10 things you need to
know before you buy a cake!
Do you love the cakes you eat during events and gatherings?
What about that thick colored sometimes-tasting-like-plastic fondant layer (عجينة السكر)?
Have you ordered a custom cake before and wondered why the hell is it that expensive!?
I mean come on! It is just a bunch of flour, eggs, butter, sugar and... whatever… things I have on hand all the time in my kitchen!
I know! Me too….
But let me tell you, making a cake is not an easy job, in fact big cakes are rated one of the top 10 hardest desserts to make world wide, because of the effort and long hours of work they require. However, some cake makers do not bring you their best, in fact some bring you the worst, and make you pay for it!
So here's how to know a good cake, but first let's have a very quick look at
how cakes are made...
A common housewife’s idea of success in the kitchen might be managing to pull out a basic tea cake from scratch, without falling in one of the cake-making traps like the cake sinking for example. That is BAKING a cake (هعمل كيكة).
MAKING a cake (هعمل تورتة) however, is a total different story where pulling out a successful cake is just the beginning, the very basic and primal step.
Cake baking requires sense and knowledge so that all ingredients can create the chemical reaction that results into transforming that bunch of flour, eggs, butter, sugar and… whatever, into a heavenly soft, spongy, mildly sweet chewy golden or chocolaty substance we call cake!
Tiny things like the age and temperature of the eggs or the duration of beating alone can lead to a messed cake. Without going into too many details, a cake once baked and cooled properly, is then leveled, layered and torted. That is cutting a cake into equal and straight horizontal layers and adding the filling in between.
With that done, you need to keep the crumbs from falling everywhere and lock the moisture inside the cake, this is when a cake maker adds the “crumb coat” layer which locks the goodies inside, and give a neat surface to the cake, ready to decorate. To give you an idea, smoothing the crumb coating is as hard as what that man who gives those layers of plastic paste to a new wall, before it is painted, do.
After waiting long hours for the crumb coat to form a crusty surface, comes the artistic part: Decorating the cake. A sequence of choices that depend on the taste of the cake maker, their tools and their style. It is enough to say that a single small simple 3D fondant flower can easily take an hour to make and 3 days to dry and become ready to use.
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| Adding the crumb coat |
These beauties, now
artworks, are heavy!
Imagine a building
without a support system…Collapsing is the answer as well for cakes. Tiered cakes need
support systems that keep them steady, holding their shape, fighting gravity,
even after going through all the bumps in the road from their maker’s kitchen
to your event’s table. It is not a subject to take risks with! I have been to events
where I saw lovely art work 3 tiers cakes that are pretty much a Pisa tower on
the cake station! It is a heart-breaking scene.
A cake is an
architectural, chemical, art work that takes long hours for the smallest cake
to days and weeks for big cakes to be made. You do not pay for the bunch of
flour, eggs, butter, sugar and... whatever only, you also pay for a days
effort, knowledge, planning, experience, tools, equipment and art creation of
the cake maker.
Now that you have an
idea of how things go, take a look at the following tips to find out how to
choose a good cake (or cake maker)
1- The ingredients
Does your cake maker use
healthy ingredients or do they choose cheap over health?
For example, do they use
good natural butter or they use processed or vegetarian (also processed) butter? (Which is more
than half cheaper but is actually packed poison to your body and health).
Every baker should
search for cheaper options to be able to fulfill a good profit from their
business, but there is a limit, after which, things do not just get cheaper,
they also become junk and hurtful to your health.
2- The colors
All these cheerfully
colored cakes and decorations have added artificial coloring into them. In fact natural
colorants can never make such bright colors no matter how, when it comes to
cakes and frostings or fondant.
These artificial colorants are used widely in our lives: candies, commercially prepared foods, preserved juices, Indian food sauces, restaurants...etc. The artificial colors however have different grades of quality: there's local colors prepared under the table in we-do-not-know-where, sold for 3 LE a bottle, while there are international wide known and certified color brands that are sold for 30 LE a bottle. You have the right to ask about what you will be eating.
These artificial colorants are used widely in our lives: candies, commercially prepared foods, preserved juices, Indian food sauces, restaurants...etc. The artificial colors however have different grades of quality: there's local colors prepared under the table in we-do-not-know-where, sold for 3 LE a bottle, while there are international wide known and certified color brands that are sold for 30 LE a bottle. You have the right to ask about what you will be eating.
3- The style and
accuracy
Before you make a deal
with a cake maker or decorator, take a look at their portfolio. How accurate are
they in matching colors and shapes for known designs like cartoon characters or
commercial logos? Do their style and taste in decoration match yours? How does the finishing and
fine tuning seem to you?
To give you examples, in the picture on the the left, a cake decoration is presenting an exact edible replica of Raa Raa the Noisy Lion in his car, made by Sue Sweet.
Check the original character here to know what i mean:
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4- The experience
Many cake decorators can achieve first-time success with no problems, if they
have gone through a similar thing on a smaller scale. Yet not all cake
decorators will be honest to tell you No if they think your cake requirements
is too big for them.
