Wedding cakes

This question comes up so regularly that I think will comment on it again. I have written about this on my wedding cake faqs. I was reading something on the web (again) and it was claimed that a professional wedding cake maker will make a 3 tier fully decorated cake for £200, this was clearly a claim by someone who is not a professional cakemaker or knows one.  It is generally agreed between professionals that anything less than £300 is unsustainable and will mean that the cakemaker will only be doing this part time or as a hobby. A skilled professional knows the costs involved and therefore will not underprice themselves or work for free, effectively. There are, of course, many factors that determine the price, including location, competition, experience, skill, length of business establishment etc.

Apologies for anyone trying to use our  http://www.barkerbakes.co.uk site last night. We had to do an emergency host transfer and so there were some errors on the site from 6-8pm. We managed to keep it going but you may have had difficulties in viewing some pictures during that time.

If you are still experiencing problems please let us know. We have some more changes in pipeline, some significant and possibly a relaunch, which will be our first since the original launch in October 2005, so watch this space.

I was watching a video at the weekend on the web about how to dowel and stack a cake. It was clearly made by someone who does not do this  for a living, and there were a number of errors in the process, such that the cake was contaminated with unsterilised dowels, unsteady and uneven due to inadequacies in the process demonstrated.

I would advise anyone doing this themselves to either read a good cake decorating book, which should have appropriate instructions (preferably UK written, by a BSG member,  so our health and safety requirements have been taken into account), or consult an expert.

So do use the web, but consider  how informed or reliable some of the advice given is.

A question I get asked regularly is how to cut a heart or round cake, or basically anything other than square. Well it is easier than you think.

1. If it is heart cut it in the middle from the middle of the top v down to the tip.
2. You now have 2 halves.
3. Cut a slice one inch in the same angle  and take this slice and cut 2inch pieces for sponge and 1inch for fruit, till you get to the end.
4. Do the same for the rest of the cake.

The same principle is applied to other shapes, cut in half and then cut 1inch slices which are cut from one end to the other.

We get a lot of last minute requests for cakes, which we class as less than a week to the required by date. These are almost always more hassle than they are worth. We even get requests for cakes or cookies on the day. It is impossible to handbake and decorate a cake in less than a day as the cake doesn’t have enough time to get cold and then finish. By the definition the finish would be substandard as icing requires time to set and if touched before then marks terribly,  ruining all your hard work.

Cakes booked less than a week in advance means that everything must be to hand or got very quickly which generates additional costs as last minute sourcing or car journeys are required. We don’t currently charge extra for these and do try to fit these in, but are now seriously considering an additional charge to cover these additional costs. But the downturn in the economy has meant a lot of people leaving it to the last minute to order cakes.

I spent last week working on new designs for cookies, I have so many ideas but time to execute them seems so limited. I have uploaded some designs but will be doing more very shortly.

Belated New Year greetings.

I have been very busy launching our new range of hand made chocolate truffles as well as revisiting our wedding cookies.

Hope this is a good year for everyone and that last year is well and truly behind us!

To make this easier to understand I have uploaded some pics for you. The dowels determine the depth of the cake, so buy the size you want, e.g. 1″, 1.25″ etc from your local hardware store, and cut to usable sizes.

Dowels ready to use:

Cakes lined up ready to level

knive horizontal to work surface ready to cut:

Cut across, use hand to steady and hold cake if necessary

Cut cake, is it level?

Yes, it is.

I haven’t posted for some time. Now that the wedding season is in full swing, time is extremely short. There is a marked increase in last minute requests for wedding cakes this year, even down to 1/2 days before the event. Please, please, please could you try to remember that poor planning will generally result in a poor result, and no planning is likely to be even worse!

We always do our best, but since even God can’t change the past we are powerless to do something that should have been done days, if not weeks ago. Our priority is always customers who have already booked and paid for their cakes, other orders are only accepted if we can do them without compromising our standards  and reputation for excellence.

Another request for help this week has been, can I put an undercooked sponge back in the oven?

The answer, of course, is no. Just rebake, you know it will take longer than the last time.

To check if a sponge cake is cooked:

• use any cooking instructions you have read for that or similar recipes and use them as a guide;
• use an oven thermometer to check that the correct temperature is achieved and maintained throughout the cooking time.
• check with a clean skewer and if it comes out clean, and the cake top is springy to the touch then its ready.
• check the middle as that will be the last part of the cake to be cooked. But check other places too, in case your oven has cold spots which take longer.
• if in doubt wait and check again in 5 minutes.

I think more cakes are ruined by undercooking and over-cooking than anything else.

Learn how your ovens and tins work together to bake your cakes, above all practice.