A few weekends ago I created a fondant covered cake themed for "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" book by Eric Carle. I have been meaning to blog about the inside of this cake here but a head cold that made me very tired and a trip to California kept me from blogging. Now, at last, I get to share my experience with the first recipe I tried from the practically edible pages of "The Cake Bible".
I made Rose's White Velvet Cake recipe. This was the second time trying this cake. The first time I made it as a practice run and we sliced one of the layers immediately. It was delicous and so moist. The notes in Rose's recipe state that the cake is "most perfectly moist" the day same day it is made and she is right. I had to bake the cake a day ahead to decorate it and while it was still good, it was crumblier and not quite as moist a day after baking. This is still hands down THE BEST scratch white cake recipe I have ever made, and I have made quite a few!
"The Cake Bible" taught me a few more tricks that helped me in making this cake. These are probably elementary tips, but I had never used them. While I tend to stick with the old-fashioned way of doing things, in my opinion these short cuts make the baking process easier without sacraficing quality.
1) Baker's Joy spray. Where have you been all my baking life? You make it so unecessary to butter and flour the pan. It is no longer necessary to make sure the butter and flour coat every knook and cranny of the cake pan. You coat the pan thouroughly with your nice even spray. Thank you for letting me do in one easy step what used I used to do in two painful steps. I also love that your slogan is "avoid separation anxiety"... so catchy. I love you. I really, really do!
2) Line the bottom of the cake pan with parchment or wax paper. I am not sure if this was entirely necessary because the Baker's Joy spray did such a good job of coating the pan. It is extra insurance though, and when you have hours of decorating ahead of you some extra insurance that the cake comes out of the pan cleanly the first time is always handy! I sprayed the Baker's Joy both under and on top of my wax paper circle.
3) Magi-Cake Strips Rose recommends these. I have not purchased them yet, but I plan to in the near future. I was skeptical if this technique would make my cake layers rise evenly as promised so I made the DIY version of these using wet paper towels covered with aluminum foil. The homemade version worked and it worked well! Thus a purchase of the real thing is in my foreseeable future.
And so this post ends without pictures because the battery on my camera is too low to take a picture of my Baker's Joy Spray, my foil Magi-Cake Strips were too tattered to save and I somehow did not take a picture of my undecorated White Velvet Cake. I have some festive birthday cakes coming up though and I plan to try out another "Cake Bible" recipe or two. I promise I will not report back to this blog without a picture to share!
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