Let’s talk side hustles. As a working culinarian, oftentimes you are met with a schedule that is outside of the 9-5 binary which often affords you to take on some extra money-earning gigs. I particularly enjoy a side hustle because:
- It keeps me busy and off the streets (the streets being my phone)
- It lines my pockets with a little extra change that I can spend on a coffee and scone next door at Geraldine’s before teaching a class.
- Gives me some other experiences in the outside world that make me a better teacher at The Chopping Block!
As you may remember from a previous blog of mine, I have been keeping my oven busy by making cakes for friends. Then the brilliant idea hit me: what if I monetize this hobby? So I was off to Instagram to advertise that I was looking for clients who would be interested in paying me to make them a cake. Luckily, my first offer was a friend so I knew if I messed up, the pressure would be low.
And boy oh boy, did I need that pressure to be low because the specs on the project were a little daunting for my first swing at bat. I was asked to create a gluten-free, dairy-free cake that could serve 20-30 people, and it had to be themed around the hit film Twilight. Let’s all take a moment to have a deep cleansing breath. Is everyone good? Great, let's continue.
Honestly, the gluten free part wasn’t incredibly daunting to me. I used this fabulous recipe from King Arthur Baking Company for an Olive Oil Chiffon. The cake was light and fluffy as a chiffon cake should be. I just added a teaspoon of vanilla to the recipe to really make the sweetness sing. My biggest concern with this operation was dairy-free buttercream. A buttercream without butter is like pancakes without syrup - bland and disappointing. But let’s stop complaining and get to problem solving. Off we go to the world wide web for research.
Allow me to plead my case for Reddit in the name of culinary questions. Sure, the internet is a scary place, but I’d much rather type in a baking question to Reddit and see answers vetted by people also curious about that information rather than asking AI to come up with some cockamamie answer based on made up nonsense. A user on Reddit suggested making a classic American style buttercream using Crisco “butter” sticks - which is essentially margarine- with powdered sugar, salt and vanilla. And wouldn’t you know, it worked like a charm. It certainly wasn’t buttercream but it was pretty darn close.
Now onto the Twilight of it all. While I do love cinema, I must admit I was unfamiliar with the rich text that was the vampire romance franchise. I had seen one or two of the films when they first hit theatres but needed a refresher so I watched the first film. What a fun little romp! It really had it all - glitter, blood, heavy use of blue and green overtones. So naturally, I decorated the cake using blue and green gradient shading, glitter, and of course, blood. Once my cakes were baked and cooled, I cut them into circles in two sizes for both tiers of the cake. I then layered and filled them with a berry compote with a little red dye in it to make it look bloody and let them freeze overnight so I would have a sturdy base for frosting.
The next day, I stacked the cakes and added a few plastic straws for support. Once they were stacked I laid down a crumb coat layer of frosting to get clean coverage of my cake.
After this layer, I mixed up some pale blue and green frosting and dotted that along the cake and used a flexible scraper to create a gradient effect.
Finally, I added some edible luster dust to the cake to make her really sparkle and brought it to my clients home so I could add the blood and finishing touches.
It was a hit! My client raved saying that people who first heard the cake was gluten and dairy free were initially perturbed but were pleasantly surprised by the flavor. A success!
While we don’t have a cake decorating class coming up in the next few weeks, we do have something that will get you thinking more about baking and pastry. Our Chocolate Boot Camp offers a really exciting look into the world of sugar, pastry and chocolate, of course. Truly a worthwhile adventure for any home baker. While you’re here, also be sure to check out Karen’s cake decorating tips. Anything coming out of her kitchen is simply breathtaking!
