I'm making a gingerbread cake for a client and I tried a recipe and it tasted horrible. My husband said it tast burnt but the center wasnt cooking as fast. I know my oven is right on. The recipe I got from on line and it was
3 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1 cup molasas
1 tb of ginger
1 tb of cinnamon
1/4 tsp of ground cloves
1 tsp of salt
1 tb of baking soda
1 cup of boiling water
1 cup of oil
2 eggs

It said to mix sugar, oil and molasas. Then Eggs, then it said to add dry exept of baking soda. Then add the baking soda to the water then add to mixture and bake it 325. What did I do wrong? Help me. I dont really want to use butter because its expensive and I need to make enough for 2000 people. Help Please!!!!

I'm not a professional baker but I think your recipe might have a lot of molasses in it! I found this recipe for you on the internet it sounds like a good one!
INGREDIENTS

1 tablespoon softened butter (grease pan with it)
2 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups dark brown sugar
1 tablespoon ground ginger
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup butter
4 tablespoons dark molasses
4 tablespoons corn syrup (or golden syrup if you have it)
2 eggs
DIRECTIONS

Sift first 6 ingredients together in a bowl, set aside.
Heat all butter, molasses and golden syrup in a small saucepan, simmer until butter is melted, stirring continuously.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Pour the melted ingredients in a thin stream over flour mixture stirring constantly.
When smooth, add the eggs 1 by 1 stirring after each addition.
Put into 7 x 12 cake pan and bake for 35-40 mnutes until tester comes out clean (like a knife).

By the way how much is the butter costing you? I normally pay about $2.99 a pound. I 'll try to find a recipe for you that doesnt call for it. I was thinking more like a carrot cake recipe that calls for oil just minus the carrot!

You are making gingerbread cake for 2000 people? <faint> Did you mean 200? Could you just charge them more and use butter? Did the recipe call for butter?

That recipe seems a little wonky to me. A tablespoon of baking soda to 3 cups flour seems excessive as does a tablespoon of ginger. I don't know I guess I haven't made gingerbread cake in forever, but if it tastes bad I guess that's your answer.

Four cups of liquid in the molasses, sugar, water and oil to three cups of flour seems wonky to me too.

http://www.recipetips.com/recipe-cards/t--2357/gingerbread-cake.asp

I found the recipe you used online from Food Network--those are not always so reliable. But check the proportions in the recipe I posted--which by the way I just found online also. If you double it to get the two eggs like the food TV recipe calls for, that second recipe would use 4 2/3 cup flour to the one tablespoon of baking soda and ginger, so that's an additional 1 2/3 cup flour to balance out that much salty spicey stuff--would make a difference. So...you gotta try another recipe. Maybe someone will have a tried and true one for you.

Try not to cry anymore. It's only cake. Tell me it's for 200 : )

(((hug)))

I found this recipe on pillsbury it calls for butter flavored shortening hopefully this fits your budget! Good luck!
Gingerbread Cake with Lemon Sauce

Prep time: 10 min
Cook Time: 20 min
Yield: 6 servings
Ingredients:
CAKE
Crisco® Original No-Stick Cooking Spray
1/4 cup Crisco® Butter Shortening
OR 1/4 stick Crisco® Butter Shortening Sticks
1/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg, slightly beaten
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup light molasses
1 cup Pillsbury BEST® All Purpose Flour
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt

LEMON SAUCE
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup unsalted butter
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preparation Directions:
1. HEAT oven to 375ºF. Spray an 8-inch square or round cake pan with no-stick cooking spray.
CAKE
1. COMBINE shortening, brown sugar and granulated sugar in bowl of electric mixer; beat at medium speed until well blended. Beat in egg, buttermilk and molasses until well blended.
2. COMBINE flour, ginger, cinnamon, baking soda, cloves, nutmeg and salt in medium bowl. Add to creamed mixture; mix well. Pour batter into prepared pan.
3. BAKE 20 to 25 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan on cooling rack. Serve slightly warm or at room temperature.
LEMON SAUCE
1. COMBINE all sauce ingredients in small saucepan; bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring constantly. Reduce heat to low; simmer 5 minutes or until sauce is slightly thickened. Serve sauce over each slice of cake.

