Pumpkin and Spice

Yesterday was a busy day at work- not so much because the slopes were packed (there hasn't been much snow yet, and all the resorts in town are faux-snowin' it) but because there was lots to do in the bakery. We have several banquets/private parties coming up, so there were desserts and treats to be made.

I made a giant batch of hot fudge sauce (about a gallon), rolled out tart crusts and helped Chef deliver desserts to a local hotel, but my two most interesting projects were special order cakes for two separate birthday parties! My first one was a carrot cake that needed to be base-iced so Chef could pipe a design in chocolate on it later. Chef and I took pictures of the process... Depending on your cake decorating expertise, perhaps it can help you!

First, I trimmed the cake- shaving the crusty sides off the cake, then slicing off the top of the cake to make it nice and smooth. (I didn't know Chef was taking my picture- I'm concentrating... and slouching!)

Next, I split the cake into two layers. I use a long serrated knife to do this, though Wilton makes a fancy-pants cake splitter. I lay my left hand flat on top of the cake and use my right hand to cut the cake with a gentle sawing motion.  After splitting it, I filled it with a layer of cream cheese frosting, and then put the layers back together. If you look at the picture, you can see that I used a paring knife to cut a tiny notch in the side of the cake. This allowed me to put the cake back together "correctly" by lining  up the notches.

Next, I iced the cake. The easiest way to do this is to blob a bunch of frosting on top of the cake- use more than you'll think you need. With an off-set spatula, "push" the frosting across the top of the cake (Pushing rather than pulling the frosting helps keep crumbs out of the icing), allowing excess to hang over the sides. Use the overlap frosting to ice the sides of the cake.

As you can see, I didn't ice the sides very evenly. This is because I was going to "mask" the sides with crushed walnuts...

Masking is a great tip- it looks very professional, and is perfect if your icing skills are only so-so. To mask cake sides- put a cup or more of your masking material (crushed nuts, crushed cookies, coconut flakes, sprinkles, grated chocolate, and colored sugar all work well) into a medium sized bowl. Carefully hold your iced cake in the palm of your non-dominant hand (left hand, in my case). Hold it over the bowl, and use your other hand to scoop up the crushed nuts (or whatever) and press them against the iced sides of the cake. Try not to get it on the top of the cake (unless you want to mask the whole cake, which can also look nice). Continue all the way around the cake. Ta-da! Looks just like a bakery cake!

I also got entrusted with decorating a birthday cake for a very special guest- a well-known skier and Olympian. (Sorry, I'm keeping mum on who!) The cake was a variant of a Princess Cake- It was a sponge cake, split into three layers. Each layer was brushed with vanilla simple syrup to keep it moist. They were then spread with raspberry jam, a layer of marzipan (a sweet almond paste), and a layer of whipped cream.

I then frosted the whole cake with whipped cream and masked the sides with toasted almonds.

Then, as the final touch, I piped a border of rosettes, and then garnished each rosette with a beautiful raspberry. So pretty!