About Making Dinner Rolls and Making Money

A few months ago I attended a Food Entrepreneurs Conference, in preparation of our commercial kitchen, it was GREAT! At the conference Patricia Barns, of Sister Schubert’s dinner rolls, was the keynote speaker. She was wonderful and had an incredible testimony. Her love of the Lord and family and orphans left me in tears and speechless.

I never buy cookbooks any more, everything is free online, who doesn’t love Pinterest? But after I heard her speak I got in line to buy her cookbook Celebrations of the Heart. I was not disappointed when I read in the back of the book that all of the profits go to ALS research. The book is beautiful and filled with do-able family recipes with ‘normal’ ingredients and gorgeous pictures!

A Few Recent Weddings

And this is why I don’t get to blog very often, buttercream and keyboards are not friends. Here are a some events from the last few months.

Buttercream cake before the flowers were added.

This was a beautiful poolside wedding!

And this barn wedding cake is one of my very favorites!

This was also a barn wedding. I love these “naked cakes”.

Easter 2015 - Because My Family is Worth It

This year between being so slammed with bakery orders and the new addition to the family it was hard to keep our usual Resurrection Day/weekend routine, so we just learn to be flexible and do what we can.

I love, absolutely love tablescapes.

Our table isn’t always pretty, but on special occasions I like to go the extra mile. Some people may say it’s not worth the extra work but I beg a difference.

Our Gingerbread Homestead

I used this recipe times 3!

The key is to place your cutouts in the freezer for 10 minutes before you bake them, they will hold their shape.

We dipped our sides in melted almond bark.

Let the sides dry and harden for a few hours, then added the roofs.

House, Cabin and Barn

25 years ago I learned how to decorate cakes , it was the best money and time I have ever spent. Not only has my ability to decorate cakes enabled me to make some money from home, but it naturally grew into a catering business. And what has been even more rewarding are the countless classes where I’ve taught others how bake and decorate.

How to Make an Alabama Football Elephant Cake

Its fall and we live in Alabama. Everyone here eats, breaths and lives football, but not us).

This week I had an order for an Alabama football cake and some specialty cookies. This one feeds about 40-50.

Pans:

Dirty iced with buttercream.

Covered with 2 pieces of fondant.

I used foam poster board for the ears and covered them with fondant. They wedged nicely into the two rounds.

How to Make a Carrot Cake - Video Tutorial

Here is a great video to walk you through this cake!

I added some lemon on top for a garnishing because I love the color and because this icing has a little lemon zest in it.

Basic Cake Decorating

Moist Chocolate Cake - Cake Tips with Video How-To

Here are a few tips for making a moist chocolate on chocolate cake.

I almost always use a box cake mix for my orders.

There are a couple things you can do to make them a little better:

Use dark coffee instead of water. Make sure it is at room temperature.
Use extra large eggs, again, at room temperature.

Baking Tips:

Always pre-heat your oven.
Do not over bake.
Use shiny cake pans. If you use glad or a dark, non-stick pan lower your oven temperature by 25 degrees.

Icing:

Use almond extract rather than vanilla. EVERY time I make this people are pleasantly surprised and ask what’s in it. Here is my favorite recipe.
Butter or half butter and Crisco makes a rich flavored icing.

The Joy of Baking has great recipes! Here is a good video with a basic chocolate cake.

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A no-fluff e-book telling you exactly what you need to get started baking and decorating cakes the old-school way!

How to Stack a Cake

Bake your layers. Let them cook completely.

Make plenty of icing. For this cake I used buttercream.

Mix your icing colors.

For this baby shower cake I am using 3 shades of pink. I made a large batch of white then tinted it very lightly with pink.

I iced the smallest and lightest color layer first.

Always put the bottoms (flat sides) together in the center.

Baking Up Some Sweet Gratitude

The last couple days Cherish and I have been baking cookies to give as a special thank you for some of the people that went above and beyond to help us with the wedding.

Gratitude, you can never show too much!