No I meant 2000! Thanks everyone for helping. I'm going to try some of the recipes in the morning. I may not even do it and let this one go. She said the budget is between $500-$600. She wants 2x2 pieces and they will add their own whipped cream to serve. That sounds crazy. I dont think she gets how much work that is and how expensive molasas is. Anyway I still want to know how to make it just in case she agrees to more. Thanks Karema

She wants premium cake, and nice big slices, please, for 2000 people for 30 cents each? Yeah, good luck with that.

You need to work out exactly how much it will cost, just in ingredients, to make what she wants. Then factor in some $ for your time. I think you'll have your answer then about whether you will do it or not (I'm guessing she's not likely to increase her budget 10-fold?).

Good lord! I just priced a basic vanilla buttercake with jam & bc filling for 78 servings and it came to $50ish - how much will gingerbread cake for 2000 cost you?! I think with $500-$600 you will barely be covering the ingredients. I'd let some other fool take this one on!

$500-$600 for 2000 people and gingerbread yet!!! Geesh she's outta her tree!

Everyone is right!!! If you do a cost sheet for your ingredients, you will see that your ingredients cost A LOT and it seems like you will not even break even. That is alot of Gingerbread. Unless she is willing to increase the budget, you may have to let this job go. I am gong to try Deniro's recipe and see how it comes out. The ingredients seem to be in proportion to each other.

Good Luck!!!

OMG girl! What are you thinking? $ .30 per person?????? You won't even cover your costs much less your time.

I find butter at Costco for $1.99 lb and unsalted butter at Cash & Carry for $2.38 lb.

Good Lord! Run away from this one...how can you possibly make cake for 2000 for $600 and NOT be paying HER to make it??? She couldn't even get that at Sams...or KMART for that matter!

Let this one go. What a great way to ruin your holiday season - losing money, losing time, and losing your self-respect!

Just let her know you calculated the ingredient cost alone would run you into the red. Then there's cake boards needed to put all that heavy cake on, all the electricity it's gonna cost you to bake it all, and so on.

It didn't sound like you were wanting to volunteer or donate it, which is what you'd be doing if you say "yes", so she needs to find someone else. Besides, if she thinks it's that simple, she should have no trouble finding someone, right?

Good luck and let us know what happens....

I would not do that amount of work for that amount of money. You will make yourself crazy not to mention exhausted.

I would simply say I am so sorry but I would not be able to make a quality product that her guests would enjoy for that amount of money. The quality reflects on you and I wouldn't take this job on.

Hugs to you my dear!

Everyone is right!!! If you do a cost sheet for your ingredients, you will see that your ingredients cost A LOT and it seems like you will not even break even. That is alot of Gingerbread. Unless she is willing to increase the budget, you may have to let this job go. I am gong to try Deniro's recipe and see how it comes out. The ingredients seem to be in proportion to each other.

Good Luck!!!

This post has to be a joke. No one in their right mind would even talk to a customer about 2000 servngs of cake for $600.

Cake, even a gingerbread spice sheet cake for 2000 would be a minimum - minimum - of $4000. Plus $ for the cake boards and boxes and $$$ for delivery.

It doesn't sound fair to you. You should tell her what your price would be and if she can't afford it then she can go else where. If you are feeling really generous you could tell her the cheapest cake you could make her and just do that. She is getting a really work-intensive cake that I'm sure will be also very beautifully decorated for about 0.30/person. TOTALLY not fair to you!

are you high?

to be practicing a recipe lets us know that you are actually considering this..

seriously.....??? freaking .30/slice???

I really like this one, and it is popular with all my neighbors and colleagues.

