E-book Category: Cooking
E-book Title: CAKE FAKERY:
Author: Rhonda Flanagan
Book Description: From Rhonda Flanagan
Monday, May 3rd, 2010
Dear Frustrated Novice Cake Decorator,
Does the thought of making a birthday cake for your child's birthday give you a feeling of dread in the pit of your stomach?
When your club asks for a volunteer to make a cake for the next social, do you sink down in your chair so nobody will see you?
I know the feeling. Let me tell you my story...
Since I was a little girl, I have loved to bake. I'm 45 now and, over the span of my life, I have made thousands of cookies, brownies, bars and cheesecakes. In my younger years, I would attempt the occasional cake, but was never happy with the way it looked. It always looked sloppy and amateurish, and I hated that. I even remember throwing frosting across the kitchen once!
In 1992, I was getting married. I was bound and determined that I was going to make my own wedding cake. I must have been crazy, but we were on a tight budget and I thought it would be "fun." I had about six months before my wedding and figured if I was going to learn, I had better get on the ball.
Long story short, I took a few months of cake decorating courses and made a really respectable wedding cake. Not the most beautiful ever made, but it was very pretty and our guests were impressed. I accomplished my goal of making my own wedding cake, and I was proud of it. I also got really good at birthday cakes and, for a few years, made many pretty cakes for birthdays and other family get-togethers.
Fast forward a decade or so and we've moved to Las Vegas. A few years after the move, I was looking for a job. Baking and decorating cakes immediately came to mind, so I thought "how about a bakery?" There is a famous bakery here that has been featured in multiple TV food shows that I wanted to work for.
There was one problem, though. Before we made the big move from Indiana to Nevada, I stupidly sold all of my cake decorating supplies at a garage sale, except for my cake pans and a few cake plates. So here I was, out of practice and with no equipment. But I wanted to make some cakes to show them what I could do.
I didn't want to spend a ton of money on equipment, plus a bunch of time practicing the techniques I'd learned years ago. I gathered what I could from my kitchen to use as tools and spent hours experimenting, trying to recall some of the techniques. I wanted to find easier ways of still producing a pretty cake without investing as much time as it takes to decorate traditionally. I made a pretty decent looking cake, took a picture of it and sent it with my resume to the bakery.
After getting hired by the famous bakery as a wedding cake consultant (yay!), I got to see the professional side of cake decorating, especially many of the tricks and short cuts used by the pros that worked there. I even got to help them from time to time. Due to tendonitis, some of the techniques, like piping, were very hard on my elbow. So I knew I didn't have a future as a professional decorator.
I never stopped thinking about ways to decorate cakes without "decorating" them -- without the expensive equipment or special techniques that sometimes require months of practice. And I never forgot the frustration of spending a bunch of time on a cake, only to be unhappy with how it looked. I challenged myself to come up with ideas that are so simple, a child could follow the directions and create a beautiful cake.
I've assembled these ideas into my new book
CAKE FAKERY:
How To Decorate Without Really Decorating
Tips, Tricks, Short Cuts & Insider Cake Decorating Secrets For The Novice Decorator
Here's a taste of what you'll learn inside:
- Why you don't have to grease and flour your pans
- What you can do to make your cakes bake evenly
- If your cake is uneven, how to level it
- Why you should freeze the cake before you ice it
- How to make a 1 layer cake into a 2 layer cake
- How wax paper can prevent icing disasters
- How to quickly and easily ice your cake
- The secret to keeping crumbs out of the icing
- Camouflage tricks to hide your mistakes
- Quick ideas for fillings, when you don't want to use store-bought
- How a simple ziplock bag can be your best friend
- How to fill your decorating bag without making a mess
- Where to find cheap cake decorations
- Tips for writing names and messages for your cakes
- My chocolate writing secret will make you love chocolate even more than you already do
- My "canning" secret that saves tons of decorating time
- How to turn a dry cake into one your guests will love
... and many more tips, short cuts, recipes and explanations of all those decorating terms you hear on those cake shows.
Plus, you'll get to see over two dozen cakes I created to illustrate my tips and techniques. I'm sure you'll come up with tons of your own ideas from seeing these cakes you'd be proud to serve to your friends and family...
...or just feel free to steal my ideas, that's what they're there for!
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