Have you ever bit into a piece of a fantastically decorated cake only to be met with the disappointment of a mediocre taste and texture?

Finding fantastic cake recipes can be easy and fun. The key is knowing where to look and what you are looking for. Once you find a promising recipe, make sure you that you follow it to the ‘T.’ The sweet rewards of hearing all those “mmmm’s” and sighs from those you serve it to, is well worth the little extra time spent.

So where to start on your quest for cake recipes that will have your friends and family begging for your “secret” recipe? Visit quality food sites that offer cake recipes or specialize in cakes, such as the Food Network.

A quick search for cake recipes or specific types of cakes will bring you lots from which to choose. Many of these sites include reviews of their cake recipes.

Until you’ve acquired enough knowledge of the chemistry of baking to easily discern a great recipe from a poor one, read those reviews. The more the better.

One thing that the best recipes have in common is that they all call for top quality ingredients.

By top quality we mean an ingredient that is the real thing, rather than a substitute. The ingredients below are all marks of a top-notch cake recipe verses a so-so or even poor cake recipe.

• Butter will be used instead of margarine
• If cream is called for, it will be whipping cream, not a fake whipped cream that comes out of a plastic tub.
• Flavorings, with a few exceptions, will be natural. Extract or zest, for example, will be called for instead of artificial flavoring. Exceptions would include clear vanilla and butter flavors used in Snow White Buttercream.

If you’re having trouble finding an ingredient, shop online at a site such as Wilton Cake Decorating.

Once you’ve found a cake recipe that is a good bet to be a winner, be sure to follow it carefully. If you’re not sure about a term or ingredient, look it up.

Here are a few cake making terms extracted and shortened from our “Cake Decorating Made Easy!” Video Books. First, here’s what one reader had to say:

“If you are new to decorating or an old pro, you’ll learn something new and helpful from these books. They are WONDERFUL!!!”

Thelma G.
Tucson, Arizona

Blend: Combine ingredients until smooth. By hand, 100 strokes usually equals one minute of blending with an electric mixture.

Beat: This is almost the same as blending. The difference is the goal of beating is to aerate, which means vigorous mixing is called for.

Creaming: This step, often the first in a cake recipe, is very important to a cake’s tenderness and levity. It means to beat together ingredients (usually sugar and a fat, such as butter) until a fluffy mixture forms. This process aerates the mixture. How does this work? The sugar granules cut into the fat, which forms air bubbles!

Fold: Folding in a light ingredient such as whisked eggs whites into a heavier mixture is done by gently passing a spatula through the batter, rather than stirring.

Butter: Unless a cake recipe specifies differently allow the butter to reach about room temperature or 65 to 67°F before using. This takes about 15 to 30 minutes for a wrapped, stick of butter. The butter’s ready when gently pressing on the cube with your fingertips leaves imprints.

Most bakers agree the best choice of butter for cake recipes is sweet cream butter or unsalted butter. And never use whipped butter in a cake recipe that calls for butter because whipped butter doesn’t have enough fat.

Now that you’ve got a great start towards finding fantastic cake recipes, you can gather some tips on decorating those cakes from our article, Cake Decorating Ideas.

One more cake recipe tip: While most recipes won’t remind you of this, be sure to use the freshest of ingredients. Check the date on your eggs for example. Better yet, if you can, buy them fresh from an egg farm.

And when you have a choice between say a frozen or freshly picked fruit, opt for the fresh. Using fresh ingredients is a little more time consuming, but worth every extra minute! And they will add your personal signature to any cake recipe.

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Samantha Mitchell, Co-Author
Cake Decorating Made Easy! Vol. 1 & 2
The World’s First Cake Decorating Video Books

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