Wedding Cake Recipes Sweeter Than Sweet - Cheap Wedding Cake Mixes & Tasty Ingredient Ideas

How important is the wedding cake. I am afraid I can't answer this, however if we stay with tradition then it's essential to have a wedding cake if it is a perfect wedding you desire. And isn't this what every bride-to-be wants "perfection." If you've asked this question because you're not fond of the ingredients included in a traditional wedding cake then you don't have to have them. Wedding cakes can be tailor designed around your wants with ingredients and decoration of your own personal choosing.

For the perfect wedding add a wedding cake to your wedding to-do-list.

\"Cake Recipes\"

Preferences for wedding cakes will differ, as they do with wedding dresses, wedding music, wedding locations and wedding guests because people have different likes and dislikes. Nonetheless in most cases the bride and groom always get what they want. The cake is the main focus of the wedding reception making a fabulous centerpiece. Choosing the right wedding cake is important for guests that have a sweet tooth because their focus will be on the cake at all times.

Wedding Cake Recipes Sweeter Than Sweet - Cheap Wedding Cake Mixes & Tasty Ingredient Ideas

There is more to choosing a wedding cake than just pointing to a picture and agreeing that is what you want. Things need to be considered that are often overlooked like the color of the icing and cake design to match your wedding gown or theme. The ingredients used to bake the cake are also very important indeed; after all we have a lot of people to please.

Make light work of choosing your wedding cake and follow the tips listed below. With this daunting prospect in mind, let us make your wedding cake planning less of a hassle.

First of all you need to be aware there is more than just taste and color of your cake to consider. Planning a wedding on a budget can cause issues regarding the cake but you shouldn't let this worry you. Cheap is just as tasty as expensive, and just as pretty too.

Before planning gets underway sit down with your partner and ask yourselves.

How much money your prepared to spend on your wedding cake, or if you`re counting the pennies then what type of cake you can afford?

The cake is to feed the mouths of many so plan the size of the cake around how many guests you're likely to invite.
Doing the above will save you money. Too much cake is a waste if you go for big. The type of wedding cake you can realistically have should be determined on the pointers mentioned above.

Choosing a wedding cake should have you think "shape, color, ingredients and decoration.

A great place to start for ideas on cake appearance is to browse pictures in magazines, books and wedding cake websites. Visit the bakery and see the real thing. This will give you the opportunity to talk about your desired cake.

It helps if you know the reason for wanting a wedding cake. Is it to use as a piece of eye candy. If so concentrate on design and prettiness.

If it's for hundreds of guests to feed on? Then size of the cake is important.

Do you want the wedding cake to match your color scheme, if so speak with the baker in advance so he/she can advise on what will work and ideally suited to your request?

In the world of wedding cakes decorations come in vast variety. Cake accessories like ribbons, flowers, wedding cake toppers, edible rosebuds to candles are a few to mention.

Most "essential" in any wedding cake is the flavor. You can have the loveliest creation made but what's the point of pretty without taste, it doesn't' make sense and neither does it make good eating. Traditionally wedding cake filling is fruit. But if you prefer chocolate as your selected flavor then there's no reason why you and your guests can't have chocolate.

Out with tradition to make way for new scrumptious wedding cake flavors eaten at weddings. The white wedding cake with white butter-cream icing is not as common as it was judging by modern day weddings.

Remember this is your day and your cake.

Cheesecake goes down well. It's an ideal choice for the not so grand wedding, but is fabulously appropriate and cheap for a small wedding. Meringues, baked Alaska, fruitcakes, chocolate cake, and angel food cake are also increasingly popular.

You never see a guest turn their nose up at carrot cake, is it because it's moist and spicy? Carrot cake is usually based on oil instead of butter. If you're not a lover of raisins you don't have to add them. Swap with pecans or walnuts. If you're doing your own decorating then cream over with white icing adding pecans here and there with other edible cake decorations.

Pumpkin cake another favored sweet confectionery. Decorate pumpkin cake with cranberry and greenery. At its best when iced with cranberry butter cream.

