i agree
to get the icing uniform you need to measure it out, two scoops, per layer, more or less depending on the size of the cake, of course
AI have heard of using beet roots for the red colour, but not as part of the original red velvet recipe. I understand it to be something that has been developed by people who don't want to use the food colouring.
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Then I look at JWinslows cake and I'm like a little kindergarden kid looking in the window of the local bakery. And I am in AWE of her talent. Just remembering our very first cakes is sure to give you a laugh.
Awe, thank you! I have taken the advice from members here over the years and try to apply it to all my cakes.
From ApplegumPam - Foundation, Foundation, Foundation
From FromScratch,SF - Make the cake look as pretty on the inside as out.
From AZ, - Less is more (still learning this one).
From Delicious Desserts - analyze your cake and make it better next time.
I just needed to say thank you -
Jeanne
The best way to keep it uniform is to pipe it on using a 1A then smooth it out gently to remove the lines and airbubbles.
After having worked for a greeting card company supplying cakes for photos, it looks like it was photo-shopped to make it look clean and perfect.
I haven't done cakes just for photos, but I agree. And I'm pretty sure the colors were intensified in Photoshop, especially the purple.
It's near impossible to advise on how much buttercream they used in this cake as we have no idea how big the cake is. My advise would be to measure out two equal lots of buttercream and them spread them on with a spatula.
That's what I always thought, too, because I've seen many recipes using beets and figured that must be what what was originally used before red dye was available. But according to this article, the recipe was originated by Adam's, the spice and extract company, and they came up with the recipe and put it on bottles as a way to increase food coloring sales during the depression.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/48990/how-red-velvet-cake-got-its-name
I know this is getting slightly off topic, but this is why I am slowly growing to hate Pinterest because the photos that go viral on there are magazine photos or extremely popular full-time paid bloggers that's main job to make the food as pretty as possible no mater what or it's fake food manipulated to do what food will never do. Like I said, I'm totally guilty every week of this when I make a dessert that I sell for a popular delivery service here where I live. They have extremely strict rules about getting the dish styled and photographed by a woman that used to work for Bon Appitite before they will approve the dish for sale. She makes my stuff look AMAZING but it's manipulated - although I demand that she manipulates it as little as possible so it's representative of what is actually delivered. But my own personal portfolio or pictures on my website, I only photoshop lighting conditions and color correct, I have long ago stopped trying to hide any flaws on the cake itself because I am not perfect and if there is a flaw, then the potential customer should be able to see my flaw.
If you haven't seen this video, you need to watch it because the way they manipulate the photo of this woman is the exact same way they manipulate the photos for food:
Anyway, my point is, the stuff that gets put in front of my face at every consultation 95% of the time are fake cakes that have been styled using inedible items in completely unrealistic circumstances (who the heck came up with the china cabinet full of perfect little desserts around the perfect 3 tiered cake in the middle of the freakin woods next to the perfect model in the $20,000 wedding dress lounging on a vintage couch?) and manipulated the heck out of the finished photos for publication or for putting on the internet. You know, "swoon worthy"? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
OK, rant over, I hope your tie dye cake comes out great!
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Original message sent by FromScratchSF
I know this is getting slightly off topic, but this is why I am slowly growing to hate Pinterest because the photos that go viral on there are magazine photos or extremely popular full-time paid bloggers that's main job to make the food as pretty as possible no mater what or it's fake food manipulated to do what food will never do. Like I said, I'm totally guilty every week of this when I make a dessert that I sell for a popular delivery service here where I live. They have extremely strict rules about getting the dish styled and photographed by a woman that used to work for Bon Appitite before they will approve the dish for sale. She makes my stuff look AMAZING but it's manipulated - although I demand that she manipulates it as little as possible so it's representative of what is actually delivered. But my own personal portfolio or pictures on my website, I only photoshop lighting conditions and color correct, I have long ago stopped trying to hide any flaws on the cake itself because I am not perfect and if there is a flaw, then the potential customer should be able to see my flaw.
If you haven't seen this video, you need to watch it because the way they manipulate the photo of this woman is the exact same way they manipulate the photos for food:
[URL=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XHEZwEhJvI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XHEZwEhJvI[/URL]
Anyway, my point is, the stuff that gets put in front of my face at every consultation 95% of the time are fake cakes that have been styled using inedible items in completely unrealistic circumstances (who the heck came up with the china cabinet full of perfect little desserts around the perfect 3 tiered cake in the middle of the freakin woods next to the perfect model in the $20,000 wedding dress lounging on a vintage couch?) and manipulated the heck out of the finished photos for publication or for putting on the internet. You know, "swoon worthy"? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
OK, rant over, I hope your tie dye cake comes out great!
