Carved Cakes..

Decorating By kjackson Updated 29 Nov 2006 , 2:33am by chef-jeremy

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kjackson Posted 29 Nov 2006 , 1:54am
post #1 of 10

I plan on tackling my first sculpted/carved cake next month and am trying to see what all goes into making one.. First of all what's the best cake recipe to use for one? A drier cake? A moister one? I'm thinking once I cut the cake up and get the initial "block" put together, I should freeze it a while to make it hard, therefore presumably easier to cut.. Is this wise? Any help/info/wisdom anyone wants to lend, I'd love to hear it.

Thanks so much icon_biggrin.gificon_smile.gif

9 replies
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luvincake Posted 29 Nov 2006 , 2:01am
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I recently tried a sculpted cake. And it completely fell apart on me. I thought that maybe it was because #1 I just finished course 1, and # 2 I'm thinking I should've used a more dense cake. Mine was really moist and although I froze it and it made it easier to cut as soon as I went to ice the darn thing with a crumb coat it just fell off of the dowels. So I am wondering too.

Ann

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bobwonderbuns Posted 29 Nov 2006 , 2:03am
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There is a 3D cake recipe that's supposed to be good in the recipe forum. I did one with a too dry cake which literally exploded on me (three hours before I was supposed to deliver it!!) Thankfully I have a neighbor who has the God-given talent of being able to mortar together cakes!

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kjackson Posted 29 Nov 2006 , 2:05am
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Well maybe we'll learn something together on this one Ann!! LOL icon_biggrin.gifthumbs_up.gificon_wink.gif

As far as denser cakes go.. does adding additional eggs to the batter make it denser?

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bobwonderbuns Posted 29 Nov 2006 , 2:07am
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kjackson

Well maybe we'll learn something together on this one Ann!! LOL icon_biggrin.gifthumbs_up.gificon_wink.gif

As far as denser cakes go.. does adding additional eggs to the batter make it denser?


No, that makes it richer. Adding things like sour cream which is heavier than oil make cakes denser.

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chaptlps Posted 29 Nov 2006 , 2:10am
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Hiya KJ and welcome to c.c.
I would use a pound cake recipe for your cakes that you carve. The cake needs to be denser than the usual white wedding type cake, or box cake mix.

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chef-jeremy Posted 29 Nov 2006 , 2:14am
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My experience has been: it depends on exactly what you are making as to what kind of cake you need. When it is something that will be under a lot of stress or that needs to support a lot of weight, I opt for a pound cake. It is very dense and holds up well to whatever you want to do. If you start stacking and cutting a standard white cake, you can only go so far before it just falls apart (sometimes you learn the hard way). Hope this helps a little.

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kjackson Posted 29 Nov 2006 , 2:26am
post #8 of 10

Thanks so much guys.. the cake I'm shooting for will be alot like one I found on here, I'm doing it for my mom's birthday as she's a monitor on a special needs bus in Cobb County, Ga. The bus she rides on is the typical handicapped needs bus, it's shorter than the conventional school buses, so I'm going to make mine a bit shorter than this one. I'm attempting to upload the link here.. hope it works..

http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-photo_82433.html

So do you think I should just go for a pound cake w/ this? [/url]

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ctorno Posted 29 Nov 2006 , 2:32am
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Not too long ago I did my first sculpted cake. It was a triceratops and I used a chocolate cake, the buttermilk devil's food cake from the Cake Doctor book. I froze it first which did help, and had no problems with it falling apart. My regular white cakes are so soft there is no way they would work, so a pound cake would be better if you wanted a white cake. For the crumb coat, I heated my icing a little and poured and covered the cake. It hardened nicely so I could ice easily after that. Good Luck!

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chef-jeremy Posted 29 Nov 2006 , 2:33am
post #10 of 10

You would probably be ok with just about any cake on this one. One thing you might try for added stability is placing the top part of the cake on a piece of cardboard (wrapped in foil, wax paper, etc) slightly smaller than the cake itself and then using dowels through the bottom part to help support the top. With that, you shouldn't have any support issues.

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