A Thread for all UK bakers!! - Page 196

When I made mine it set rock solid at room temperature and when warming it enough to kneed it just got oily again (maybe I overheated it...) the only way i could get this to work well was to mix it 50-50 with sugarpaste, it was great for covering and for roses (see http://cakecentral.com/gallery/2400199/well-i-made-my-own-wedding-cake) but I'm finding with playing with the leftovers that its too soft for making figures and I can't get a really smooth finish... did I make it wrongly do you think or am I comparing it too much to SFP?

The corn syrup was a great suggestion, way cheaper than glucose and worked great thanks Kim!

Sometimes you have to squeeze the cocoa butter oil out of it. It's difficult to get the right balance, squeeze too much out and it'll be crumbly and difficult to work with. I tend to knead it until it comes together in a ball and don't work whatever oil comes out back into it. If its too oily, I form the general shape, fridge it, take it back out and use the heat of my hands to mould it and rub it so it smoothes.

Hi ladies, do any of you use sugar syrup on your large cakes or cupcakes? I notice a lot of professional bakers i.e. Peggy Porschen do and just wanted to know more about your experiences with it. Thanks.

I do on a lemon drizzle cake just to get that extra lemon flavour in, but that's all. For me it spoils the cake texture- maybe I just add too much though. I find once a cake is covered in sugarpaste and left to sit for a few days it gets perfectly moist on its own, I always get complimented on the moistness now
I did struggle with dry chocolate cake for ages and tried cocoa syrup but ended up just changing the recipe and reducing the temp: much better results than syrup IMO.

Hi Kim,

I do use it on all my cakes. It does give you a lovely soft, moist cake. And lemon syrup for lemon cakes, orange syrup for orange cakes. I use apricot glaze on the top of the cupcakes if I am covering them with sugarpaste.

To all my uk baker friends... I need some mixer advise... I'm looking at getting a kenwood mixer. I have a cheap one that I use at the moment that I bought from Aldi and its not great but does the job but it doesn't rotate etc.

I have been looking at the kenwood ones and have seen Kenwood KM331 Classic Chef... All I want this for is to mix my cakes and mix butter cream...

Does anyone have the above one or one better? I'm clueless and value your feedback...

Sarah xxxx:D

Hi Sarand, I have the kenwood km336. Its white not silver and I think that's the only difference? Anyway, its a really good machine and I've had it for about a year now and all running very smoothly. I would defo recommend :)

I wanted to ask if any of you guys have tried the marshmallow sugarpaste from Karen Davies? There's a site that does free delivery so its not actually that much more expensive than regal ice for example. Especially if it saves time, re-rolling after a tear, tastes better etc.

And fondarific is over here as well, I'm so out of the loop. But its freaking EXPENSIVE! I want to try it but no way is that commercially viable :(
 

 

Hey Sarah, I put a lot of time into comparing brands and went with Kenwood as their motors are far superior within their price range. I went for the classic chef in the end :) ...although saying that I do sometimes find a hand mixer better as you don't have to stop and scrape the sides- I bet there'll be lots on sale soon too!

Hi ladies, could anyone please tell me where I can get Cake boxes that are well priced? Boxes for single layer cakes at Hobbycraft are quite expensive, plus they don't do boxes for 2-tier cakes. How do you guys transport your 2 or 3-tier cakes? Thanks...

 

 

I'll be a lady for the day ...... I get mine from ebay, they seem to be the best price next to trade bulk buys, you can either make extra tall corners out of some stiffer card and pop the lid on, you can replace the lid with a second box bottom or you can search for tiered cake boxes which are pricier but often worth it, a 16" cube is about £10-15 I think, not much of a mark up on your total bill to the customer but well worth it IMO. Don't just sort by price when you search though as its often very much cheaper to get a pack of 20 or 50 boxes in one go and if the same person sells cake boards you can often ask them to do you a deal on postage.

 

HTH

hi i get my cake boxes from cake-stuff.com

Hi everyone, 

 

I'm new to this thread.  Been baking on and off for a while but recently got the bug again.  Ordered some new supplies so looking forward to trying them out, in between catching up on this thread!

 

Pamela

Hello all new, to the site! Love baking!! Suffer from lots of allergies so found the only way to get a really safe 'please don't kill me' cake was to bake them myself.... my waist wishes I hadn't!! 

Really glad to find a forum with other bake-a-holics :D

I get my boxes either from ebay or http://cupcakeboxesuk.com/ as they often have some really good deals on!

for multi tier cakes http://www.carinascupcakes.co.uk/ have just started selling boxes, i'm yet to try them out but they look fantastic!!

Looking forward to looking through more of this thread :D

 

Pippa