Chocolate-Raspberry - a yummy chocolate cake with a raspberry filling. Icing is chocolate butter cream. The cherry on the cake for the chocolate-raspberry (excuse the pun) is to pipe cream with chocolate curls and decorate with edible floral cake accessories. Pressed and crystallized flowers are fabulous cake decorations.

Do you think your guests will fancy a slice of coconut cream pound cake, if so do them a favor and serve up this cake because a little of what you fancy does you good.

Coconut Cream Pound Cake Recipe

Ingredients

225 g softened butter
224 g softened cream cheese
600 g white sugar
Half a dozen eggs
5 ml coconut extract
375 g all-purpose flour
2 g baking powder
150 g coconut flakes
Baking Instructions

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Grease and flour a 10 inch tube pan.

Cream the butter and cream cheese until thoroughly blended. Add sugar and whisk to light fluffy texture. Add 1 egg at a time and whisk followed by coconut extract. Pour flour and baking powder in until lightly moistened, then the coconut. Mix is ready for the baking pan.

Bake for 1 hour and 20 minutes. Allow to cool for 10 minutes before moving.

Another cake simple to make and goes down well with wedding guest and their gullets to is the (Easy Light Fruitcake.)

Ingredients
455 g candied cherries, halved
5 candied pineapple rings, finely minced
870 g golden raisins
360 g candied mixed fruit peel
170 g almonds
125 g all-purpose flour
455 g softened butter or margarine
400 g white sugar
Half a dozen eggs
5 ml vanilla extract
60 ml orange juice
625 g all-purpose flour
9 g baking powder
3 g salt
6 split almonds
Baking Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 275 degrees F (135 degrees C). Line the bottom and sides of two greased 9 x 5 x 3 inch loaf pans, and 1 round 4 1/2 inch x 3 inch deep pan with brown paper. Grease the paper.

2. Mix cherries, minced pineapple pieces, raisins, mixed peel, 1 cup pecans, and 1 cup flour in a basin. Blend all ingredients until fully coated with flour and stand to aside

3. Using a separate bowl, cream the butter/margarine and sugar. Whisk in 1 egg at a time. Add orange juice and vanilla and stir. Take 5 cups flour, your baking powder and salt and add to creamy mixture. Add floured fruit and nuts. Carefully pour mix into baking pans. Fill each pan 3/4 full. Add split almonds over the top.

4. Usual baking time 3 hours. Pierce cake with a toothpick and if done the toothpick comes out clean. If the top of your cake darkens before the sides cover with foil.

My suggestion: plain sponge. Nearly every cake base is sponge mix. If a person says they don't like a particular cake, it means they're not fond of certain ingredients used to fancy up and flavor. Keeping it plain allowing your guest to choose their own fillings, is the key. Fill glass bowls with a variety of flavored fillings (chocolate sauce, custard, jelly, and butter cream, raisins, mixed fruit, syrup, treacle and different flavored jams and fruit sauces? Do this and your guests won't have to wait for you to turn your back before spitting out cake chosen by you.

Wedding Cake Recipes Sweeter Than Sweet - Cheap Wedding Cake Mixes & Tasty Ingredient Ideas

Want to sweeten the guests up with Wedding Cakes or just looking to have the perfect Wedding

Bundt Cake Baking Tips

Bundt cake recipes are cake recipes that use a "bundt" cake pan or a round baking pan that with a hole in the middle and ridged, decorated sides. Bundt cake recipes use a dense cake such as a butter or pound cake recipe. These cakes are sturdy and last well. Recipes often call for a simple glaze or fruit topping. The name Bundt comes from the German word bund, which means "a gathering of people."

Bundt cake recipes have grown in popularity since 1966 when a "Tunnel of Fudge" cake recipe used a bundt pan to win second place at a Pillsbury sponsored baking contest. Bundt cake recipes have since been quite popular and bundt cake pan sales have increased.

\"Cake Recipes\"

Because bundt cakes are baked in these intricate pans, there can be mishaps when turning the pan upside down and separating the cake from the pan, ruining a wonderful cake. These mishaps can be avoided by following a few simple steps.

