How To Make Chocolate Truffles Out Of Leftover Cake

Fancy having home made truffles that are freshly made? You can make them yourself. Easily.

There are many ways to make your own chocolate truffles.

For example, if you have left over cake, you can turn that old cake into chocolate truffles.

This is a fun activity for the kids, to keep them out of mischief. Make sure they wash their hands thoroughly before they start.

You will need.

Leftover cake.
A large bar of your favourite chocolate.
Chopped nuts.

Kids Kitchen Activities – Making Chocolate Truffles Continue reading “How To Make Chocolate Truffles Out Of Leftover Cake”

There’s Never Too Much Chocolate Cake

There can be no greater way to spend an evening or weekend afternoon than baking and decorating a cake. The repetition creates an almost hypnotic state, whilst the promise of a tasty treat later engages the brain’s pleasure system.

For most chefs, the baking part is simple enough, as there are hundreds of recipes for all varieties of cake to be found online and in cook-books, and it’s usually the decorating part that stumps people. Most fruit based cakes can be topped with a simple layer of brown sugar to give that crisp baked look, so it’s down to the chocolate based cakes to be decorated with love and care. This article aims to give some tips for chocolate cake decoration.

Firstly, take into consideration what kind of chocolate your cake is made from. Chocolate comes in three main varieties – milk, dark and plain. It’s a generally accepted rule not to mix types on a cake, as the contrast in texture and flavors can ruin the overall taste of the cake. Milk chocolate tends to be very sweet and smooth, dark chocolate is much bitterer and coarser, whilst plain usually falls somewhere in the middle, being rich in flavor and fairly smooth. Whichever type you’ve used in the cake batter, you will need extra to make the icing.

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Birthday Cookie and Cake Recipe

When I asked soon-to-be 12 year old Ryann what kind of birthday cake she wanted she said, “Either a cookie cake or a chocolate cake”. After deliberating which to make, I settled on both! I topped a chocolate-chip cookie cake with a rich chocolate cake, topped it all with chocolate butter cream frosting and, of course, birthday candles!

Unlike my friend Marianne Getz (Wolfgang Puck’s pastry chef), I am NOT a good baker. However, I believe that Birthday Cakes should be made at home, with love, rather than store bought so…I made it myself…using mixes! Plus, rather than wasting $3.99 on the pre-made decorative colored frosting, I spent $.99 on white frosting and improvised. Unless you are really getting fancy, you can do it my way by using the vanilla frosting, food coloring, convection sugar…and a baggie!

Here’s what to buy:

1 Krusteaz Chocolate Chunk cookie mix
1 Betty Crocker Devils Food Cake Mix
2 large tubs Betty Crocker Rich and Chocolate Buttercream-Style Icing
1 regular tub Betty Crocker Rich and Creamy Vanilla Frosting
All ingredients to make the cookie and the cake mix; eggs, oil, etc.
1/4 Cup confectioners sugar
food coloring for decorative writing and edging.

Directions: Continue reading “Birthday Cookie and Cake Recipe”

A Guide to Choosing The Perfect Wedding Cake

Aside from the dress, the cake is probably the most admired element of the wedding. There’s a reason why it’s placed at the center of the reception hall, so everybody who enters can admire it. The perfect wedding cake should not only reflect the personalities of the bride and groom, but also blend into the theme of the wedding seamlessly.

Decide on a design for the cake much before the actual date of the wedding. As D-day draws nearer, you might find yourself tied down with a million things to do, and not have time to look into the details of the cake.

The first thing you’ll look into is the design of the cake. Gone are the days of a single three tiered cake as the only choice for a wedding. Nowadays, cakes come studded with crystals, have roses falling all over the sides, can resemble Christmas trees, and a myriad other possibilities.

Choose a design that stands out from the rest, and blends with your personality. An elegant couple will probably do well to choose an equally elegant and traditional white three tiered vanilla cake. A whimsical eclectic couple on the other hand, will have more room for innovation. A cupcake wedding confection that consists of a number of cupcakes of different flavors all arranged to make one large tiered cake is another off beat idea that allows guests to sample different flavors of cake at a single wedding.

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The Most Common Faults in Cake Baking and Their Causes

Cake baking is one of the most enjoyable procedures to follow; there are many steps that one has to take in order to get that sweet, lovely and perfect cake. Although some cakes come out lovely and perfectly cooked others tend to be faulty. Having a faulty cake is not one of the best moments of the person making it but they always want to know what happened. Therefore let us get to know some of the common faults that occur and their causes.

Faults and Causes During Cake Making

Cake rising to a peak and cracked

This happens when the heat in the oven is too hot, or when the cake is placed to high in the oven.

Open and coarse texture

This happens because of four reasons: too much baking powder, wrong portion of fat to sugar or the flour to the liquid, insufficient creaming or the heat in the oven was too much.

Dry and crumbled texture Continue reading “The Most Common Faults in Cake Baking and Their Causes”

Cake Baking Made Effortless With the Baking Equipment

Essential baking appliances make your baking experience at home wonderful and easy. Baking is indeed fun as this activity tends to bind the family. To become a professional baker it’s important for you to recognize and know the various type of tools and equipments used in the process and more importantly how to use and when to best save your time and money. One can find a variety of these equipments in the market and online stores. The basic need to use these utensils and equipments is to get proper guidance on how to cook and properly blend the wide-ranging recipes for preparing the delicious deserts, cake, pastries or tempting cookies.

