Making cakes is therapeutic for me. I don't know why. It's kind of like having sex...it's hard work, but enjoyable...you get lost in the process and forget to eat or drink...you tune out distractions the best you can, crank up some music and just go for it! Yup...kind of like sex....or the kind of sex I had when I was young and lusty! LOL!
So anyhoo I thought perhaps some of ya'll might find it interesting to see the actual process. The cake I made today is a very simple understated cake, and I have made ones identical to this before so it wasn't really a challenge, but I still enjoyed it. Of course you start out with about 15 pounds of flour, sugar, buttermilk, shortening, and all those other heart disease causing ingredients to come up with this:
I personally prefer to trim all the 'crust' off because I don't think white cake with white frosting looks very elegant with that brown layer in between...but that's just me...I'm picky...Then you take some more shortening and sugar and make buttercream frosting that you coat your cakes with. This step was a near disaster as the top cake almost fell apart! You can see from the pic that a corner is about to fall off, cutting the crust off actually causes this to happen a lot,.... but have no fear....I am a professional! LOL! Or something like that...
Then comes the fondant. Being the perfectionist that I am, I refuse to make a cake people won't eat....and store bought fondant is horrible. It's the rubbery stuff you always peel off of a cake to get to the buttercream underneath. It is smooth and gorgeous, but the stuff in the box just tastes like shit...sorry but it does. So I make it from scratch. More tedious? Yes! Worth it? Yes! It starts out as a big glob of melted marshmallow goo:
Then you mix it like bread dough with tons of powdered sugar until you get this:
Then you work fast, rolling it out like a thick pie crust to your desired shape then drape it gently over the butter cream...creating this:
Smooth it out, trim it, and shine it up, then put the finishing touches on to create this:
My refrigerator is full of fresh red and white flowers to top and accent this tomorrow, but for now this is what we have. I left out a few construction details, but that is the basics of cake making. It is a favorite hobby of mine. If I lived in a city where I could actually succeed as a baker...I would have my own little shop on the corner...then I would have an adjoining bookstore and coffee house...then my own publishing company where I could publish myself and other aspiring writers...and on and on until I owned the whole block. We'll call it "Lola's Leisure Lot"
But alas I am stuck out here in BFE where you really can't make a living being artsy fartsy...yes I could sell the occasional wedding cake, and I may do that when the boys are bigger, but I have bigger dreams than being known as the cake lady.
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3 comments:
It's funny how therapy to some would cause a major meltdown for others *points to self when thinking about cake making*.... btw, I wish I'd have gotten some of my dad's genes.. He is a baker (or at least was for many, many, many years - and a FABULOUS one at that)!
Mess. What mess? My kitchen usually looks like that.. well, with more dirty dishes. :)
Can I just say you are living my psuedo life sista? I so want to learn to make cakes, I have this dream in the back of my mind that I would love to have a business doing wedding cakes and being a wedding consultant....a distant dream that I don't see happening with a 2 year old for a few years lol
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