Food And Recipes Tips

Nearly every social event offers food in the celebration, birthdays, anniversaries, and weddings, are but a few of the events where food is an important part of the celebration. This article is about the wedding cake. A wedding is a way to celebrate the union of two people who are starting a life together. People come to eat and drink and a great deal of work is put into the preparation for this day. The wedding cake is often the focal point of the event. There are times that it is considered bad luck not to have a piece of the wedding cake.

There are specified rules for cutting the wedding cake that are a part of tradition. For instance, at a wedding reception, it is traditional to cut the wedding cake just before dessert is served, if the wedding reception takes place during lunch or the dinner hour. However, if the reception is held during tea or cocktails, the cake is cut just after all of the guests arrive. It is tradition for the bride and groom to cut and eat the first slice together, as a symbol of their choice to be together. The rest of the cake is sliced by the maid of honor or a family member.

Choosing a wedding cake is quite a task. Tradition calls for a white cake with white frosting for weddings. In this day and age, couples are choosing their favorite flavor. This has bakeries and cake decorators striving to offer a larger selection of cakes. Chocolate, fruit, yellow, pound, and marble are some of the cakes made for modern weddings.

Some wedding cakes offer a different flavor for each layer. White icing, while still ordered, has made way for a wider selection of frostings. Chocolate, mocha, lemon, and any other flavor you can imagine are used for wedding cake decorating. It is possible to customize your cake using all of your favorite flavors. How the wedding cake is decorated is a personal choice as well. You can have just about anything you can dream up put on a wedding cake including, fruit and even real edible flowers.

The wedding reception is the most anticipated part of the wedding. And everyone looks forward to seeing the cake cut and sharing it with the bride and groom as a symbol of good will and a hope, that as a couple, the bride and groom will be prosperous and fertile.

If you would like to become a cake decorator, there are several ways you can go about it. There are hundreds of books out there that will teach you how to decorate cakes, from the simple to the ornate. Another way to learn cake decorating, is to purchase one of the many videos or DVD’s that will take you, step-by-step , through the cake decorating process.

The best way to learn cake decorating is to take a class. While DVD’s, videos, and books are highly popular and informative, taking a class will help you move along faster. You will be able to get immediate feedback from the teacher, and they can see where you might be going wrong and correct you before the project is ruined.

Most people balk at the idea of cooking for large crowds of people. With images of huge stockpots boiling over and becoming chained to a hot stove and oven for countless hours on end, it’s no wonder that so many people avoid the idea of cooking food for large crowds with more tenacity than they avoid being last in the dinner line.

The good news is that it doesn’t have to be the frightening proposition that so many make it out to be. When it comes to cooking for a large crowd, the planning phase is the most important. You absolutely must plan your meals when feeding a large group of people. This goes far beyond the notion of spaghetti or fried chicken as the meals you are planning. You need to know how many servings you will need. While obviously you never know how hungry people will be or who will eat how much when it comes to cooking for a large crowd it is a good idea to always plan for a few extra mouths in case some need a little more than you may think (you might want to double servings for teen and college aged men that will be dining).

You need to know at least a general number of servings to prepare and adjust your recipe in order to accommodate those needs. Some people find it much simpler if they can double or triple recipes rather than scaling them to specific serving sizes. If this works best for you then by all means incorporate this practice when cooking for crowds. One thing you must be aware of is that you will need to include in order to create the meal you are planning.

Having the proper ingredients and the proper amounts of ingredients is more important in bulk recipes than is often necessary in smaller recipes as there is less leeway when it comes to creating the proper consistency. You should keep this in mind when making purchases for your cooking for a large crowd event.

Some people find the best route to take when it comes to cooking for crowds is to keep everything as close to their normal cooking routine as possible. This would mean that instead of cooking one really huge pan of lasagna for a triple sized crowd, they would instead cook three normal sized pans of lasagna. This accomplishes two things really and is something you may wish to keep in mind despite the extra time spent in the kitchen.

First of all, if something goes, wrong only one third of the meal is in shambles rather than the entire dinner. Second, you have a greater possibility of finding consistency issues before the baking begins if you are using measurements and cooking containers that you are familiar with and comfortable using. It is always best to discover errors and omissions sooner rather than later when it comes to cooking as very few ingredients can be properly added after the fact.

While cooking for crowds may send some into dizzying spells with heart palpitations it helps if you take a few deep breaths, sit down, plan your menu, plan your meals, make a list of your ingredients, and cook in a manner that is comfortable for you. If you would rather get it all over with in one fell swoop, then by all means do just that. If you are more comfortable making multiple dishes of family favorites then that is probably going to be the best course of action in order to meet your large crowd cooking needs.

Most importantly you should remember when cooking for crowds is that you might have just earned yourself a well-deserved night off afterwards. Cooking for crowds is time consuming and should be approached when well rested (if that is even possible) for the best results. There is something that is actually very satisfying about knowing that you have fed a crowd and fed them well.

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In cake decorating circles, sugarcraft is probably the most misunderstood term. What exactly is sugarcraft? To clear things up a bit, sugarcraft is a type of cake decorating that is three- dimensional. Sugarcraft is decorating that stands out from all other forms of cake decorating.

Sugarcraft is to cake decorating what clay is to sculpting. It is the art of modeling 3-D figures on a cake. The type of icing used in sugarcraft, rolled fondant, is a dough, that can be used to cover the cake and making cake decorations. Sugarcraft is rolled into sheets and draped over cakes, or cut to make ribbons, bows, and flowers. Fondant is made in advance and stored in the refrigerator in an airtight container until needed.

When a rolled fondant is prepared for cake decorating, liquid food coloring should not be used, it can make the fondant runny and unusable. It is better to use coloring paste.

It takes a bit of time to learn sugarcraft decorating, and the process can be frustrating. There is no set formula for sugarcraft, you will need to use your artistic eye, and practice until you feel you have it right.

If you are serious about mastering sugarcraft, it is to your advantage to purchase a DVD or video that will show you the art step-by-step. An even better option would be to take a class in sugarcraft, as the teacher can give you tips and feedback as you learn.

When you look for sugarcraft supplies, Surbiton Sugarcraft is an online store with everything you will need. Based in the UK, this company has so many items this article does not afford the space to list them all.

A sampling of their sugarcraft art and tools:

- Stainless Steel Cutters to Make: Blossoms, flowers, Leaves, Calyx, Micro and Midi cutters.

- A large array of tools that are food grade plastic and stainless steel such as: Ribbon cut from flower paste, ribbon insertion, garrett frill cutters, and plaque cutters.

- Icecraft Sugarpaste: A superior professional sugarpaste that is ready to use. This sugarpaste allows for a smooth finish every time it is used and covers cakes without cracking and forming craze lines. This paste is less gritty and oily than other sugarpastes and easy to handle. It is bright white and unflavored.

- Edible Lustre Air Brush Colours: A Lustre air brush spray for food in a can. Works wonderfully for coloring sugarpaste, modeling paste, marzipan, buttercream etc. Available in 6 colors.

- Sugarcraft rosebuds and roses: The rosebuds come in lemon, peach, violet, pink, red, ivory, white, cerise, claret. They are sold in various quantities and are incredibly beautiful.

- Piped roses – These wonderful roses are a bit smaller and a bit different. They are great for cupcake decoration. Available in dark pink, pink, or white.

- There are many more sugarcraft decorations including orchids, cake pans, cake dummies, cake boxes, leaves, and flower sprays all made with sugarcraft.

For pricing and more information visit the website and see the wonderful sugarcraft designs and tools to assure your cake decorating will be spectacular.