Hi All!

I think I am over the "Boxed" cakes!! I have so many problems with them. Once of the problems being that I cannot cut any of them without them falling apart or becoming waaaaaaay to crumby. I cut the sides of the cakes so that they are completly straight, eliminating the bulge that sometimes develops when cakes settle. (not the filling bulge)

I have many of Sharon Zambitos DVD's and she talks about how she uses a "dense" cake receipe for her cakes that she cuts. Does anyone have any suggestions? Are "Dense" cake moist???


Any suggestions?

dense cakes are still moist. but some people get confused by the dense bit, and think its dry. its not!
i use a victoria sponge for most of my cakes, and a maderia or pound cake when i want something more substantial.
xx

I'm pretty sure Sharon uses a recipe similar to the WASC cake. It uses a boxed mix, a pudding mix, and some extra flour, sugar, sourcream, vanilla.

I use boxed mixes with the extender recipe and use them for carved cakes too and they work great for carving. Nice tight crumb!

Thank you folks =)

Helps a lot

Can someone please explain "extender recipe" to me? TIA!

I agree with Khalstead....Sharon I believe uses the WASC. It starts off with cake mix but then other ingredients are added. It is dense but also very yummy and most of all you can creamers, pudding mixes...etc...the options are endless. Here is a link to the WASC google recipes, also both the durable cake recipe for carving that sharon uses (got from her website). A tip for carving...use a dense recipe and it is easier to carve a cake that has been chilled or semi frozen....less crumbs
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=df4f9hbq_46cs9f28fs
http://cakecentral.com/recipes/1972/durable-cake-for-3d-and-wedding-cakes
http://cakecentral.com/recipes/6093/durable-cake-for-3d-in-chocolate

Hope this helps

Here is the extender recipe.........basically when all is said and done, it's dense and really yummy, and called an "extender" because it turns 1 cake mix into the equivalent of 1 1/2 cake mixes.

http://cakecentral.com/recipes/1977/cake-mix-extender

very similar to the WASC w/ out the almond

in australia our standard cake is a mud cake. i used to think it was an american style cake as the traditional choc mud is called a boston mud, then when i got into decorating i found that most americans have never heard of mud cake. and you guys mostly use more butter stye cakes. you must hunt down a choc mud cake recipe!!! (sorry can't share mine or id have to kill you lol!) they are the most dense moist delivious cakes you will ever eat!!! they are full of choclate and have a fuge like consistency to them. these are the cakes we use ganache with, they are so yummy they only need choclate ganache to torte and fill with. its the standard cake in australia apart from frut cake and sponge which don't get used much lol!!!

Posted my recipe here last week Taya .....

No secrets here!! they aren't all that different ! and GOOGLE will produce 1,500 recipes at the tap of a key

Its whats on the outside that sets the decoraters apart

haah pam should have known you would be on here soemwhere lol!!!