Do you cut the sides of your round cakes? - Page 2

Quote:

Originally Posted by leah_s

Huh. I think it's just way easier to ice a cake with a bit of a nice, firm slightly browned edge that to fight the crumbs on a just cut side. And yes, the browned tops do get cut off when leveled with my Agbay. But I have been icing cakes for . . . omg . . . 50+ years, having started at age 9 in 4H.

everybody does it different

i not only shave the sides, i do not crumb coat and it works for me

but in all my various jobs i've done it all their different ways too

makes for interesting contrasts

there's no wrong way

Quote:

Originally Posted by VanillaSky 

I agree with you K8 that if a cake were uneven, then cutting the unevenness is a good option. The opinion I was referring to was whether it was easy to cut a round cake if you are a novice, not the method you were proposing.
I was responding more to the OP's question. The OP wanted to know if it was customary to cut the sides of a round cake. I think it's not customary, most people do not do it. I do not do it either. The instructor that OP saw do it apparently does it too remove the brown crust that one would see once you cut out a slice. Again, most people aren't bothered by the brown edges and don't routinely cut the cake sides.

gotcha gotcha gotcha

and i agree that it is not done a lot in wedding cake work

No, I don't cut off the sides, or bottom, of my cakes--I only trim off the top when leveling. 

Having carved cakes, I get no joy from having to fight crumbs and cutting away sides leads to more crumbs--yes, the crumb coat should seal them in, but things don't always work the way they should.

I also feel that the baked "skin" helps the cake to hold it's shape better, especially when there will be heavy decos, fondant, etc.

If I bake a cake that has really dark edges, then I save that layer for family and I re-bake.

Rae

Quote:

Originally Posted by leah_s 

Huh.  I think it's just way easier to ice a cake with a bit of a nice, firm slightly browned edge that to fight the crumbs on a just cut side.  And yes, the browned tops do get cut off when leveled with my Agbay.  But I have been icing cakes for . . . omg . . . 50+ years, having started at age 9 in 4H.

I agree with you, Leah. It is much easier to ice a smooth surface than the raw/trimmed cake surface. The trimmed surface creates so many more crumbs.

i agree with that too for room temp non-frozen cakes.

however i shave the sides of and ice frozen cake tiers

but i've never seen the video in question -- don't know how he does it

i'm just encouraging op to try this at some point for these various reasons

in fact--

sometimes for a 13x10x7x4 cake order i will bake off a 14x11x8x5

then there's that almost 1/2 inch shrinkage from baking

a 10 inch comes out of the pan about 9.5 inches give or take

(for non-pound cake recipes, for example sylvia weinstock yellow cake, wasc or any white cake)

then i have my shaving fest (after assenbling layers into tiers and freezing)

and then i have a true footprint on the cake itself (not the icing) of my target measurements

the 13x10x7x4

also this way i can layer my buttercream icing on very efficiently no thick or thin areas all the same 'width" if you will

i use surprisingly less icing

i like doing this a lot

it's a finer point, a subtle thing--the trimming i mean-- but an important one that i encourage the op to at least explore

i should prolly bake in sheet pans & cut out all my tiers but...

I actually watched that craftsy tutorial aghast , I couldn't believe how much waste there was , also how dry the cake must be to have to slop so much gloop on it. 

I don't trim my cakes unless they are being carved , I hate raw edges . If my cake is a little uneven ( I have one or two ancient pans that I use occastionally , I just fix it with ganache.