It have been a busy week on CakeJournal with many new visitors to the site. You might noticed that the site have been very slow in the start of the week and at some points almost impossible to upload. I myself got a little shocked as well, especially when I found the reason to all this major trafick.

Cakejournal have been featured on Cake Wrecks If you dont know Cake Wrecks then I can tell that it is a site dedicated to…. cake wrecks! It is though a very fun and comical site and you will guaranteed NOT leave the site without a good laugh. But I would be very sorry if one of my cakes ended on that site or should I???

Because when I then entered Cake Wrecks I found the sweetest post about my cakes. So there was nothing for me to worry about except for all the trafic So thank you Cake Wrecks for the very very sweet post.

On the baking side I have finally thrown myself into the arms of Italian Meringue Butter Cream or IMBC in short. Now I only wonder why I have not done it sooner because it is the most delicious butter cream. Sliky, smooth and feather light. I can get a little confused though, because there are Swiss meringue bc and Italian meringue bc. Are they the same thing? Or is it just the slightly different way they are made that gives them different names? No matter what, I will be making IMBC whenever my cupcakes or cakes calls for the best tasting frosting ever.

I made some with only vanilla flavour and the rest with raspberry pure. The best one was the raspberry it tasted almost like mousse filling but still with a nice butter taste. So good together with chocolate cupcakes yum! I will try to take photos next time I make IMBC.

Happy Caking

Louise

Here comes part 2 of the questions for Jean Michel Raynaud. He has even added two recipes! Enjoy the reading

CJR= CakeJournals Readers
JMR= Jean Michel Raynaud

CJR: First of all the Sweet Art site is beautiful, thank you for introducing it to us. I was looking at the cupcake and wondering what they were decorated with. Is it rolled fondant? So perfectly one by one or some cream that gets hard? It is hard to tell by the pictures….

JMR: We are in the process of redoing the web site as we speak, better quality pictures, links, Q&As, in any case, thank you very much for your comment. For our cup cake we mostly use plastic icing, or rolled icing, but I actually like the Fresh look of pipped ganache, it is great for fresh flowers and summer designs.

CJR: What an honor to have such talent share with us! I would like to know how to create “initials” on the side of buttercream cakes. Are there any tricks to getting them to stay put if created in fondant? If piped, how do you get the steady, smooth look as if stenciled on?

JMR:Those initial were pipped straight on the side of the cake with a soft Royal icing, smoothed with a brush and water, however the base of this cake was icing, not butter cream. I would be confident you could achieved the same effect on butter cream, although it sounds like your cream might be a bit soft, I will talk about butter cream recipes a bit later on but unlike cutting initial out of icing, when pipping, you actually have to push into the cream, that should help it stay in place. Ideally, try using ganache or change your recipe to make it hold better

CJR: I would also like to know what fondant recipe Jean Michel uses, whether it is made from scratch or purchased as I do not like the taste of many of the fondants pre-packaged on the market today. Thank you for this wonderful opportunity to speak to someone who knows cakes!

JMR:Making your own icing is time consuming and generally, the finished product is never as good as a good brand of icing, We use Bakel icing, it is the closest thing to making it yourself but has much better stretching abilities. There are several brands, as you mentioned, that have a strange smell and taste, Frankly, and I did look at the content on the box and wondered what this had anything to do with icing. I do think every one should try to make their own icing; it is easy and certainly very useful to practise.
1kg pure icing sugar
100g corn flour
12 gr Tragacanth gum
Tepid water

Mix the icing sugar, corn flour and gum together in a mixer and slowly. Pour the warm water. Lay to rest with a plastic film on.

CJR: What is the best recipe of butter cream if I want to use it on cakes?

JMR: I stoped using butter cream years ago, it is unstable has very real limitations when experimenting with new finishes. The only butter cream I use is made with cook sugar, this help is the pasteurisation process and it enables you to have a much stronger and smooth cream, with much less sugar, but it is not that simple to do. This link will take you through he steps: meilleurduchef.com
8 eggs
250 cooked sugar (120 degrees)
250g soft, but not melted butter
When you need a stronger butter cream, just cook your sugar 5 degree more, but beware, anymore and you will have lumps of crystallised sugar.

CJR: What do you prefer to work with when it comes to covering cakes butter cream or chocolate ganache?

