Monday, August 6, 2007

Yep, Sleep deprivation makes you make mistakes!

I probably shouldn't admit to such a mistake, but, we are all human, right? So, here it goes, I admit, I can be pretty stupid when I'm too sleepy.

OK, the last two times I've made buttercream, I've made HUGE batches- enough for four cakes. I have a great mixer and since I HATE making frosting, I just do a big batch and then freeze what I won't use soon and refrigerate the rest. But both the last times I made buttercream the texture was a bit off. The first quadruple batch was a little too wet. I was able to fix it with adding more powdered sugar, but still, WHY? The next time, it was stiff and when I went to smooth the cake, it was crusting too fast. Now, both times I had to add a LOT of water to get it to spreading consistency, but since I make quadruple batches and you are supposed to add liquid to thin it, I didn't think much of it.

The only reason I ever figured out that I was making a mistake was that last time my quadruple batch only made three cakes instead of four. I didn't put TONS of frosting on the cake because I don't like tons of frosting on cakes, but WHY was I like 5 cups short???

Well, I got my answer, I was using HALF, yes HALF the butter you are supposed to use in a recipe!!! I just made a quadruple batch now and when I was getting the butter out earlier I realized, "Whoa... I've never used this much for this size of batch, but yep... it needed that much! Good grief!!

The amazing thing is that I was able to USE the buttercream that was "low fat"! LOL The bad part is that I had just priced out my cakes to see if I was charging appropriately, and I under counted the butter by 50%, so now the price of JUST buttercream on the cake is $6. Can you believe that??? SIX DOLLARS just for frosting a standard size cake with rBST free buttercream... Wow!

Now I have a new batch to work with. I'm interested to see now how much easier it is. The last SIX or SEVEN cakes were with the low fat buttercream! LOL I won't know what to do with easier to work with frosting.

So, where's my dunce cap? Anyone?

2 comments:

Nancy said...

Howdy neighbor!!! It just seemed right that I add your blog to my morning routine of CC, e-mail, Flickr, and dead last--The Washington Post.( You know-the real world)
So,Melissa, know that I'll be reading all about your fatigue and buttercream problems with rapt attention! And feeling happy and bad for you in the process. This will be fun to follow your cake adventures. Congrats on the launch!!
See you at Fran's(The best, friendliest, cake supply store ever!) one of these days!!!

Sweet Melissa said...

Well, hi there Nancy! I'll try to keep it interesting and hopefully not too full of disaster threads! LOL And, yep, I probably will run into you at Fran's I need to go today, but with this heat? Bleck!!! Much easier to stay inside and read CC! You'll have to let me know your username so I can keep my eye out for you!