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I haven't done cakes just for photos, but I agree. And I'm pretty sure the colors were intensified in Photoshop, especially the purple.
I have been completely unsuccessful in my many attempts to make a purple cake. I've tried many types of batter, heck I even bought box mix to try and make a proper purple, I've used powdered colors, gel colors etc and no matter what color the batter looked in the bowl, it always changed dramatically when baked and turned ugly. So I agree - anytime I see anything purple in food I think "photoshopped!". Of course I could always be wrong (It does happen quite a lot!) but I ran this one thru the ringer. I would never be able to make a cake as purple as that photo is. I also can't make purple fondant. I've thrown in the towel on that one also. I buy premade and encourage as little use of the color in the design as possible.
I am not looking forward to Pantone's next color of the year. Bite me "radiant orchid". Seriously? What the heck is "radient orchid"?
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Original message sent by FromScratchSF
I have been completely unsuccessful in my many attempts to make a purple cake. I've tried many types of batter, heck I even bought box mix to try and make a proper purple, I've used powdered colors, gel colors etc and no matter what color the batter looked in the bowl, it always changed dramatically when baked and turned ugly. So I agree - anytime I see anything purple in food I think "photoshopped!". Of course I could always be wrong (It does happen quite a lot!) but I ran this one thru the ringer. I would never be able to make a cake as purple as that photo is. I also can't make purple fondant. I've thrown in the towel on that one also. I buy premade and encourage as little use of the color in the design as possible.
I am not looking forward to Pantone's next color of the year. Bite me "radiant orchid". Seriously? What the heck is "radient orchid"?
I have been completely unsuccessful in my many attempts to make a purple cake. I've tried many types of batter, heck I even bought box mix to try and make a proper purple, I've used powdered colors, gel colors etc and no matter what color the batter looked in the bowl, it always changed dramatically when baked and turned ugly. So I agree - anytime I see anything purple in food I think "photoshopped!". Of course I could always be wrong (It does happen quite a lot!) but I ran this one thru the ringer. I would never be able to make a cake as purple as that photo is. I also can't make purple fondant. I've thrown in the towel on that one also. I buy premade and encourage as little use of the color in the design as possible.
I am not looking forward to Pantone's next color of the year. Bite me "radiant orchid". Seriously? What the heck is "radient orchid"?
I sincerely hope it's not going to be the year of the purple cake. I use a digital camera, and digital cameras pretty much won't photogaph purple. I don't want to be photoshopping purple back into all of my photos all year! :lol: I did two purple cakes this weekend...
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I am not looking forward to Pantone's next color of the year. Bite me "radiant orchid". Seriously? What the heck is "radient orchid"?
I saw that. My reaction was just - Noooooooo, please! We all know how hard it is to have any shade of purple hold it's color. At least their version has a lot of pink in it. One of my cakes I did in varying shades of lavender just looked more grey to the camera. Frustrating.
so for real purple we'd have to use the dye made by the ancient Minoan civilization in Crete produced from the mucus of the hypobranchial gland of various species of marine mollusks, notably Murex. It took some 12,000 shellfish to extract 1.5 grams of the pure dye. Pew that would be stinky.
I'm sooooo relieved that purple doesn't digitally work for others, mine usually comes out blue in photos.
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Original message sent by FromScratchSF
Awe, come on, it's just cake, right :D
OK, here's the video in case you all want a laugh:
[URL=http://instagram.com/p/dpNoVGGxN2/]http://instagram.com/p/dpNoVGGxN2/[/URL]
LOL
Pin = 0 Cake = 1
Dang rolling pin! Really beautiful cake, noticed some people were just mad that they couldn't eat it. #lightenup!
It's the photo from a Duff’s Tie-Dye Cake Mix packet .. a "18.25oz Premium Cake Mix"
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00COCDTT6/?tag=cakecentral-20
or
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008J5A09E/?tag=cakecentral-20
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F8KSKPE/?tag=cakecentral-20
so for real purple we'd have to use the dye made by the ancient Minoan civilization in Crete produced from the mucus of the hypobranchial gland of various species of marine mollusks, notably Murex. It took some 12,000 shellfish to extract 1.5 grams of the pure dye. Pew that would be stinky.