Bundt Cake Baking Tips

In order to stop your bundt cake from sticking when you turn it upside down you must prepare the pan by brushing it with vegetable shortening and a dusting of flour, alternatively use a non-stick spray with flour, stay away from sprays that contain lecithin as is will leave a residue. If you use the first method, tap the pan lightly over the sink to get rid of surplus flour.

You want the structure of your cake to be consistent throughout so you must avoid trapping air bubbles in the batter. This can be done by pouring the batter slowly, allowing it to fill the crevices of the bundt pan. It is prudent to only fill the pan ¾ of the way to allow the batter to rise. Use a spatula to press batter into the detailed walls of the bundt pan. Lightly wobbling the filled pan and tapping it against the counter will allow any remaining air bubbles to escape.

The cake should be placed in the center of the oven to allow for air circulation and even cooking. If the pan is dark colored it will absorb heat more quickly and the cooking temperature should be reduced 25 degrees fahrenheit from what the recipe calls for.

Once the cake has finished baking the correct time, let it cool for 10 minutes. If you turn the cake over now and it is stuck to the pan it may break so be sure to wobble the pan to indicate if it is loose. The cake should move freely from side to side letting you know it is ready to turn over. If the cake is sticking around the sides use a butter knife to gently pry the cake from the sides. Then turn the pan over on to a cooling rack and allow to fully cool.

While the cake is cooling sprinkle powdered sugar or pour your glaze on top.

Bundt Cake Baking Tips

Leona runs a small cake business and has been baking for over 30 years. She has published a number of bundt cake recipes at bundt-cake.com.

Holiday Baking - Gumdrop Cake Recipes Worth Making

Now that the Holiday countdown has begun, our thoughts have turned to buying presents, pulling out the decorations and lights, making lists for our upcoming parties, and to Holiday baking.

My mother loved baking for the holiday season; when I was growing up, she started early in the fall, making light and dark fruitcakes that she prepared, steamed and baked then wrapped in aluminum foil before placing in ceramic crocks for six weeks or more, to allow the variety of flavours to meld together.

\"Cake Recipes\"

These days most of us don't have time to bake cakes that take hours to prepare and six weeks or more of maturing to be flavourful; I have mom's small, medium and large fruitcake pans with their removable bottoms but confess that I have never made fruit cake. But I have made many other recipes of hers, such as her Gumdrop Cake; this cake is a delicious choice for today's busy cook who still wants to serve special treats to family and friends during the holiday season. For those who like raisins, I'm also including a Gumdrop Cake recipe that not only uses this fruit for added flavour but also uses applesauce to replace the milk found in most cake recipes.

Holiday Baking - Gumdrop Cake Recipes Worth Making

If you're beginning your search for recipes to make this Holiday season jolly, please come back often to check out the cakes, cookies, squares, breads and other treats I'll be publishing in the upcoming weeks. Who knows, you may just find new 'family favourites' of your own that one day you'll want to pass on to your loved ones.

Mom's Gumdrop Cake

1 cup shortening

2 cups white sugar

4 eggs (drop one at a time and beat well before adding the next one)

1 cup warm milk

3 cups flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. vanilla

1 tsp. lemon

1 ½ lbs. gumdrops cut into chunks and floured with ½ cup flour.

Method

Cream shortening and sugar together. Add eggs one at a time, beating well each time. Add liquid and dry ingredients alternately. Add floured gumdrops last. Spoon batter into a greased and lined tube pan. Bake 1 ½ - 2 hours at 350°F oven; cover with foil for first ½ hour. When cake is done, remove from oven and cool for 10 minutes in pan before turning out onto wired rack to cool completely. Wrap cake in plastic wrap or aluminum foil to retain moisture.