So take your
precautions: do not order a big 4 tiers 300 guests wedding cake from a cake
maker who has never made but 1 layer cakes, and expect success.
If you want to encourage
a freshman, make sure you have an acceptable plan B, just in case.
5- The awareness
As a client, you are not
supposed to be a technical or cake terms expert, but your cake maker should! In fact, if you are not
very knowledgeable, they should explain roughly your options and what you will
be getting, so you are not surprised when you pick up your cake. If you ask your cake maker to make you a cream cheese frosting and they do not
know what is this, be sure that they never did it before. Which does not
mean that you will be getting a bad cake, you might get a very good one, but it
will not necessarily be with cream cheese frosting!
On the other hand, a
cake maker should educate you. When you order a cake with fruits or whipped
cream in summer, for example, They should inform you that it will not stay for long as it has too many
perishable ingredients that won’t last for more than hours. Same goes for your other
questions: How long will it stay good, should I put it in fridge, how many
guests will it serve? do the frosting contain raw eggs?...etc.
6- The cake support and
transportation proof
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| A collapsing cake |
Cake makers are responsible for this. It is simple math of how big is every cake layer, and therefore what support system the cake will require. If this is not made, the top layers will sink in the bottom layers, and so the whole cake will be slowly demolished!
Same goes for the
transportation medium and the assembling. You should know how the cake will be transported (Soft box, hard box...?). Also Some
cake makers give you each cake tier in a separate box, and it is on you to
assemble the cake at the event. Others will give you the cake assembled if it
is of adequate height. Learn about How your cake will be handled before you make the deal.
7- Is everything on your
cake edible?
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| Edible fondant flowers on a cake |
Following that rule, every single thing on the
cake should be edible, the bow, the flowers, the lace, the glitter, the pearls,
the jewels...etc. If otherwise it should be clear to everyone and better put on the last minute. The cake
server would remove the inedible items off the cake before serving. Not that
the guests are not smart enough and will eat a tissue ribbon or a wire, thinking that it
is edible since it is on the plate, but because textiles, flowers, wood,
metals, plastic and every material simply adds bacteria or rot to your cake,
which might make it poisonous at some point. So try to avoid inedible materials on your cake when ordering it. A cake maker should be able to provide you with ideas and techniques that will grant the look you want, safe and edible.
8- Maker, baker or
decorator?
What exactly are you
paying for? Dessert supplies shops now sell ready baked plain cakes and frostings that you
can buy and directly use. Unfortunately, these, contain preservatives and
chemicals to keep them on shelves for longer and most of the time taste too commercial. Other cake decorators might be using ready mix cakes and powdered frostings. While
make-from-scratch cake makers bake their own cakes and make their own frostings
before they work on assembling and decorating the cake.
In professional bakeries, baking and decorating are two different teams of people each doing their job. Both jobs are hard enough and none is less important than the other. It makes a difference however, in the taste of the cake, the customization options, the healthiness of the cake, its freshness...etc. Some cake decorators prefer to focus their efforts on the decoration part, depending on ready made cakes and frostings, while others do it all from scratch. it is unfair that you get charged for both equally.
In professional bakeries, baking and decorating are two different teams of people each doing their job. Both jobs are hard enough and none is less important than the other. It makes a difference however, in the taste of the cake, the customization options, the healthiness of the cake, its freshness...etc. Some cake decorators prefer to focus their efforts on the decoration part, depending on ready made cakes and frostings, while others do it all from scratch. it is unfair that you get charged for both equally.
9- The complexity of
decorations
Here are examples for complex decorations:
10- The communication and the commitment to the deal
As I said earlier, some decorations like 3D characters and flowers take days to be made, while other decorations such as single layer shapes are a lot easier especially with the huge variety of fondant cutters and molds available in the market. Evaluate what you are paying for. Some cake decorators, make things too simple for them, while others take the time and creativity to make you unique and detailed 3D decorations. Again, it is unfair that you get charged for both equally.
Examples for simple decorations:
Examples for simple decorations:
Here are examples for complex decorations:
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| Hand painted tiger by Sue Sweet |
10- The communication and the commitment to the deal
Imagine a cake maker who does not have your cake ready on the agreed time. Or you have your cake on time, but it is not exactly what you ordered (a spelling mistake in the names you ordered to be written, a 3 small tiers cake instead of a 2 tall tiers one, the color tones are not what you agreed for, the filling is not what you ordered, the decorations are not what they told you they will put on....etc.) I heard of these accidents a lot!
If the communication of your cake maker is fishy or they do not seem to understand what you are ordering, do not make the deal unless you try them first in something with less risk.
If the communication of your cake maker is fishy or they do not seem to understand what you are ordering, do not make the deal unless you try them first in something with less risk.
Last but not least...
Explore! There are different cake decorations like creams. For some they are more tasty than fondant. Personally it is my type of cakes... take a look: ( I made the first 3 and the one on bottom right).
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| (3 on top and bottom right) by Xou's at xoufood, www.xoufood.com, www.facebook.com/xoufood |
Bonne Appetit!
Xou
www.xoufood.com
www.facebook.com/xoufood
