Brand new to cake decorating so I am wondering what cake recipe yall use that is sturdy enough to handle fondant and decorations. I noticed just the boxed cake mix almost sags under the weight of the fondant. But i don't want to always have to use a pound cake mix. So I am wondering what yall wonderful people use for you to go cake recipe
WASC - AKA White Almond Sour Cream Cake
You can Google it or use the search box in the upper right hand corner of this page.
A lot of people don't tell I find. For example I have spent years making crappy cake, to find the exact cake I use now, not to mention a fortune on Pastry school. I have had family members become incensed because I wont just pass recipes over to them. My recommendation to you would be to pick up cookbooks, websites, tried and true blogs, and then start baking a little once a week, once a month or what ever you wish and then make the cake your own. When all that is finished, you may also be less likely to offer it up in an online forum of your peers. Cake pays my bills. I really really hope I didn't come off snarky BTW I am not trying too. I am just being honest. :)
^^ This is true. Plus, when you experiment with recipes yourself, you get a feel for which cakes are denser, which carve better, which filling to use with which cake - etc. It's much better to get an understanding of baking because you learn what causes things to go wrong and how to fix them too. It does take time, but baking isn't the easy peasy thing most people seem to think it is, and it's worth learning.
That said, there are some great recipes on the net, so do a few searches and start reading. You'll find a good jumping off point.
With so many recipes, it really is a case of trying them out and seeing how you like them. Also looking at reviews on different cake recipes may help you to tweak them to suit. I have been doing a lot of recipe testing of late to find the ones I and my guinea pigs like. It really is quite expensive to test out recipes, so I can see how others may be reluctant to hand over the recipe they use.
Otherwise have a look at mud cakes, they are sturdy, but definitely dense. I love a good chocolate mud cake.
Not at all being snarky. Maybe I worded my post incorrectly I wasn't necessary looking for personnel recipes but just a nudge in the right direction of cakes that work. This is a hobby that I'd like to get into not necessary to make any sort of money.......so spending money on cakes each week that don't taste good or even give me the desired result as far as it holding up isn't ideal. Again your were not at all being snarky and thanks for your input.
A few other people were nice enought to suggest WAC I think I will start there.
If you use the one Krypto listed above, you won't be disappointed. FromScratchSF took a lot of time experimenting and it is a really good cake. I've used it as my go-to white cake for quite awhile now and it has never failed me. I've also made some of the other flavors she lists at the bottom of the article and recipe. Try it...I think you'll like it.
Focus on finding a white cake, and a chocolate cake as its easy enough to make a variety of different flavoured frostings and fillings. I try new cake recipes all the time- none have been horrible so it wasn't a waste to do. Its when you stop looking for the next recipe to try that you know you've found it! And I research a lot of recipes, I'll read 20 different ways to make 1 type of cake.
Mud cake is on my to-try list. I notice a lot of people using it especially for carving.
I think my favourite chocolate cake is something like Black Magic which is a recipe I thought sounded too bizarre to try for years. I even carved a cake with it and it was fine. Its pretty fluffy though, not too dense really. Although I swear I read somewhere that just about any cake should work under fondant but maybe angel cake...anyone?
If your fondant is all saggy and stuff, are you covering over BC? Is it especially hot where you are? Humid?
This summer I tried a lot of new scratch recipes. To save money, I would either halve or quarter the recipe. I just made cupcakes with the batter I did make up. That way, my family could try many different recipes and I wasn't wasting a lot of ingredients.
It all comes down to personal opinion. We all have our opinions on density, freshness-aka moistness, flavor, etc. I tried a scratch butter pecan cake this past spring and my family loved it. I was telling someone about it and she shared with me her recipe which was similar. I tried it last week-end and although it was good, we preferred the cake I made the first time. The difference was cake flour instead of all purpose flour and buttermilk instead of milk. Those two simple ingredients really made a difference to us. I should add technically there was an additional ingredient difference, one use baking powder and one recipe use baking soda because of the buttermilk.
