend some time with my daughter before she goes back to school.
Hope you managed to sort the ganache on your square cake Maisie, I use two bench scrapers to do the corners. I find the board on top method easy to do for square cakes.
AMorning all. :-)
No nanny, I wasn't alright at all! Feeling a bit better this morning tho. I was up til gone two trying to get it right but I just couldn't. I'm way behind now. I thought it would be harder than a round cake ecause of the corners but I didn't realise how much harder!
Thanks catsmum and roxy. I'll try that in future if I ever absolutely have to, and only in a life or death cake emergency, make a square cake again!i knew what to do in principle, I've watched videos and I've taken notice of everything you've all said on here but I just couldn't do it. The biggest problem I had was the corners of the board were sticking out past the edge of the turntable.
[IMG]http://www.cakecentral.com/content/type/61/id/3279395/width/200/height/400[/IMG]
I know it's bad but I haven't got time to do much to it now. Do you think I can get away with it? The plan is to cover it in SP (that'll be fun!) then stuck brown squares on about two thirds of the way up. Then I want to pipe grass over the top and about a third of the way down to meet/overlap the brown squares. Plan b is to crush bourbons or Oreos or something and stick to the sides instead of brown squares and grass on the top. Plan c is nip to tesco's! I'm supposed to be delivering it to Bridgend, almost an hour away, this evening.
Glad your sleepover went well Suzanne, I didn't even see your post last night, I was so frustrated and disheartened!
AMaisie, it's hard to see from that pic but it looks ok. Use a hot knife to smooth any bits. Squares are hard!! Tip for a cake that's bigger that your turntable is put it in a dorm that's bigger than your cake. So 9 inch turn table and 10 inch cake is an issue, but if you put 10 inch cake on 14 inch spare board (just to use to make your turntable surface bigger) and then you put that on turntable you in effect make a 14 inch turntable surface and they are easy to clean too. I have a couple of old boards I use for this purpose.
Lego land was really good, kids loved it. It's is proper heaving though Maisie so if Leah doesn't like crowds it might be best to take her during the week during term time but that in itself is an issue cos of school etc.
Spent yesterday at MIL which was surprising nice (she isn't always the nicest person) and today I am experimenting with chocolate buttercream.
Kathy, love your cake. It's so detailed and individual for each person.
Lizzy, hope little'n feels better today.
Suzanne, glad the weekend away went well. Did you take a cake in the end?
Tiddy cane you pm me the cake. Don't show it in here as it's a couple of months away yet so it's still a possibility.
Hope I haven't missed anyone.
I think you've done great for you first square cake Maisie don't be so hard on yourself. I didn't realise your your squares were gonna be brown, maybe you could skip covering it in fondant first, you shouldn't notice if a bit of ganache shows through because the squares are brown to. When doing a square cake I don't use my turntable when doing the ganache I have the cake on a piece of parchment on the side and use the parchment to turn it around, I also put a piece of no slip mat under it.
AOh roxy, you reminded me, where do you guys buy non slip mat from? I need some for my delivery on Saturday and I don't want to spend a tenner on the one in dunelm.
I got mine from Home bargains for about 60p but you can get it in B and M or wilkos for a couple of pounds, sometimes the poundshop has it. It is usually with the car stuff.
AThanks Siany and roxy. I came down this morning, looked at my turntable, looked at the board I covered last night and thought "duh!" As soon as I looked at them I knew what I should've done! Why didn't I think of it last night/early hours! I'm such a doofus!
I get mine from eBay usually Siany but that's probably no good for Saturday.
ARoxy I've seen some minecraft cakes that are the square grass blocks so I thought I'd do the brown bit in squares and the green bit in buttercream grass. Partly co I think it will look nice but mostly so I don't have to attach as many squares. It's (in my head!) going to be an amalgamation of a few of the cakes I've seen and liked. In my head! I'd better get on, I'm very worried. Wish me luck. :-)
AJust been catching up...
So sorry you're still so ill Tiddy, I can't believe you're managing to get any caking done but I'm hoping you start feeling better soon. I would like to see your competition cake if you don't please?
We've been to Antalya before Kelsey it is a lovely place and the people are so nice.
Maisie you're square cake looks fine to be I'm sure you won't notice when it's been covered. Looking forward to seeing the minecraft cake.
What else have I missed? Erm... Oh the 90th birthday cake was lovely too, sorry I can't remember who made that.
Oh and hope you get to go away nanny. I don't want the volcano to go off in the next few weeks as I know it will disrupt too many people's holidays, but not long after that would be good! Just so everything has time to settle down but I travel to Iceland in November!
Wish I had some caking to do but I'm full of a cold at the moment so probably best I don't.
AHi sugarluva, I thought you were going to New York?
It's taken me an hour to put two rows of squares on the cake. I've got a tiny gap at the back but it's not even big enough to cut a square in half to fill it so I think it's better to leave it. I think if I try to disguise it I'll make it look worse. I'll worry about that when it's finished tho. It's very tedious but I'm cautiously pleased so far. :-)
ASorry guys I binned it. Lets be honest now, if you lot could find fault with it you can bet the judges will.
AOh no,no,no, it wasnt a fault or criticism of any sort from us on here tidds, all that work tiddy!! Oh dear so sorry.
AAw tiddy, it was just opinions, it would be a boring world if everyone's was the same wouldn't it. And anyway, the cake itself was stunning, everyone thought that I think. Such a shame after all that work. :-(
Awww no Tiddy the cake was stunning, and all that work you put into it.So sorry.
A:o Tiddy! You could have at least dropped the spacers between the bottom 3toers and added some coloured daisies around the spacer between the top! You could have used that for the fayre!
It was amazing! :(
Aw tiddy, it was just opinions, it would be a boring world if everyone's was the same wouldn't it.
Yes it would!
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Yes I could but that would have not been the look i wanted. I wanted the spacers.
Im really not that fussed tbh. If im not happy with something it generally will get binned. I am also not bothered about opinions. I asked for them and was given them although I did think people would maybe have the courtesy to pm them rather than start the ball rolling publicly
There are very few opinions in this world that i take any notice of trust me, but there are a few people on here whos views i really do value and i am thankful for those private views that were given and it did help me decide to bin it.
I was a bit miffed at having spent a good hour piping all the centres but hey ho :)
ASorry- am currently looking at this on my phone. ....binned what? Not that cake? Please tell me you didn't. .... Kathy
AAw sorry tiddy, I thought you only PM'd the photos so you wouldn't be breaking the rules. Any other cake we just put on here and say "look guys, what do you think?" I thought when you invited opinions on here you wanted them on here. And I still say the cake was stunning, I just thought the ribbons looked a bit lost.
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