âThe sweet kiss of death known as sugar!â
Yes, yes, artificial sweeteners are bad for you, but what about the evils of refined white sugar and processed white flour? Have you read the book âSugar Bluesâ? The author traces all the worldâs problems (war, slavery, poverty, addiction, mental illness, diabetes, tooth decay, obesity, etc, etc) back to refined sugar.
So which will kill me first (LOL) the artificial sweetener in my coffee or the refined sugar in my cake?
Seriously, pick up a copy of Sugar Blues or Sugar Shock. You will never look at sugar the same way again.
BTW: my best tips/secret is SugarShackâs DVD on perfectly smoothed cakes! It is FAB!
My Aunt just gave a lecture on "The Sugar Blues" earlier this month 
I'm just a wee lass in training so I don't have many secrets except this one . . . always over mix sugar and butter and always undermix flour. When creaming the butter and sugar you want the sugar to dissolve into the butter so mix just a little longer than you think you have to but once the flour is added don't mix a minute longer than it takes to incorporate ingredients because it toughens the cake. My cakes have been moist, light and fluffy ever since. I heard, read, watched it somwhere. I too am a cake porn addict so who knows where this particular tidbit came from.
One other secret of which I just thought is:
you do not have to wait for 30 minutes for your butter to come to room temperature, but you can help it along if you forgot to take it out and need to make your cake immediately... all you have to do is cut your stick of butter in half and put the half in your egg slicer. The even-sized slices can go into your bowl and in about 5 minutes, it will be ready to beat (make sure the slices are not on top of each other). You must have your butter at room temp in order for it to hold air, so instead of getting all stressed out, just cut it into the tiny slices and it will be ready by the time you get all the rest of your ingredients ready to go.
Some movies that document wal-mart:
http://www.netflix.com/Search?v1=wal-mart&search_submit.x=0&search_submit.y=0
A WONDERFUL sugar substitute is Xylitol! It has the least offensive aftertaste of any sugar substitute I've ever tried, it's not a chemical, or made with the use of chemicals, and it's GOOD for you! It has been clinically shown to help strengthen teeth!
It's not a zero calorie sweetener, but it has less calories than sugar, and it is MUCH lower on the glycemic index (doesn't mess with blood sugar) so it's safer for diabetics that sugar.
It can be used for baking too, though I haven't experimented with it enough to know how well it really turns out... 
It's great for sweetening drinks, or for sprinkling on cereal though!
My best secrets are:
Chiffon cake is REALLY stable (though it's not my favorite to eat)
SMBC/IMBC is SO much easier to use than Crisco BC (and much tastier in MY opinion)
Customers REALLY don't notice the details as much as I do!
"It's good enough" is my motto when I'm frustrated something isn't working how I want it to! 98% of the time nobody else can even see what I'm upset about, and 1.99999999% of the time, anyone who notices doesn't care.
One other secret of which I just thought is:
you do not have to wait for 30 minutes for your butter to come to room temperature, but you can help it along if you forgot to take it out and need to make your cake immediately... all you have to do is cut your stick of butter in half and put the half in your egg slicer. The even-sized slices can go into your bowl and in about 5 minutes, it will be ready to beat (make sure the slices are not on top of each other). You must have your butter at room temp in order for it to hold air, so instead of getting all stressed out, just cut it into the tiny slices and it will be ready by the time you get all the rest of your ingredients ready to go.
Everyone don't microwave thier's? I always give it a zap to soften. It speeds everything up. 1# 1min power level 7. If some melts I never worry about it. I cut it up into about 1x1x1 cubes, and zap away.
Mike
A WONDERFUL sugar substitute is Xylitol! It has the least offensive aftertaste of any sugar substitute I've ever tried, it's not a chemical, or made with the use of chemicals, and it's GOOD for you! It has been clinically shown to help strengthen teeth!
It's not a zero calorie sweetener, but it has less calories than sugar, and it is MUCH lower on the glycemic index (doesn't mess with blood sugar) so it's safer for diabetics that sugar.
It can be used for baking too, though I haven't experimented with it enough to know how well it really turns out...
It's great for sweetening drinks, or for sprinkling on cereal though!
Great sugar substitute, but it is VERY toxic to dog. Make sure you keep any products sweetened with Xylitol away from your puppy!
My secret is that I love to mix my MMF with Satin Ice Fonadnt to make it last longer, it save me a lot of money, and the taste and workability is great!
Also I like to cover my cakeboards with gift wrap paper to match the cake, and then cover with Cellophane paper and a ribbon on the border. saves me from covering my board with fondant, that stuff is expensive!
MacsMom I had trouble with the Lucks brand also...
I actually called and complained about the product because it was sooo expensive and what am I supposed to do now? I had bought 3 cans of each .. gold/pearl/silver.. out of all of them 3 worked ... both pearls and 1 silver (go figure I needed the gold THEN)
They send me 9 brand new cans.. And with that they told me (they don't have this in the directions but they told me this) Store them upside down !!! I did that with those and it worked like a charm. Oh yes.. they didn't even ask for the cans that they had send first back.. so I was out nothing in the end.
Now I use the airbrush spray and I love it.. but not as nearly as I do when I used my preval sprayer 
Here's a loaded make your own vanilla topic link.
http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=103205&hl=making+vanilla
And another little ditty is--wanna get the corners on square cakes done right? After the cake is all iced and you wanna start smoothing, pipe an extra fat line of icing up each corner--it will help tremendously.
None of these are my secrets of course. I just learned them from someone else somewhere along the line.
thanks for the link. Yeah...impulse buy...I've got a pound of vanilla beans coming in the mail 
What's a frosting plug?
http://forum.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-38404.html
HTH
OK I read through the entire 11 pages of this before deciding on what I my secrets were. But they aren't mine! I am sad to learn that the original 'secrets' thread died with the crash. Here are my top ones that have been AWESOME! and I use without fail. So whomever originally posted them this is for you! Thanks for all the great tips!
1. To make buttercream white dip a toothpick into your violet coloring and add to the icing while still in the mixer. Mix well and it will make it white. The violet cancels the yellow in the BC. Try it. Don't add too much though.
2. Instead of buying an expensive metal core to add to the big pans to help with baking use your No. 7 flower nail well greased upside down it serves the same purpose without putting 'another' thing in your baking stuff.
3. Love the icing plug but I call them icing bombs.
4. The home-made cake release of 1 cup flour, 1 cup veggie oil and 1 cup shortening, mix well and store in air tight containter. Brush in your pans and I am not kidding you they practically jump out of the pan. Who ever first posted that I love you for it! 
So that is my homage to what I learned the first time this thread took wings. Thanks all my fellow CC'ers I lub ya!
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