Flora's Gumdrop Cake

1 cup butter

1 cup white sugar

2 eggs

2 cups applesauce

2 ½ cups flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. almond flavouring

1 tsp. vanilla

1 lb. gumdrops

1 lb. raisins

Method

Cream butter and sugar together. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each one. Add applesauce and dry ingredients alternately. Cut gumdrops into chunks. Mix together with raisins and ½ cup flour. Add to batter last. Spoon batter into greased and lined funnel pan (tube pan), and bake in 350°F oven for 2 - 2 ½ hours. Cool for 10 minutes in pan before turning out onto wire rack to cool completely.

Holiday Baking - Gumdrop Cake Recipes Worth Making

©2009 Sylvia Morice. Sylvia Morice is an instructional designer and facilitator. She designs curriculum and workshops for a corporation, and writes fiction and non-fiction in her personal time. Sylvia has had prose and poetry published in literary magazines and periodicals, and has had one chapbook of short stories published. Sylvia invites you to find more recipes, memories and articles at: http://sylviamorice.wordpress.com Thank you for reading.

Coffee Cake Recipes

Mention coffee cake and images of Grandma's house sitting around the table with a fresh baked streusel cake and lots of family chatter. It's doubtful that many of the cakes considered coffee cake today actually contain coffee. Some recipes do and some don't. Many consider a crumb cake served with coffee a coffee cake while others insist that the recipe contain coffee to be considered a coffee cake.

History

\"Cake Recipes\"

The coffee cake as it is today is an evolution across time and continents. Cakes have been being baked since the Biblical days of honey cakes. Next came what is known as the fruitcake, a culinary invention of the French known as galettes. These same galettes led to sweetened yeast breads or rolls which finally evolved into Danish coffee cakes that were made with coffee.

Coffee Cake Recipes

As time progressed and recipes changed and were handed down there were inevitable alterations. Perhaps more coffee was added or even taken out all together. By the time the late 1800's rolled around the coffee cake was a household name in America with countless numbers of recipes and variations with most being either streusel, crumb or streusel-crumb combination.

Today's coffee cake hasn't changed that much from those of the late 1800's. The recipes have been changed and there are literally thousands of variations, but overall, it is still either a crumb cake or a streusel cake or some combination. Add pot of piping hot coffee and no one really cares what it's called.

Following are two recipes for simple yet scrumptious coffee cakes. Bake one up and gather the family together and swap stories while enjoying great food and even greater company.

Simply Cinnamon Coffee Cake

* 1 cup sugar
* 2 eggs
* 2 cups all-purpose flour
* 2 teaspoons baking powder
* Dash of salt
* ¼ cup butter
* ¼ cup shortening
* 1 small can evaporated milk
Topping
* 1 teaspoon cinnamon
* ½ cup sugar, mixed with the cinnamon
* ¼ cup chopped pecans or walnuts, if desired

In a large bowl, cream shortening and sugar. Add eggs, flour, baking powder, salt, and milk. Pour half of batter into greased 8x8 inch pan. Sprinkle with half the cinnamon and sugar mixture. Pour remaining batter into pan and sprinkle with the other half of the cinnamon and sugar mixture. Add chopped nuts, if desired. Bake in 350-degree oven for one hour or until toothpick inserted near center comes out clean. Serves 10-12.

Chocolate Swirl Coffee Cake

* 1 cup sugar
* 2 cups all-purpose flour
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 2 teaspoons baking powder
* ½ teaspoon salt
* 3 eggs
* 1 cup sour cream
* 2 teaspoons vanilla
* ¼ pound butter
* 1 small can or bottle chocolate syrup

Topping

* 1 teaspoon cinnamon
* ½ cup sugar, mixed with the cinnamon

In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time, stirring until fully blended. Combine dry ingredients and add to creamed mixture alternately with sour cream. Add vanilla and blend until smooth. Pour mixture into greased 8x12 inch pan. Cut chocolate syrup into batter in pan (using knife to cut into a decorative pattern). Sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar topping. Bake in 375-degree oven for 35 minutes. Serves 10-12.

Coffee Cake Recipes

Katya Coen provides coffee cake recipes shown on Coffee Info Sites - your guide to quality coffee related sites!