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Here Comes the Cake!

A Decorating Workshop

with Kim Morrison
March 25, 2006

Fifteen snails and friends interested in the esoteric realm of sugar artistry breezed on out to Spring Mills on a beautiful Saturday afternoon to learn all about it from the Cake Diva herself. Kim Morrison has been featured on the Food Network’s Here Comes the Cake! program that covered the national wedding cake competition in Tulsa, where she has won that grand prize twice in the past. These days she serves as the judge for the competition, guiding the next generation of cake makers through the painstaking details when she is not busy with her Cakes for Occasions home baking business.
After looking at her portfolio with every manner and configuration of tiered cakes and architecturally challenging topsy turvy cakes in the dining room of their vintage Spring Mills home, formerly a general store, Kim and her husband Gil moved us into the bright and airy kitchen, complete with multiple refrigerators, stoves and a commercial dishwasher. Several of the attendees were themselves professional bakers and the questions cut to the nitty gritty very quickly. (“Square cakes—bad!” “Cake for 100, only 3 tiers—no big deal.”) Kim said that she is inspired by NYC cake designer Colette Peters, and that she uses the Cake Bible as her own bible, with the exception of a filling recipe that she got from an old edition of Fannie Farmer’s for French Buttercream.
She had a bare naked Sour Cream Yellow cake at the ready. First, she fashioned some flowers—a calla lily and a rose from gum paste, using a cutter for the rose petal and smoothing down the edge to flute it with a ball tool. When making flowers, thin is the key, she explained, and the petals indeed came to life before our eyes as she expertly shaped them and set them aside to dry. One way she has learned a lot, she confessed, was “when you take an order for something you don’t know how to do and the you learn how to do it.” And, with sympathetic nods from other cake bakers, she gave credit to her carpenter husband for his help in shoring up her tiers with sturdy dowels and for taking on the difficult duty of delivery and set-up person.
Kim’s specialty is buttercream icing in the style of fondant, a method that she created to avoid using the thick fondant that provides such smooth and symmetrical lines to professional cakes—“but it doesn’t taste good!” Her method involves temperature, long beating time to get rid of excess air and a skilled, steady hand during the application. Her tricks of the trade include a ball bearing driven decorating stand, assorted spatulas, paint brushes, food dyes, baking strips, special paper wrapped wire for attaching flowers and a mind boggling assortment of various shaped baking pans in graduated sizes all neatly stacked in cupboards. There were no holds barred—we saw the 50 pound bags of Belgian chocolate that she uses, smelled the sweet aroma of Massey’s Bourbon Madagascar Vanilla and learned that Softasilk rules—along with Domino extra fine (not superfine) sugar.
Kim filled the demo cake with raspberry buttercream, brushed the filled layers with simple syrup (“because nobody wants a dry cake”), and then wielded an enormous slicer to level the cake. (Some of us moaned as she scraped the trimmings into the trash can; I was one.) The leveled cake was further anointed, and then a thin layer of pale pink buttercream was applied to prevent crumbs in the final coating. Once that had set, the buttercream was slathered on and smoothed with a light touch until it was as smooth as marble. White frosting was used to fill a pastry bag and Kim demonstrated various techniques as garlands encircled the cake and little decorations were doodled over the top to illustrate various options. The gum paste flowers were colored and attached securely, as well as a real rose, that was placed in a plastic vial first. It was indeed a work of art that came to life before our eyes.
But the best was yet to come. After demonstrating the proper way of cutting a large round cake into manageable pieces, we got to eat it! It was a delicious treat, with a sweet butter flavor and light, creamy frosting, truly a cake that feeds the soul with its beauty and sense of occasion.
Thanks, Kim! Thanks, Gil! for sharing your home and your artistry with us all.

Kim's Sour Cream Yellow Cake
This versatile cake has been the basis of many wedding cakes.

Preheat oven to 350° F. Prep two 9" cake pans. Grease and flour the sides. Grease the bottoms and line with waxed paper or parchment paper.

4 cups sifted cake flour
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda

Place dry ingredients in the mixer bowl and stir to combine - 1 minute.

1 1/3 cup sour cream
3/4 pound (12 oz.) butter
1 tablespoon real vanilla extract

Add the wet ingredients to the mixer and beat for 2 minutes.

1 egg plus enough egg yolks to equal one half cup

Add the eggs to the batter in thirds, beating for 30 seconds between each addition.

Scrape batter into the prepared pans and bake at 350° F for 35 to 45
minutes, or until cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean.
Cool in pans for 10 minutes, then turn out onto wire cooling rack until cool.

Simple Syrup (enough for several cakes):
1 cup water
one half cup sugar
Boil together for 1 minute and cool.
Add 1 teaspoon real vanilla or 2 tablepoons of liquor (such as Frangelico)
Brush the cakes lightly with the syrup and chill them before filling and frosting.

Fill, frost and decorate as needed. Dark chocolate glaze or vanilla butter cream frosting work equally well. For a seasonal treat, serve them warm with a warm apple compote inside and on top.

Tentative Agenda for Slow Food Central PA, 2006

Mid-January—chai workshop in the foods lab
Late February—maple syrup workshop at Mark Ott’s sugar house in Howard, PA
March—Kim Morrison’s Cakes for Occasions workshop
April—possible screening of “The Future of Food” if available
May—tour of Bullfrog brewery in Williamsport
Thursday, June 8—Slow Food film fest at the Starlite drive in (if the facility hasn’t sold)
Monday, July 10—PA-Women’s Ag Network field day tour
August—local foods week activities TBA
Friday, September 22—Shade Mountain Winery Tour
Friday, October 22—annual cider press
November—planning session, location TBA
Friday, December 1—Fruitcake workshop

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