JMR:Without a doubt, ganache. It is the perfect medium to cover your cake, you can play with the content of chocolate to change its consistency, and because you have to boil the cream to melt the chocolate, it is pasteurised and will last weeks in the fridge and over a week outside. Understandably, due to its colour, you will have to cover it with icing, but it is the only product I use to set up my cakes and is the secrets to those sharp edges!

CJR: Do you teach classes?

JMR: I do teach classes, at Sweet Art, community colleges, culinary school and private classes. Ideally, I would love to concentrate on teaching, not only it gives me an opportunity to share something I am passionate about with like minded people, but it pushes me to continually learn and develop new designs and skills.

Happy Caking

Louise

Cake made by Jean Michel Raynaud.

I want to thank you all for the questions that you have send about cakes and cake decoration for Jean Michel Raynaud. He have written back some very interesting answers and I hope that you all will enjoy reading them.

CJR=CakeJournals Readers.
JMR=JeanMichel Raynaud.

CJR: Would you please tell us about your career path? Where did you learn you skills? What are some of the other places/companies you have worked for, and how do they compare with Sweet Art, where you are working now? Where do you get your design inspiration?J

JMR: I started in apprentice in 1981!! I was lucky to work under the tutelage of one of the best chef in France; whilst he was getting his masterpiece for his MOF (best chef in France) I instantly developed a passion for decorating. When I graduated, I was employed as the head pastry chef for a 3 Michelin star restaurant called Le petit nice, however, the culture of restaurant didn’t meet my path of specialisation in decorating. I moved to Australia, and after a brief detour as a pro sportsman, I was given an opportunity to head the kitchen at Sweet Art. This organisation is a worldwide institution and gave me the opportunity to bring my own style, inspired by formal French training. After 6 years, I left to help Paris and Billy set up planet cake but we eventually fell out, and returned as the general manger to sweet Art. All along, I pro actively continued my learning, going to seminars around the world, and won gold medals as a decorator on several continents. I started the classes at Planet cake, and am currently putting the finishing touches on sweet Art courses. After over 20 years of constant learning, I now go around teaching specialised subjects in the myriad to schools and organisation around the world.

CJR: Would love to master the art of cake decorating. What type of classes should I be taking to master the art of Cake decorating? Should I attend a culinary art college?

JMR: That would depends on what your intentions are, long term. Do you want to make a career of it, or simply learn new, exciting skills? If you chose decorating as a career path, I strongly encourage you to learn the basic of cake making first, it will help you become a more viable proposition for prospective employer, more over if you open your own business, you will be able to not only decorate, but bake, set up and understand the underlying needs of pastry cooking, as such you should go to a culinary school or professional school. If you only want to specialise in decorating, you want to look for specialised courses such as the one offered by small decorating businesses, they are expensive but will be more focused on what you want. Keep in mind that the two best decorator I know, Faye Cahill and Margaret Carter are not trained as chef, but come from an art background, decorating has more to do with art than the cooking!!

CJR: If you have to choose only one decorating techinique and one tool that you can’t live without, what will that be and why?

JMR: Definitely Pipping, it is still the one aspect of cake decorating that separate good decorators and great ones!! Anyone, with a bit of patience can master the skills to cover a cake sharply, pipping takes years of painstaking practise and enable you to really express your own style. The tool would be my life long spatula, a Sabatier, soft, sharp and precise.

CJR: Have you written any books?

JMR: Unfortunately, not yet, I am quite busy as it is, I am setting up my own web site with a forum and dozens of designs and explanations

CJR: Many of the SweetArt designs have double-height tiers. (some even look like triple-height). I’d like to know what kind if supports are needed for this type of cake. And is it necessary to cover the tops and sides of these tall cakes separately? Or can it be done all at once?

JMR: SweetArt have hundreds of designs, we actually design every cake to our client requirement. I do try to push the double or triple high, I call these shapes spring time; they always look more sophisticated and light than traditional 4 inches cakes. You need to set your cakes on boards slightly smaller than their diameter, for instance a 7 inch cake is set up on a 6 inch board to avoid a line in your icing later on in the covering process. Each board has a whole in the middle and is supported by skewers. Once they are on the top of each other, ganache the whole 2 or 3 cakes together. A secret when you set up tall cakes, you will not be able to cover your cake like you do traditionally if the height of the cake is more than the width of the cake, if it is, you will have to roll the icing around and hide the junction with a design of some sort.

CJR: Which brands of color do you use and recommend for coloring fondant?

