Holy cow! I've lived in my kitchen all weekend, minus a couple hour break for a birthday party on Sunday. Thank you Pam; I mean it!
I have been diligently making a two-tiered cake for my final class for Tuesday. I have my bottom tier left to cover in fondant and its all done to the stage it needs to be, yahoo! Question is do I have enough fondant left over, we will soon find out. Things I've learned making these:
1. Start with the bottom tier first that way you know how much to cut the next layer down (I wish I new this before I covered the top tier in buttercream icing yesterday)
2. Actually #1 is the only tip I can think of, ehhh whatever, lol! Mine brain is on overload. See look I can't even type properly!
So far I've used five pounds of cake flour, 3/4 of a litre of whipping cream, 1 1/2 large jars of jam, 2 lbs. icing sugar, a dozen eggs, and many little incidentals. Holy cow! Thank god fondant doesn't take but 20 minutes. How many hours of work; well it took me three hours from start to finish including baking times for 2 separately baked layers. It turned out flat on top even! I didn't have to trim much; other than to balance out the layers equally. Note to Kitchen Aid - Make a bowl with measurements engraved on the inside of the metal bowl. That way I can make sure I have divided my batter equally. My cake batter doesn't say it makes 5 -8 cups it says serves 10 to 12 people! I have a problem eyeballing things too when I'm only working with one pan. Tiered pans are expensive. I got lucky and used a 50% OFF coupon otherwise it would have run me more that $50. I made the mistake of using two different "8x8" pans for my gift cake and ended up making to completely different size cakes (one was at least a quarter of an inch off on each side). A thank you to glass pans and Dunkin Hines for telling me you can cook it at the same temperature as a shiny metal pan! Anyhow.
We are discussing a trip to Montreal in October. David has a milltrip he's attending for a week. It's my grandpa's 82nd birthday on the 4th of October and Brockville is only a short drive from Montreal. So we are trying to work that in there. Also there is the problem of who will watch the kids for a few days; Stirling will be in kindergarten then. I might just try to travel over the weekend, who knows. I have more than enough Airmiles to get there and to Jenn's wedding next August! Yahoo! If we were to take the kids the flight costs and fees alone exceed $3000.