Monday is a friend's birthday. It has been one week since I tried to ship my first birthday cake. The first attempt was a disaster. Although I had received word that it made it in one piece, I was mistaken. The friend who I made this cake for is a big fitness fanatic like myself. He is also the one that I joined in the low carb/no carb challenge back in January/February. This cake is laden with irony. He and I both love our fitness and dream of being ripped some day, but we both enjoy our desserts.
One thing that I learned in making this cake was that off brand no-stick is not as effective as name brand no-stick. There is nothing worse than making a beautiful cake that will not release from the pan. All of your hard work can be ruined in a single flip of your cake. I usually choose to spray on no-stick and flour my pans, but for some reason I skipped that step this morning. Never again shall I skip that step. The reality is, the best way to assure the releasing of your cake is to use parchment paper on the bottom of your pans. Parchment is a guarnateed release for your cakes. Obviously, when you are using shaped cake pans it can be difficult, but it can work.
This cake is another example of carving addition pieces of cake to create the look that you are going for. The pecks and abs were made out of cake that I had baked in ramikens and simply cut into the pieces that I needed. It is always better to have a little extra cake in case you need to make repairs and of course, to sample!! When you are adding additional pieces of cake you will need to make sure that you get a nice crumb layer on the cake before you attempt to put your final layer of frosting on. Cakes do not have to be outrageously complex to mean a lot to the recipient of the cake. Try a few additions and practice your crumb layer. The more cakes you make, the more daring you will become. Trust me, you cannot fail when making cake!!
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