Cake & Bake Masters, Mexico

[-Daniel-]

This weekend I attended a baking conference here in Mexico City, called Cake & Bake Masters.

They had some fab presentations and demos by world renowned bakers, some competitions, and of course a fair with various suppliers. The highlight was a talk by Buddy Valastro from the show Cake Boss, a really interesting insight into how to make a success of a cake business.

I've posted some pictures from the expo - I am totally NOT a fan of these fancy fondant cakes but I figured most people tend to be really interested.

I am going to try and make this pavlova on the weekend:

 

[Apocalypso]

Looks really interesting! There was just recently a huge cake event here in Orlando, but honestly I couldn't quite make myself pay $40 plus parking and get down to the convention center to see it all in person. Maybe next time.

 

[ChesterV]

Cake conventions.............who woulda thought............................

 

[Norcalbaker59]

Sounded like fun and informative. I’m not a fan of fondant either. But it’s always fun to see what people can do with it.

But I also love the traditional decorating techniques. String work is breathtakingly beautiful. I wish I could take a class in string work.

 

[ninamari]

Wow... that's pretty cool! Thank you for sharing!

Those fondant cakes can be amazing works of art, and some are quite big. I've always wondered if the cake inside is as tasty as the outside is beautiful. I know dowels and supports are used, but still, I imagine the cake has to be somewhat heavy and/or dense.

 

[Norcalbaker59]

Wow... that's pretty cool! Thank you for sharing!

Those fondant cakes can be amazing works of art, and some are quite big. I've always wondered if the cake inside is as tasty as the outside is beautiful. I know dowels and supports are used, but still, I imagine the cake has to be somewhat heavy and/or dense.

Lol. These cakes taste horrible! They are completely inedible. In most competitions tiered cakes don’t even have to be real cake. Competitors can use a dummy tiered cake. But sculpted cakes must be made from cake.

Competition cakes are not judged on taste.

The Oklahoma State Surgar Art Show is the Grand Prix of cake competitions. People come from all over the world to compete in this annual competition.

Yet even at the most prestigious cake show, decorated cakes are judged on appearance only. In fact judges will not even taste a cake in the decorating categories.

They have a separate category for Baked cakes. The cakes in the Baked category are judged for taste.

It’s unfortunate that a lot of cake bakers focus on the aesthetics. People are so concerned with the look of the cake they compromise on the ingredients and methods. My personal feeling about ingredients like shortening is if you are not willing to stick a spoon in a can of Crisco and eat it plain, then you have absolutely no business mixing it with powdered sugar and piping it onto a cake. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve used shortening in a frosting. And even then it was only about 2 - 3 tablespoons to stabilize the buttercream given the cakes was going to be in outdoor temperatures of 80°. I’ve never made an American buttercream because I could never bring myself to serve such to anyone.

 

[-Daniel-]

I agree, I also feel it's really wasteful. I try to use every scrap of ingredients I have and make sure nothing goes to waste.

 

[ninamari]

Totally agree with both of you. Shortening is probably the worst thing that happened to cakes. Don’t get me wrong, I can appreciate a beautifully decorated cake, but if it’s inedible then what’s the point? Just buy a sculpture as the centerpiece and get a tasty, yummy cake!

I hate wasting ingredients as well. I’ve discovered that the freezer is a baker’s best friend!!!

 

[Norcalbaker59]

I think I’m pretty open minded about most ingredients. I have absolutely no objection to using mixes. I’m ok with adding emulsifiers. I use a couple of binding ingredients like modified tapioca starch in my gluten-free baking. But I draw the line at shortening. I can’t comprehend anyone mixing shortening and sugar, then feeding it to anyone – especially to children. Who in their right mind would feed a bowl of straight up shortening to a child? Makes me want to call child protective services

As you can tell, shortening sends me off the deep end

@Ninamari—yes the freezer is indeed the baker’s best friend. When decorating especially, just throw it in the freezer. Frozen seems to make everything work in decorating. I use it to store my mistakes too… Sometimes I can’t bear to just toss out a mistake. Like a test batch of cookie dough that just seems to be missing that some thing to make it good. So I’ll stick it in the freezer. Don’t ask me why. It’s a weird habit of mine. I normally clean my freezer out three times a year. It will end up in the trash eventually.

 

[ninamari]

@Ninamari—yes the freezer is indeed the baker’s best friend. When decorating especially, just throw it in the freezer. Frozen seems to make everything work in decorating. I use it to store my mistakes too… Sometimes I can’t bear to just toss out a mistake. Like a test batch of cookie dough that just seems to be missing that some thing to make it good. So I’ll stick it in the freezer. Don’t ask me why. It’s a weird habit of mine. I normally clean my freezer out three times a year. It will end up in the trash eventually.

That's too funny! We recently got a new fridge, so the older one is in the basement and I am really loving having the extra space. When I did the cake for the Halloween potluck, I baked an extra one that's sitting in the freezer for a rainy day