Cake!
Made a yummy (pretty) cake this morning to take to an Easter pot luck. It was the same cake mix I used for the last cake I made, but for some reason it wasn't as moist. Maybe the eggs were smaller or I accidentally measured out too little oil or milk or something. Also, I filled it with strawberry jam, but should have just used the frosting. The jam was too sweet as it was just a store bought jam and therefore had way too much sugar compared to the amount of fruit. It's just what I had on hand.
It was a chocolate cake with a little instant coffee added, filled with strawberry jam and covered in cream cheese frosting and topped with fresh strawberries (and more frosting). I'd never tried the 'basketweave' pattern before, but it was way easier than I thought it would be. The special cake icing tip does the hard part of the work. It's a little uneven and garbled in places, but overall not too bad for a first attempt considering the frosting wasn't stiff/stable enough.
The top of the cake.... MMMM... cream cheese frosting and strawberries=happiness. And I was worried about the 2lb carton of strawberries I bought going bad. Glad to find a surprise 'excuse' to use them!
The side of the cake. My basketweave is a little sloppy, but I think I know why and will remedy it next time. Next time I will frost the cake fully before the basketweave instead of working directly over a crumb coat. That way the spaces between the weaves won't show cake through them. Next time I will also use reguar buttercream icing or plan on adding much much more powdered sugar to the icing. Regular cream cheese icing just isn't nearly stiff enough to work with easily. It got really soft and wouldn't hold its shape after a short time holding the piping bag.
This was a decent view of the basketweave, but the ONLY place where I messed up the piped shell border across the top. Oy! It seems to be my fate. I'm not that good at "staging" the food for pictures. Then again, photography isn't the hobby... decorating the cakes is the hobby! And we had to run out the door right after I finished. Also, I should have cut the sides of the strawberries a little so they fit together better instead of almost spilling over the cake's sides. If I'd cut some of them down a little I could have gotten way more of them on the cake. I'd never worked with big round fruit in this way before... and I consider that a lesson learned.
MMMM.... it was delicious.
It was a chocolate cake with a little instant coffee added, filled with strawberry jam and covered in cream cheese frosting and topped with fresh strawberries (and more frosting). I'd never tried the 'basketweave' pattern before, but it was way easier than I thought it would be. The special cake icing tip does the hard part of the work. It's a little uneven and garbled in places, but overall not too bad for a first attempt considering the frosting wasn't stiff/stable enough.
The top of the cake.... MMMM... cream cheese frosting and strawberries=happiness. And I was worried about the 2lb carton of strawberries I bought going bad. Glad to find a surprise 'excuse' to use them!
The side of the cake. My basketweave is a little sloppy, but I think I know why and will remedy it next time. Next time I will frost the cake fully before the basketweave instead of working directly over a crumb coat. That way the spaces between the weaves won't show cake through them. Next time I will also use reguar buttercream icing or plan on adding much much more powdered sugar to the icing. Regular cream cheese icing just isn't nearly stiff enough to work with easily. It got really soft and wouldn't hold its shape after a short time holding the piping bag.
This was a decent view of the basketweave, but the ONLY place where I messed up the piped shell border across the top. Oy! It seems to be my fate. I'm not that good at "staging" the food for pictures. Then again, photography isn't the hobby... decorating the cakes is the hobby! And we had to run out the door right after I finished. Also, I should have cut the sides of the strawberries a little so they fit together better instead of almost spilling over the cake's sides. If I'd cut some of them down a little I could have gotten way more of them on the cake. I'd never worked with big round fruit in this way before... and I consider that a lesson learned.
MMMM.... it was delicious.