JMR: All our colours are imported from the US, we use Americolor and ChefMaster. For your fondant (plastic icing or pastillage), never use Airbrush colour. I use gels as much as I can, for very specific colour match, I supplement with pastes.

CJR: Are your figurines made from icing or fondant or clay or foam? There’s a christening cake on your website of a stork and baby….i’d like to know how you balanced him so perfectly!

JMR: The Baby and Stalk id made from polystyrene and BBQ skewers for the legs. I use masking tape to reinforce them so they don’t break. Most of the figurines you see have a base of styro, smoothed out with sand paper and covered with icing.

CJR: Since Orchard are no longer manufacturing their red fondant, where are you getting yours from? It’s so difficult to get a true red color.

JMR: Deep colour fondant are difficult to make as the more colour you put, the less workable it becomes. I prepare a base icing saturated in colour in black and red with very high gelatine content, and use this paste to colour proper icing. You will find it hard to go about it any other way. Alternatively, uses gels and mix your icing using corn flour, unlike icing sugar, it does not dry out the icing as much.

CJR: I’ve noticed that scratch recipes are not as stable as the mixes. do you bake from scratch or from a mix; and are you allowed to share a basic recipe with us? Please?

JMR: I never use pre mixes, simply because they are full or preservatives and processed ingredients and frankly, it takes the same amount of time to mix a cake from scratch using fresh ingredients. This is a great point that highlight my comment in question one about the difference between culinary college and decorating classes and their limitations. I would be more than happy to share my recipes but I don’t know if Louise will let me use 5 pages to answer this question, may be we will do a “baking special”

Part 2 will be posted in the next couple of days.

Happy Caking

Louise

I just wanted to let you all know that the photos from the show is now uploaded in the cake gallery. So please take a look
Winners of the audience votes
1: Novelty Cake
2: Wedding Cake

Winners by the judges:
1: Novelty Cake
2: Wedding Cake

The next post will be about the questions that you have asked Jean Michel Raynaud from Sweet Art. So be sure to check back what he have replied.

Happy Caking

Louise

I am back home again and thought that I would tell you how it went and also show you my cake:-) My friend Camilla and I arrived late Friday evening in Kungälv very close to Gothenburg in Sweden. I was happy that I could submit the cake Friday so I did not have to worrie anymore and I was curious to see if anything had happend with the decorations. But luckily it was all fine:-)

You could buy different kind of cake supplies like colors, dusts, books, cake tins, paper cases and some very sweet silicone moulds made by Karen Davies, who demonstrated the moulds. I bought two moulds and I cant wait to try them. They are so cute.

Sunday was the last day and the announcing of the winners. There was two winners in each category (Novelty & Wedding Cakes). One where the audience voted and one where the four judges: Karen Davies, Carol Haycox, Allison Lilleyman and Agneta Olsson would choose the two winners.

So I am happy to tell that my cake won for the best Novelty Cake voted by the audience. The cake also recieved “Highly commended by the judges” as the only cake at the show. So that was double luck for me:-) I have taken many photos from the show I just need to arrange them all and add them to the cake gallery for you to see.

Happy Caking

Louise

As promised here are a few photos of what I have used for inspiration for the Novelty Cake competition. I struggled last night with the fondant as it was not co-operating at all. I usually dont have problems with Bakels (Pettinice) but this time I had. Luckily I had some Renshaw Regalice that I decided to give it a last try as it was getting late. It worked perfectly:-)

So Today I only need to assemble the cakes, add the final decorations and make a box for the cake to be transported in and last but not least the most important of all to make a first aid cake kit in case something should happend wich of course there wont (knock knock) I am quite pleased with the design of the cake, not something fancy and complicated but just fun and typical me:-) Are you curious now???

I will make sure to take some photos from the show!

Happy Caking

Louise

I will be at the Scandinavian Cake Show this weekend in Sweden. My friend Camilla is going with me and I think that we will have a fun weekend with great friends, cakes and shopping for cake tools.

I have signed up for the novelty cake competition and I am already sweating over my dummie cakes. The fondant is teasing and I see late nights ahead of me. I have made some skecthes because I still have not decided how to decorate one of the tiers but I try to keep it simple and sweet.  I hope that I will have time to post a few snippets tomorrow to reveal a little bit of what I am making:-)

So until then I will go back to the kitchen and continue with my cake.

Happy Caking

Louise