Making the world a little sweeter one pastry tip at at time.
Through all the cakes I’ve done, just about every disaster has occurred and everything that could have happened has happened. Luckily, I’ve learned greatly because of them. Here are my tips on building a cake that is structurally sound, and great to look at, too. …read more
After reading Sugar Baby (see the review here), I was excited to read another book from Bullock-Prado. And I wasn’t disappointed (except for all the errata, see more below) when I had the opportunity to read Bake It Like You Mean It. From her own words, this …read more
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| Hello Kitty is an example of a licensed cake decorating product of which Bakery Crafts is a licensee. |
This article from Modern Baking explains the concept and process of copyright laws and cakes, as well as describes how a cake decorating product is developed for the licensee. And when a customer begs you to do a registered trademark design or image on a cake, it will help give you answers to their questions.
Love them or hate them, copyright and trademark laws exist for a reason, and it behooves bakers to comply with them.
http://modern-baking.com/best-practices/dont-hate-copyright-laws
I’m sharing this article from Modern Baking magazine I read this morning. Bob Brougham from The Cakery in North Aurora, Ill., shares his tips for piping ombre designs on cakes. Simple techniques but ones that will help pull off successful shading from dark to light. …read more
Juliet Stallwood’s hobby making novelty cakes for her kids turned into a career in pastry and cake decorating. She went from creating fun themed cakes to cookies and ‘fondant fancies’. Stallwood’s website Cake and Biscuits and her book have the same feel, only the book …read more
I’m a big fan of Indian food. I love the spicy sauces and rich vegetarian entrees. And having ordering from the dessert menu of many different Indian restaurants, I’m not sure which I enjoy more – eating them or seeing the paper-thin sheets of silver decorate them. Whenever I make kulfi (an Indian frozen dessert) or burfi (dessert confections), the kids go ga-ga when I decorate with tiny flecks of edible silver. Using edible grade silver and gold leaf makes a seemingly ordinary dessert seem spectacular.
Edible metals or vark – gold or silver – are considered safe to consume, but only if it contains the pure metal. It is important to purchase edible gold and silver sheets from reputable manufacturers, especially with silver which may contain a high percentage of aluminum or just the aluminum itself. The desired purity is just the metal itself with no alloys present, so find a resource that sells sheets as pure as possible and always see if the package states ‘edible’ or ‘inedible’. This will tell what the purity is if no other clues are present as to the purity. For example, in the 2010 Albert Uster catalog you can find 23K edible gold sheets, and inedible silver sheets (to be used for decoration only).
Using edible gold and silver leaf is a showstopper, but take the time to search for edible metals available from specialty purveyors who specialize in handling them. Craft store metallic sheets for gilding are not edible, and contain either a mixture of copper and zinc alloy to mimic gold, or pure aluminum to resemble pure silver.
Here are some resources for pure edible silver and gold:
No matter if it is pure silver or gold, have fun decorating your cakes and desserts with pure sparkle.
The St. Honoré tip is by far the most requested of the specialty pastry tips I carry. It looks like a large plain tip with a v cut in the front. And if you have ever had this dessert, you would understand its elegant appeal. …read more
A friend asked me recently if couverture and chocolate were interchangeable terms. They are not (chocolate is a general term; couverture is premium chocolate with a specific amount of cocoa butter inside) but this made me think of other pastry terms that were vague or …read more
JEM – of JEM Cutters and jemcutters.com – is a South African based company that produces pastry cutters specifically designed for sugar paste art. According to their website, the name JEM comes from the owner’s name: Jill Elaine Maytham. JEM’s petal paste recipe is included in some of their special cutter packs, and if the literature is lost, the recipe is hard to track down.
Here is the basic recipe for JEM sugar petal paste that can be used for both floral displays and other decorations. The JEM petal powder is a binder or thickener for sugar paste recipes, and if that isn’t available use Tylose powder (which is readily available in the U.S. in candy and decorating shops). Also, note the recipe contains raw egg whites which should not be eaten so save this recipe for show pieces for decoration only and not for consumption.
The Cake Decorator’s Motif Bible (Sheila Lampkin, Quarto, 2007, ISBN: 9781554072811) is nothing but the goods, with all the illustrations you need to complete any flat fondant project. Kuo Kan Chen is the illustrator, and without the easy-to-follow guides, the book wouldn’t be as useful. …read more