Mix:
1/2 C shortening
2T sugar
1 egg

Blend in 1 C black molasses (I use Grandma's)
1 C boiling water

Sift together and stir in, beating until smooth:
2 1/4 C sifted flour
1 t soda
1/2 t salt
1 t ginger
1 t cinnamon

Pour into greased and floured 9" square pan. Cook at 325 for 45-50 minutes. If you put it into those little ceramic loaf pans like from Michael's, it will make 4-5 pans and you cook them 30-35 minutes.

Hope this helps.

I am so proud of myself!!!! I didnt even bother figuring out all the cost because I knew she wouldnt pay it. I told her $50 for a 11x15 one layer cake without decoration. I told her she would need 58 cakes and her grand total was $2900. She told me no thank you and she found someone cheaper. The old me would have tried to lower the price to $35 and beat the other person out. But I dont care anymore. I'm tired of customers quoting to me what they will pay and have me go through so much to make a tester then dont want to pay what I charge. I wasnt going to keep trying to lower the price. I do feel a little bad because I like her as a customer but I have kids to feed and cant worry about giving everyone a deal. Thanks everyone for your help

that's more like it, sister!!! hello backbone!!!

one question still, though...why do you make a tester for every client? that can eat profits really quickly.

***if it's for a tasting, then i recommend only doing that for a minimum priced cake, for example: cake order must be a minimum of $75 and requested by client. some people here take that amount off the total once it has actually been ordered, others around here make the client eat that cost...it's up to you. if the person is only ordering a $30 cake, it doesn't pay you to make a "tester" for them, cause they're getting two cakes in the process...unless you only give them a small amount of batter, which in that case, you're still losing out because you now have extra batter that's just sitting around.

***if it's for the reason that you're trying to research signature recipes, then i recommend that you pick a week or two for nothing but research baking. the holidays are a good time to do that, since the "tests" will get eaten!! when i was starting out, i went through a zillion cookbooks to find a few basic recipes that i wanted to be able to offer...white, yellow, and chocolate cake, buttercream and cream cheese icing. i took about $300 to sams club, and loaded up on essentials like flour, sugar, butter, cream cheese, etc...then baked like a mad woman!!

truthfully, i don't think any of those recipes were keepers, since i didn't know about cake central at the time, but i learned alot about scratch recipes and the science of it all. you could utilize our recipe section on here, find the high rated recipes, and run with it. add a few things to make it a signature dish, and you're ready to rock and roll!!!!!!!!! to have to do find a good recipe AS each customer orders just adds way too much drama to each order...something you probably don't need right now. i recommend making your testers into a 6 inch cake and the rest as cupcakes...this allows you to see how it performs as a cake (density, crumbs, etc.) and the cupcakes will allow you to give some as samples to friends for honest evaluations. you can also individually bouble wrap them in saran wrap, seal them in a ziplock, and freeze them and then use those for tastings later...if you find a keeper recipe!! they're also great for last minute parties and such.

enough of me rattling....sorry so long. it's 3 in the morning...i'm exhausted but have insomnia, so this babble is how my brain is sludg ing through it!

I made the tester for my self. I had never heard of gingerbread cake and wanted to make sure I could definatly make it. I usually dont make testers for my customers at all. Thanks for the advice and if I dont get a huge order for thanksgiving and Christmas I will be baking. Thanks so much.

Good for you! I'm proud of you for sticking to your guns!!

The cake wouldnt have any icing. It was just to be one layer 2 inches. No icing or filling at all. But still all those boxes and cake boards would have sent me under.

Good for you

Whoever took this on is C-R-A-Z-Y.

Good grief, you can't even get a donut for 30 cents much less a homemade gingerbread cake. People just amaze me sometimes.

Woo Hoo! I'm proud of you! You stood your ground! Even though you lost the order, you won your time back and won't lose money on it!

This is the same customer that wanted to wholesle through me and I sent her the prices. As you all must know she hasnt called me back at all. She kept saying that she wanted to make a profit on it or it didnt make any since to carry the product. I was like first of all I took a dollar off of all my items and she would be making a dollar off every item that she sells. I'm the one buying all the supplies and making it all and using my gas and she is making a profit. She should take it an run. Whatever her loss!

Well clearly she's just a "little" crazy!