I'm sooooo relieved that purple doesn't digitally work for others, mine usually comes out blue in photos.
whoa mb--that's heavy stuff smelly vintage minoans huh (no offense to any surviving cretian mins.)
and yes my photos of purple cakes are blue too
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It's the photo from a Duff’s Tie-Dye Cake Mix packet .. a "18.25oz Premium Cake Mix"
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00COCDTT6/?tag=cakecentral-20
or
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008J5A09E/?tag=cakecentral-20
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F8KSKPE/?tag=cakecentral-20
So.....if I buy those cake mixes, will MY cakes look just like the pictures????
Purple doesn't photograph correctly on film either, it's a light thing. Red and blue are on opposite ends of the visible light spectrum, and that makes it hard for camera sensors to read purple. Magenta is another one that gets washed out.
There was a photo filter that I used to have for my Nikon that would make purple photograph in the correct way, but without the filter is just looked blue. Now you just have to adjust it in photoshop afterward, but I'm with FromSratch about fixing flaws on the cake itself. I once saw someone who was asked how she got her icing so smooth, and she said "photoshop." Tricky.
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Purple doesn't photograph correctly on film either, it's a light thing. Red and blue are on opposite ends of the visible light spectrum, and that makes it hard for camera sensors to read purple. Magenta is another one that gets washed out.
There was a photo filter that I used to have for my Nikon that would make purple photograph in the correct way, but without the filter is just looked blue. Now you just have to adjust it in photoshop afterward, but I'm with FromSratch about fixing flaws on the cake itself. I once saw someone who was asked how she got her icing so smooth, and she said "photoshop." Tricky.
Good to know. I don't have photoshop but I can make minor light adjustments which helps with color correcting.
Ah, if it's a mix then it probably will come out that color because it's genetically engineered to come out that color (but I still think the pic was PS the heck out if it). Just look at the entire panel of "ingredients" that go into that tie dye cake on the box! So yeah, I guess you have no worries there.
I, yes, me, recently bought the zebra Duff mix because it was on sale for $2 at the store, I normally see it for $8+ and I'm a scratch baker so no way would I ever spend $8 on a mix let alone $2, but long story short I bought it and made it - my advice - make sure if you want a 3 layered cake like the photo you buy 3 mixes because my 1 mix barley made the suggested single pan of 9" round. And since I didn't read the instructions at the store I missed the part on the box saying it "makes 1 pan of 9" round". I guess you are just supposed to forget that the photo on the front shows 3 layers. HAHA anyway no way could this thing be torted to 3 layers. I tried to tort it to 2 like I always do with my cakes but because it's a mix (and I'm not used to that) it was really soft and totally crumbly.
So I revise my advice: if you want your cake to look like the photo on the box - you need 3 mixes perfectly baked, torted to 1" high with an abgay, a quick icer and a ruler to put exactly 1/4" of buttercream on it, a fondant sheeter to roll your fondant to the perfect thickness (using Duff fondant, of course haha) and a pasta roller to do the dots and roll them to the perfect exact same thickness. Then Photoshop the photos to clean up all the crumbs and uneven bits in the photo using at least a $2000 DSLR camera using a 50mm lens.
I am seriously only writing this because what is on the cover of the box of practically anything you buy is not what you are going to end up with at home.
I wish you the best of luck! Perfection is possible, but like I said you need patience and the right tools.
Oh and come to think of it, my stripes were no where near as thick as they were in the photo on the box, so if I were trying to reproduce the stripes like they did, I'd probably use 2 mixes and use them in one pan to get those nice, perfect thick stripes.
just an aside but still about multi colored cakes--i am always amazed at what my local grocery store carries in the way of cake deco toys--they have a plastic device to insert into your cupcake wrapper to pour tri colored cupcakes----
who woulda ever thought? and available at the grocery store--srsly?
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Original message sent by -K8memphis
just an aside but still about multi colored cakes--i am always amazed at what my local grocery store carries in the way of cake deco toys--they have a plastic device to insert into your cupcake wrapper to pour tri colored cupcakes----
who woulda ever thought? and available at the grocery store--srsly?
My old camera photographed purple perfectly well. It photographed everything beautifully. That camera couldn't take a bad picture. I paid about $1700 for it years ago. It was digital, but recorded on those little mini discs. I was advised by "an expert" that my new $200 camera would take even better pictures because of improved technology. He couldn't have been more wrong. So I have to assume one can still get a good digital camera that can photograph purple, but from what I've read on camera forums, you can definitely pay a whole lot for a high end camera and still not get purple
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