Wigs…are all these for another of your chocolate fairs?
- Thread starter marilynfl
- Start date
Unfortunately, the Chocolate Fairs are no more because the group holding them disbanded several years ago. Taste of Chocolate was held as an annual fund raiser for the Columbus Service League women's club. (It was based and organized exactly like the national Junior League organizations, but Columbus is too small a town to qualify as an official Junior League.)
All 10 chocolate cakes I recently made were for a local Veteran's Day Recognition reception. I had enough dry chocolate frosting mixes to make 4 Tunnel of Fudge Cakes which need to be baked the day they are served so your fudge tunnel stays soft, and the chocolate doesn't firm up. We had guess-timated on 50-60 attendees; the event started at 1:30 pm.
Because 1) those cakes need to cool in their Bundt pans about 2 hours after baking and before being turned out, and 2) they require additional time to cool to room temperature, or the fudge tunnel is too liquidy and will all run out once you begin slicing, I figured if I started mixing and stirring at 4 or 5 am, I'd be in good shape to bake, cool, load, deliver, unload, slice, plate, garnish and serve. (I did a TON of Web research on the Tunnel Cake recipe since I'd never made it before; that's how I knew the longer cooling time was critical.) THEN our nose count exceeded 100 people--which naturally occurred AFTER it was too late to order and receive more frosting mixes from King Arthur Baking without paying a truckload of overnight shipping costs.
What to do? I could have completely changed to a different dessert, but I'd already purchased the ingredients for the 4 Tunnels plus had chopped up the 8 cups of nuts I needed for those. Because I'd made a Triple Chocolate Cake before, I knew I could make 6 of those the day before the Veteran's event plus they are baked in a Bundt pan so they'd look practically identical to the Tunnel Cakes. I decided to drizzle of a bit of caramel sauce on each slice of ONLY the Triple Chocolate portions, and then with a dollop of whipped cream atop both types of cake and with red, white & blue star sprinkles on top of all the whipped cream, you really couldn't tell there were 2 different cake types being served! Eureka! Things worked out great, and nobody was the wiser--except the caterer. I felt like I had planned and implemented a D-Day Invasion....!
All 10 chocolate cakes I recently made were for a local Veteran's Day Recognition reception. I had enough dry chocolate frosting mixes to make 4 Tunnel of Fudge Cakes which need to be baked the day they are served so your fudge tunnel stays soft, and the chocolate doesn't firm up. We had guess-timated on 50-60 attendees; the event started at 1:30 pm.
Because 1) those cakes need to cool in their Bundt pans about 2 hours after baking and before being turned out, and 2) they require additional time to cool to room temperature, or the fudge tunnel is too liquidy and will all run out once you begin slicing, I figured if I started mixing and stirring at 4 or 5 am, I'd be in good shape to bake, cool, load, deliver, unload, slice, plate, garnish and serve. (I did a TON of Web research on the Tunnel Cake recipe since I'd never made it before; that's how I knew the longer cooling time was critical.) THEN our nose count exceeded 100 people--which naturally occurred AFTER it was too late to order and receive more frosting mixes from King Arthur Baking without paying a truckload of overnight shipping costs.
What to do? I could have completely changed to a different dessert, but I'd already purchased the ingredients for the 4 Tunnels plus had chopped up the 8 cups of nuts I needed for those. Because I'd made a Triple Chocolate Cake before, I knew I could make 6 of those the day before the Veteran's event plus they are baked in a Bundt pan so they'd look practically identical to the Tunnel Cakes. I decided to drizzle of a bit of caramel sauce on each slice of ONLY the Triple Chocolate portions, and then with a dollop of whipped cream atop both types of cake and with red, white & blue star sprinkles on top of all the whipped cream, you really couldn't tell there were 2 different cake types being served! Eureka! Things worked out great, and nobody was the wiser--except the caterer. I felt like I had planned and implemented a D-Day Invasion....!
mariadnoca
Moderator
Wow, good save! 