is called to order.

Who's up?

Whatcha workin' on?

Regulars check in and lurkers come on out!!

I'm cleaning - it's an early night.

Today I finished a 12" Italian Creme party cake
2 separate grooms' cakes
1 three tier wedding cake and1 four tier wedding cake.

Not really all that busy.

BUT - I have to tell you about one of the groom's cakes. It's a normal round cake, but decorated with a skull and crossbones and a ball and chain. Ugh.

I'm in!!!

I'm working on 6 dozen sugar cookies - decorated for easter - so those are fun!

Another Hannah Montana - woohoo . . .

Then just 2 funky girlie cakes . . .

No weddings this weekend -- but massive ones are looming in my future!!


Speaking of skull & crossbones -- there was a wedding announcement in our local paper a few weeks ago and the bride & groom both wore black & white stripe outfits (like prison), and she also wore thigh high stilleto boots with a ball & chain attached, the little girls were best men and the little boy was the flower girl . . . . I would have loved to have seen the cake! Talking about thinking outside the box!!!

Who else is up and working tonight?

Suze

I always read..but never posted. But I need to clean kitchen to work on a birthday / easter cake. A two-tiered cake with a golfer in Tiger Woods gear. And the golfer hitting an easter egg instead of a golf ball.

No cakes for me this weekend. My first wedding cake next weekend, along with two 3D cakes..so I'm relaxing and planning it all in advance!!

2 cheesecakes-rocky road and tiramisu

I'm cupcaking, walnut tassie-ing, and baking an Italian Easter Pie, the kind with meat in it. Also mascerating 6 quarts of cut-up strawberries for berries and whipped cream. All for my niece's house on Easter Sunday. There will be about 50 people altogether, and we'll be arriving and eating in shifts.

Nothing fancy with the cupcakes, just icing for filling and frosting - vanilla, chocolate, raspberry icings, vanilla and chocolate cupcakes. I'll be draining and straining the syrup from the strawberries, then bringing it to a boil with a bit of cornstarch to thicken it a little. No whipped cream from scratch this year - I just have no time for it.

I got a great deal on the berries and nuts at a local produce place. 99 cents per quart for the berries, and 2.99 a pound for shelled walnuts. I bought a lot of each, some I froze, the others I'm using tonight. Oh, and eggs there were 50 cents a dozen. I couldn't believe the prices, and well took advantage of them. All Easter specials, but I made sure I have enough of all to last a while.

Have a good night!

Theresa

Theresa,
What's a Walnut Tassie?

Did everyone read the thread over on the Cake Biz Forum about the bride who stopped payment on the cake on the day of the wedding? Grab a cold beverage and kick back, 'cause the last time I looked the thread was 24 pages. And worth it.

I just finished a little mermaid cake. It's a rainbow cake with strawberry filling and french vanilla BC. All BC with fondant and BC accents. She just picked the cake up and loved it!! I'm so proud!!

Leah's...a better question would be"who hasn't read that thread" along with"where have you been all day". I've literally been glues to that thing for hours!!

Yeah. I also love happy customers. Well, off to bed with me. To the rest of you, happy caking. Looks like a slow Friday night.

Can I join the club?

I'm working on my first "real" (paying client) wedding cake and trying NOT TO FREAK OUT. I was on my feet for 9 hours today and I'm nothing short of exhausted. I admire you pros that crank this stuff out so quickly! I had everything done by yesterday: fondant made and colored, cakes baked and leveled, gum paste pieces dry, boards ready, etc. It took me 9 hours just to fill, crumbcoat, ice, and cover the cakes, in addition to attaching some of the gum paste pieces (I had some issues with one batch of fondant which didn't help). I'm doing a 4-tier beach-themed cake in turquoise-y colors (darker on the bottom fading to lighter on the top) with gum paste "coral" and starfish and sand dollars cascading down the side.

CC'ers -- PLEASE send some "success" vibes my way! I want to get it there in one piece and have them love it. At times I've felt really confident about it all and other times I think I've completely lost my mind!!!

~Sarah

Well I just cleaned up after a big mess I made today. I am working on a 2 tier Birthday / Easter cake. Roses / Calla Lilly (my first) with a small 3D Easter Bunny to stand on top. One tier lemon with rasberry moose filling and the other tier chocolate pudding with ganache filling. I also am working on Easter cookies and I will need to do egg coloring tomorrow with my girls. So much to do and soo little time.

Leahs, looking at your line up for today, I guess I was not as busy as I thought? lol

Yeah I saw the post about the bride who stopped payment. I have to finish reading it. Unbelieveable

can i crash the party? CC is all wonky for me, tonigh has been a disaster & i can't search the forums (if anything, it'll pull up one page which seems to be just recently updated thread, but the next page will say 'no results')!

i have a 'last minute & we're on a budget' cake for tomorrow that's giving me h#ll.

it's an 11x15 & i'm doing the striped cake in my avi.
after one ruined cake due to using only twice the batter & not 3x's *arg* I finally have my cake out & cooling. I've split it to fill(which I've decided is a terrible idea ;o) & I came back on to *try* to find out how much filling I'll need...

