Cake Cutting Tip

Let me start by saying I did not have my usual SLR camera for these photos, so forgive the bad lighting and weird colors. Sometimes a girl just doesn’t want to be weighed down by a big camera at a party, ya know!

I went to a graduation party where there was a beautifully made cake to celebrate my step-niece’s high school graduation.  I was handed this plate with a perfectly cut piece of cake on it that looked like it was from a wedding reception.  I walked into the kitchen and this is what I found on the table.

It took me a while to understand what I was seeing.  I then realized that my step-brother who brought the cake, cut it the professional way.  This is the way to cut a large round cake and he mentioned that is how wedding cakes are cut too.

So you first cut a smaller circle in the middle and then the slices are a a manageable size.  This also helps with the falling cake issue when you are cutting a multi-layered cake…………..genius!!

Now, I just want to bake a 4-layered cake just so I can cut it this way.

Here is the perfectly cut piece of cake.  Now you can go to any wedding and be confident you’ll be able to cut a beautiful slice of cake!!

Keep Store-Bought Herbs Fresh

Have you ever bought a big bunch of basil in the plastic container, used a couple of leaves and the rest turned brown and limp and then you end up throwing it all away?  Yeah me too…………until now!

Basil does best at room temperature, not in the refrigerator.  I treat them like fresh flowers and trim the stem just a bit and place them in a glass of water on my counter top.  This glass of basil started out limp and lifeless.  After about a day in the glass each leaf crisped up and looks fresh again.  This is a great way to prolong the life of your basil.  Give it a try!

I love buying green onion because I know that I will get about 3-4 more uses out of each stem.  Cut off and use only the green parts of the onion and put the stem in a glass of water.  The green leaves will continue to grow to full size!

Talk about getting your money’s worth, huh?

Make sure to change the water every few days, when it gets murky.  Enjoy watching your onions grow!

Always Use Your Leftovers

This dessert might look to you like a huge red velvet whoopie pie, but it’s actually the leftovers from a red velvet cake I made.

I’ve mentioned several times now that I am Chinese and was raised with very strong convictions about the wasting of food.  In our house, it just didn’t happen.  The only thing that was allowed to be thrown out from our dinner table were bones and fish skulls, with all the meat eaten off of course.

I take this same discipline of frugality to my baking.

 

 

This is the cake from my red velvet cake to-go post.

 

 

These are the tops that were lopped off of the cakes.

I love my cake layer cutter (on the left).  Cuts the cakes nice and evenly.

 

 

With a bit of leftover cream cheese frosting, I was able to make a dessert for my family that night.

This also served as a great distraction, because my kids were salivating over the cake I made and of course couldn’t have because it was for a friend’s birthday.  This leftover creation kept them at bay long enough for me to slip the cake out of the room undetected.