The God of Cake

This was a very funny story that my dear friend Winter sent to me. It made me laugh out loud. 

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/10/god-of-cake.html

(Read at your own risk, there some cursing in it)

What's in YOUR Buttercream?

What is buttercream? Simply put buttercream is an icing made with fat and sugar. So the question then becomes: What fat is best for buttercream? The fatty base in the buttercream frosting can be derived from egg (either the yolk or the white), butter or shortening. It is essential to start with a quality base to achieve superior icing.

 Using egg as a base for buttercream is often referred to as an Italian buttercream if using egg white and French buttercream if using egg yolk. The resulting icing has a great butter taste and has a light and silky texture. The American buttercream is the term given to the buttercream frosting that uses butter or shortening as it's base. This type of fat gives the icing a thicker much heavier texture, as well as, a much sweeter taste. Also, depending on the particular recipe the American buttercream can "crust" when exposed to air for a long period of time, unlike the egg white buttercream.

Here's the skinny. Both types of buttercream have their pros and cons. The main question is what are you using the icing for? The egg based buttercream is great for a base and flavors very well. Butter/shortening buttercream
is easy to make and is excellent for making flowers. The key in either case is to make sure to use high quality ingredients because (again simply put) good ingredients equals great tasting frosting.

Ganache: The Wonder Icing

Ganache:  [guh-nahsh] - a melted mixture of chocolate and cream; used to fill crevices of cakes and provide structure to shaped cakes.Used as a thin base layer, the ganache - once it has set, provides a smooth surface to apply rolled fondant or buttercream icing. In addition, ganache makes cakes taste better and keeps them moist.The ganache can be used on cupcakes, as well as, cakes and can be made in white chocolate or chocolate. Really a wonder icing, once the ganache has a firm surface it allows for a sharp edge and a crisp look. This is what truly makes an exquisite cake. 

Website Mania!

 Torta Cakes will have a website up and running soon so be on the look out.

I have new found admiration for all those website designers out there. What I have learned through this experience one might ask? That there is a lot more to developing a website than I originally thought. The design process I can relate to, but with constructing a website there is a whole technical aspect that I find overwhelming. Just determining the wording necessary to maximize browser searches is to me - computer mumbo jumbo. So I definitely must give credit to those techie people who design and build websites. Keep up the good work.

This image is my own scribble of what pages I want linked to what so don't read too much into it.

Floppy the Bunny and the Magician's Hat

Meet Floppy the bunny. Floppy works for a magician. He’s a hardworking bunny but he really is unappreciated and underpaid. Floppy is paid in carrots after all. Still, Floppy works hard to look cute and cuddly for all the children when the magician performs.  Even when his ears are tugged and pulled to remove him from the magician’s hat, Floppy still smiles and looks fluffy.

What Floppy doesn’t know is that the worst is yet to come. For a group of small children are set to eat him! They can’t resist his tasty lemon center or the sweet strawberry filling of the magician’s hat. Poor Floppy but his last performance will be his greatest and most delicious! Happy Birthday Cody :)

Stuff your mouth cake :)

Recently I made some small loaf cakes for testing purposes. I made enough to keep around to try out new frosting flavors and fillings. (Torta cakes works hard to grow our compilation of delicious cakes) Someone (names to remain anonymous) asked if they could eat my little loaf cakes. I said sure, thinking that just one would give me some feedback and I would still have others to tinker with. 5 cakes later....

This someone has stuffed their mouth with cake. Not to worry. When it comes to cake - stuffing is a good thing. I have a saying that I got from a friend - "No crumb left behind." But this has me thinking. What makes a cake worthy to be deemed a stuff your mouth cake? I thought of a few characteristics of a stuffing worthy cake:

• Moist
• Balance between fluffy and spongy
• Flavorful
• Appeals to the senses
• Doesn't need the frosting to be good

What good is a beautiful looking cake if it doesn't taste good? Everyone has had a bad cake experience at some point in time; the cake is dry or tastes like cardboard. So at least I can say that my cake is mouth stuffing good.

History 101: Torta Cakes

I thought it might be good to begin this blogging experience by sharing the story of how Torta Cakes came to fruition. I grew up in a household of seven children of which I am the third oldest. There are six girls and one boy in my family. Yes, poor boy; surrounded by all that estrogen. As one can imagine there have been many weddings in my family. When my oldest sister got married my mother found out just how expensive a wedding cake is. She decided that someone in our family needed to learn how to make cakes so as to save money on the future wedding cakes. That job came to me because I was the oldest living at home at the time. So I learned how to make cakes and made my first wedding cake 13 years ago for a friend of mine. The cake turned out beautiful and I continued making cakes for friends and family, including all future weddings for my siblings. Last year I made a wedding cake for the daughter of an friend and had a wonderful experience, which led me to think - why can't I do this for a job? So Torta Cakes was born. I love to see how happy people are when they see their cakes and designing cakes gives me a chance to indulge my creative side. I've really developed a passion for cake decorating and I am striving to always make my cakes better. After all what good is a cake that looks good but tastes horrible. So that's Torta Cakes 101. There will be a test on this later.