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Original message sent by Christina0801
Brand new to cake decorating so I am wondering what cake recipe yall use that is sturdy enough to handle fondant and decorations. I noticed just the boxed cake mix almost sags under the weight of the fondant. But i don't want to always have to use a pound cake mix. So I am wondering what yall wonderful people use for you to go cake recipe
I am free with all of my recipes, it takes a while to tweak them but I love sharing what I have found. My absolute favorite go to chocolate cake is called black magic, I found it on the allrecipes site. I love it so much that i haven't felt the need to look any farther. I haven't used it under fondant but i would imagine that it would be ok. As for white, it was WASC until they changed the box mixes, now I just cant seem to get it right and it just tastes like sweet clay to me. I have been experimenting with a few white scratch recipes and my favorite so far is King Arthur tender white cake found on the king Arthur flour site. I follow the recipe pretty close but I swap out 4 tablespoons of butter for vegetable oil, add a little sour cream to low fat vanilla yogurt, use vanilla bean paste, add 2 tablespoons of French vanilla powdered coffee mate and add extra almond extract cause I love almond. I am still searching for my perfect yellow cake but I really like Sylvia weinstock's classic yellow. I follow that one pretty close too, I just add a little bit of baking soda(approx 1/8 to 1/4tsp) use vanilla bean paste, and add about a tablespoon of French vanilla powdered coffee mate. I also like pastry joes high ratio yellow cake, again a few tweaks such as swapping out slightly less than half of the butter for mild light olive oil (yes olive oil), I use buttercream instead of milk and add a few tablespoons of sour cream as well as vanilla bean paste. I hope this helps, best of luck!!!
AI'm so sorry, buttermilk not buttercream! Autocorrect always gets me!!!!
AOne more thing; if you don't have one already get a digital scale and weigh out your flour and sugar. They are pretty inexpensive and you can find cup to oz conversion charts everywhere on the Internet. It makes a world of difference!!!
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One more thing; if you don't have one already get a digital scale and weigh out your flour and sugar. They are pretty inexpensive and you can find cup to oz conversion charts everywhere on the Internet. It makes a world of difference!!!
A thousand times YES to this!! Baking is far more successful when done by weight. Especially because cup measures differ from country to country. Plus, you can measure out a cup of flour five times and it would be a different weight each time.
I guess I might be lazy, but everyone always raves about my cakes. I start with a box mix of whatever flavor desired. But I use milk instead of water (may try using buttermilk to see if that makes it even better), I add a package of dry instant pudding mix of a complimentary flavor, and if I'm going to stack or carve a cake, I'll add 1/2 cup of extra flour and a little more sugar and flavoring. Sometimes I'll also add 1/2 cup of sour cream, depending on the flavor of the cake mix. It's good in vanilla and chocolate for sure. I usually use the supermoist cake mixes, cant remember whether that is duncan hines or betty crocker. They always turn out moist and work perfectly. For some reason, I've never had good luck with any cake I've baked from scratch. Either I overbeat or underbeat them i guess. And the flavor isn't nearly as good. I haven't tried the WASC recipe though. I need to try it out. You also have to remember that we are all in different parts of the world and ingredients can be different as well as the climate can make a difference. I am in South Texas where we are hot and humid. So my recipes might not work the same for someone who was in a cold and dry climate. Trial and error...just make sure you keep track of any changes you make to tweak your recipe so when you find the right method you can use it again.
AI love From Scratch's cake recipe, and tbh I haven't really had a problem with any of my scratch made cakes not holding up to fondant and buttercream, but so many people here use mixes successfully too so I'm not sure that's really your issue.
Are you rolling your fondant too thick? Are you talking about a stacked cake not holding up that you didn't use support on?
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Original message sent by kkink
I guess I might be lazy, but everyone always raves about my cakes. I start with a box mix of whatever flavor desired. But I use milk instead of water (may try using buttermilk to see if that makes it even better), I add a package of dry instant pudding mix of a complimentary flavor, and if I'm going to stack or carve a cake, I'll add 1/2 cup of extra flour and a little more sugar and flavoring. Sometimes I'll also add 1/2 cup of sour cream, depending on the flavor of the cake mix. It's good in vanilla and chocolate for sure. I usually use the supermoist cake mixes, cant remember whether that is duncan hines or betty crocker. They always turn out moist and work perfectly. For some reason, I've never had good luck with any cake I've baked from scratch. Either I overbeat or underbeat them i guess. And the flavor isn't nearly as good. I haven't tried the WASC recipe though. I need to try it out. You also have to remember that we are all in different parts of the world and ingredients can be different as well as the climate can make a difference. I am in South Texas where we are hot and humid. So my recipes might not work the same for someone who was in a cold and dry climate. Trial and error...just make sure you keep track of any changes you make to tweak your recipe so when you find the right method you can use it again.
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