I'm doing a whipped chocolate ganache & can't for the life of me figure out how much cream/choc I'll need.. I really thought there was a chart for how many cups of filling for X size pan..

*Hopefully* once this is done I'll have a cake torted & iced in coconut buttercream (smooth & white on the sides * green through the grass tip on top) with a mini bear made to look like a bunny holding an egg with "2" on it (it's the little girls' bday Sunday) & other decorated eggs around it...

but right now I just want to *CRY*

any help on a link to that filling chart?

I don't have any cakes this weekend. I've got at least 3 for next weekend though.

I guess I'm gonna head over to the Cake Biz forum and get caught up. Apparently I've missed a lot today!

mrsbriggs,

According to the chart I have taped to my cabinet you will need 2 cups of filling for 11 X 15.

I can't remember where I got that chart, but that's my "bible" of sorts and I always go by it.

HTH.

Kim

I haven't seen a filling chart but I would be interested in that also.

I need to make some great fillings for a WASC for my nieces wedding that DON'T need to be refrigerated. The cake will be out a couple of days while I'm working on it. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Starting cakes tomorrow for easter, nothing extravagant...found this Wilton pan w/ 6 designed easter egg shape cavities...decided to make my kids their own cake instead of filling their baskets w/ a butt load of candy...plus just got a phone call today for a cake needed on the 20th..kinda last minute in my opinion but luckily for them i work best the nights before due date when my 3 kids( 2 birthed, 1 married) are in bed asleep

Well at least the ball and chain wasn't on the wedding cake...what a perfectly good way to ruin a glamorous cake!

I just filled my layers for a three tier red velvet cake. Gonna let it settle for a couple hours and go and ice it.

Not busy either! I have a rather intricate cake due 2 Wednesdays from now though...a Wednesday evening wedding!

thanks for the filling tip.. i just went ahead & 'halved' the icing chart & came up with 4 cups.. if nothing else, i'll have lotsa leftover ganache which is PERFECTLY fine with me! ;o)

i haven't gotten to read the stop payment thread, yet.. that'll be for tomorrow's downtime!

do y'all ever feel like everything's going in slow mo.. and like you'll never get anything done .. and then suddenly things just start rolling?
last week I did a castle & a huge stack of drums.. it felt like the cooking & prepping (filling/crumb coats) took FOREVER & that i'd never finish in time.. then suddenly, boom, it's done...

i'm at that FOREVER part right now.... *ugh*

Dayumn! That stop payment thread is off the hook! Lol....I wonder if it will have beaten the "Officially Embarassed" thread when it's all said and done??

I just finished making Cherry Limeaide cuppies. Was going to be a cake, but kids talked me into cuppies instead. They were quite delightful and refreshing. Since it turned out so well, I will be making one to take to Easter Brunch on Sunday.

kimblyd,
Could I also have a copy of your chart, if you don't mind.

I finished a birthday cake with a steelhead fish popping out of the top of it today, and now I'm working on 4 dozen cupcakes for tomorrow. I'm getting ready to tackle a batch of chocolate buttercream. It's been a productive day.

I'm gonna go clean the disaster area that is my kitchen, and then bake off a white chocolate cake to decorate tomorrow night for easter sunday. I wanted to also bake off a banana puddin' cheesecake tonight, but I think I'll have to do that tomorrow day and chill it to decorate it tomorrow night. also for Easter.

I kinda got sidetracked by the stop payment bride thread

Well I'm finally finished for the night -- kitchen is still a disaster - but my best friend the dishwasher is running with a load of dirty bowls and tips!! I'm heading to bed for a few hours of sleep before I have to start delivering all of these goodies!! Yes - the thread on the stop payment bride has been very interesting - but the OP is a first class act -- may we all be so savvy & smart if we are ever put in that position! Have a great morning friends . ..
Suze

Hope everyone made it thru - but then we always do! In the Cake Bible (book by Rose Levy Bernbaum) there is a chart for amounts of icing for the top and sides of all sizes of cakes and also amounts for fillings. It really should be a book your own, but at least check it out of the library and copy the chart.

Sorry, LeahS! I went right to bed after I was done.

A walnut tassie is the same as a pecan tassie (see link below), except I use white sugar and ground walnuts instead. They're extremely addictive. I made 5 dozen, and I think I ate about 6 of them as they cooled.

The pecan ones are good too, but you definitely need the brown sugar with them.

http://www.kraftfoods.com/kf/recipes/pecan-tassies-51971.aspx

Theresa