Welcome to the Cake Decorators Q&A

Hi,
I recently asked a friend to make a cake stand for me as she’s very creative, I explained I wanted it like a drum approx 4-5 deep and about 14″ diameter, covered in hesian and with a lace ribbon around the middle. She made this very successfully, but she sort ‘food grade hessian’. Does this mean that all ribbons around cakes should be Food Grade appropriate?

Hi DawnW

If you’re buying the ribbons in a cake decorating store they are fine to use on cakes. I would be wary of some ribbons in haberdasher’s store, I’ve know a few deep colours to leach dyes making them inappropriate for purpose. As long as ribbons are dye fast they’re fine.
Your cake stand sounds amazing!

Thanks Andy, on one of Paul’s videos where he lists suppliers, he recommends Groves & Banks, I am assuming these will be fine?

Hi DawnW

Just to correct you, I am not Andy. Andy used to be the site’s customer service manager, he left us back last Christmas but his name still automatically comes up on emails for Q & A notifications. Lots of people make the same mistake.

I’m not sure which video or list you mean, if Paul has listed it then it’s fine to use. The ribbons in local cake decorating store are for purpose, it isn’t necessary to use online stockist if you’d like to save money on postal charges. Could you let me have the link for the video which gives the list of suppliers please.
Hope this helps.

Hi
Here is the link for the video
http://www.cakeflix.com/chapter-3-getting-started-lesson-8-suppliers
Can I also just ask another quickie; With ganaching a cake rather than crumb coating, how long in advance would you start the process of 1.) making the cake, 2.) stacking, 3.) filling, 4.) ganaching 5.) then icing?
I’m used to using buttercream and desperately want to start with ganache, but never seem to have the time to try it all out in a dummy run first. I’ve got a wedding cake for next saturday which has a middle tier of chocolate fudge cake and I was thinking of trying it out on this.
Many Thanks in advance

Oh my goodness I’d forgotten all about that video! there used to be another list of suppliers in the free section which disappeared long since. Thanks for that!

Ganaching is the same as crumbcoating, just take the same time as you’ve done with your buttercream cakes. It also depends on the type of cake and filling, some have beter shelf life than others. I fill and ganaching three days before the event starting with the cake with longest shelf life. A madeira cake would come first because it lasts the longest from baking to eating, then dense chocolate mud cake and lastly any sponge cakes. Cakes with fresh fruits or highly perishable fillings like cream cheese or mousses are best prepared on the day of event and displayed in a very cool environment.

Madeira from baking to eating 2 weeks
Dense chocolate mud cake approximately 5 -10 days depending on recipe
Sponge cakes approximately 5 days
Special diet cakes between 2 -3 days and best done on days of event for maxium freshness.

Ganache as a crumbcoat and filling is pretty stable at a cool room temperature so you have plenty of time to prepare for the big day. To learn a little more about the shelf life of ganache take a peek at my blog here:
http://www.cakeflix.com/blog/the-shelf-life-of-ganache-by-madeitwithlove
If you need help with ganache quanitites for different size cakes, I have a chart here:
http://www.cakeflix.com/blog/how-to-ganache-cakes-without-gnashing-your-teeth

The quantites is suffcient for one layer of filling and crumbcoating as shown in Paul’s tutorials. If you’re filling for than one layer increase the quantity by 25%.

Making a trial run is a very good idea, if run run into problems with broken ganache you’ll find a fix here:

Oily ganache!!!

http://www.cakeflix.com/questions?s=oily+ganache
The second link covers other related questions which you’ll find helpful.