Welcome to the Cake Decorators Q&A

Hi

I’m just ready at making cakes, just recently made the les Paul guitar cake ( posted it on Paul’s official face book page) really enjoyed making it.

So my question Is what recipes do you tend to use for your cakes, how are the Mrs Jones recipes like the sponge and toffee cake?
Could I have used these in place of Paul’s Choclate cake for the guitar cake, would they still be good for carving.,? Should I use a Madeira over a sponge?
I know it’s what the customer wants but they are a lot of tutorials on the site without instruction on what cakes to make as with fillings.

Sorry for the silly questions and thanks
Paul

Hi Paul

Your question is not at all silly. It’s only natural to want to know what other types of cakes would be suitable for stacking, carving and for covering in sugarpaste. It’s always sensible to source suitable recipes which will hold up to all those processes.

Paul has always advised to use a sturdy cake for carving. Chocolate mud cakes are very popular with a lot of people because they are moist and sturdy enough to be carved and take weight of sugarpaste. However not everyone likes mudcake so madeira is an excellent choice for those who prefer a plain sponge. As long as your cake has a good structure you can use any recipe or flavour. Mrs Jones advises in her tutorials how to make her recipes suitable for stacking and carving but she does say to try out the adjustments before going ‘live’ with it for a customer. Under her recipe tutorials is the comments section. Mrs Jones has answered questions there which may be of help to you.
Personally, I use chocolate mudcakes, the all in one mixing method victoria sponge cake recipes and madeira recipes. Having said that, I do tend to search for recipes with a denser crumb or experiment with recipes and adjust ingredients. The above recipes use mixing methods which produce moist cakes with a tighter crumb which give good results for carving.
Fillings are personal choice or what the customer wants. I feel it’s better to use white ganache or buttercream in the lighter colour sponges. Chocolate mudcake lends itself to almost any type of filling, the cake is so versatile. If you type ‘flavours’ in the search bar you’ll find lots of tips on how to flavour cakes, ganache or buttercream in lots of different ways. Click on the topics which are most relevant to you and discover the flavours for yourself. The choices are endless!

Thanks again for your help!