Receiving a compliment on a well made and cake by your friends or customers, becomes a key factor that motivates you to master the skill of baking. For a perfect baking skill and familiarity to the tools and equipments is necessary. These equipments are depending on each of their functions which are further divided into various types. With all ingredients ready as per the recipe, the first equipment required is a mixing tool for properly mixing the dough or other ingredients fro making a cakes or other desert. For mixing purpose one can use the traditional mixing bowls or an electric mixer. A mixer is used for beating, whipping, mixing food ingredients. Continue reading “Cake Baking Made Effortless With the Baking Equipment”

Tips for Choosing A Great Wedding Cake

Choosing your wedding cake is not an easy decision! There are so many different things to think about that you could spend hours in the bakery discussing designs, colors, flavors and more. Of course, you want everything to be perfect, so it’s a labor of love. There are some really great tips for choosing the perfect wedding and they will help you save time as well. Simply decide on the following things before you head for the bakery and you will be more prepared and ready to make a decision.

Theme –

Does your cake need to fit a certain theme? For instance, are you having a tropical or Hawaiian themed wedding? If you need to fit your wedding cake into a theme, you may not have to make as many decisions as you thought. One example of a great tropical or Hawaiian themed wedding cake is to have tropical edible flowers, a citrus flavor such as key lime or pineapple and to use soft, tropical colors like pastel green or peach. This is one way to certainly narrow down your wedding cake choices and may save you a ton of time.

Guests – Continue reading “Tips for Choosing A Great Wedding Cake”

The Art of Cake Decoration & The Tools Required

The modern style of cake making is a relatively new concept. Cakes have been with us for the past thousand years. In ancient Egypt, cakes were more like the modern day bread that we have. They were spongier and had bread like consistency. This may be because of the presence of yeast in the cake batter which gave it bread like consistency. The first non-yeast cake to be baked was the sponge cake which is till date a hot favorite among cake lovers. It was different from the normal cakes but still differed from the dairy based cakes of today which use butter, eggs and baking powder.

The turn of 18th century saw the entry of the temperature controlled ovens which changed the art of baking for ever. It revolutionized the process of baking and the results were the cakes as we see them today. With the change in the scenario, cake decoration too became a sport and many sugar craft artists and chefs became masters in the art of cake decoration, thus winning accolades for themselves.

Cake decorating is an art form which is in widespread use. This kind of sugar craft uses icing and frosting as the basis for cake decoration. Using this craft, even a simple cake can be made visibly delightful and exquisite. Alternatively, cakes can be molded and sculpted to resemble three-dimensional persons, places and things.

Continue reading “The Art of Cake Decoration & The Tools Required”

Send Your Loved Ones A Surprise Birthday Cake Online

Online bakeries are more popular these days as compared to offline bakery stores. Probably, because these show up with a lot of options to pick from! Not necessarily do you need to send a cake on someone’s birthday only. Rather, cakes are a starter for almost every occasion. With the introduction of online stores, the task of ordering a cake has become much effortless. While you are sitting in your room, you can simply go online, select the cake of your choice, and place your order. All this with the assurance of proper (and possibly free) delivery at the recipient’s address! You cannot get any better option if you find it hard to make time to personally present the cake.

Timely and Safe Cake Delivery

To make someone’s special day more special, cake is an ultimate answer. Now that you have so many online shops before you, there is absolutely no need to go out and waste your time rushing from one shop to another. It’s all at one place with ceaseless choices. The effort you need to put in is for landing the best website. Thereafter, your budget and flavor preference lets you order a cake. Enter the desired address and place your order.

The timely delivery service of the online company will make someone’s day. Taking this onus in your hands may be risky. However, leaving it up to the professionals will ensure on-time delivery. Receiving the cake in the first place will itself give immense pleasure to the receiver. Meanwhile, you can arrange for other things. Continue reading “Send Your Loved Ones A Surprise Birthday Cake Online”

Using a "Cake Making" Analogy, I Explain Why One Can’t "Explain" the Experience of Spirituality

“Spirituality” is a very ‘generalized’ term, yet… It is a rather ‘personal’ affair.

Whereas I have written of many ‘insights’ into essential Spirituality with heaps of ‘Knowledge’, that with a wee bit of inner Inspiration… one ‘may’, if so inclined, turn this information into the ‘Mindful Experience’ of Spirituality.

It is only after this point in one’s earnest perseverance that ‘Wisdoms’ of a Spiritual nature can arise. Up to this point, there has only been heaps of info…

It’s up to one’s individual ‘calling’… An Inner Pull… an Inspiration… For this material to be considered a ‘Spiritual’ experience.

All the great Sages have always stated ‘essentially’:

There are no words to describe the Tao.

That in which can be written… Is Not the Tao.

Tao, God or any name one associates with this Universal expression, can not be learned from printed word. The nature of this ‘infallible’ experience can only be understood by undertaking the ‘experience’ itself.

Continue reading “Using a "Cake Making" Analogy, I Explain Why One Can’t "Explain" the Experience of Spirituality”