American Baker in Germany

I used to live in Colorado. 6000 feet. Definitely high altitudes. But what do you need to check, if you live at high altitudes? And why does that affect your baking? First of all, what is high altitude and why does it make a difference in baking? High altitude is defined as above 3000 feet or 1000 meters. At that high of an altitude, the air is less dense, with fewer molecules, and the air pressure is lower. Those are the biggest two factors that affect baking. When making breads with yeast, because of the low air pressure, the bubbles in the yeast rise to the surface faster than they will at low altitudes. So, you will need less proofing time. Most yeast recipes require an hour of proofing time, or until dough is doubled. Watch your dough. It will be done raising when doubled in size. You probably won’t need an hour. Temperature! Why would you need a different temperature? Well, because there are fewer air molecules floating around, the heat doesn’t travel through the air as effic...

 Okay, I didn't use real ice cream. But it's supposed to look like ice cream. I started out making cakesicles. What are cakesicles? They're similar to cake pops, but in the form of an ice cream bar. I took cake crumbs. This is carrot cake. And pressed them into an ice cream bar form, added a stick, and put them in the freezer for about 15 minutes. Then I melted some milk chocolate. Dipped the cakesicles in the chocolate and laid them on a piece of parchment paper and added some sprinkles. Then, I frosted a 6-inch cake dummy with vegan American buttercream. Then I made some dark chocolate ganache. And put it in a piping bag without a tip. And I filled a bag with white buttercream with an open star tip. I piped a drip around the edge of the cake and added some ganache on top of the cake as well. And spread it around. I added the cakesicle on top. And sprinkles some sprinkles around the top. You could, of course, stop here. It's gorgeous. But, I wasn't ready to be done...

 Once again, I know my limitations in the area of sculpting. Templates are the way to go if you have a similar weakness. First off, my template: I cut out the template and cut the same shape out of flesh-colored fondant. I pressed the lines from the template into the fondant and deepen the lines with a pointed sculpting tool. Then I cut out the brown parts and the eyes. I added the brown back in by tracing the template in the same way. I also added two balls of white to the eyes and placed all the pieces on a green background. And I added some texture lines to Tarzan's hair. Then I painted some pale brown edible paint into the shading on the face and body. Undiluted brown to the eyebrows, black to the eyes and brown mixed with red to the mouth. Quite recognizable as Tarzan. Adorable. Watch us make this Tarzan topper on our YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/8loQCdlcaM0 Schaut zu wie wir diesen Tarzan Aufsatz auf unserem YouTube kanal machen hier: https://youtu.be/3yjYhsdj124

 Most of my followers of American Baker in Germany won't know that I actually have a Master's Degree in Mathematics. And I have noticed that most math-themed cakes contain what I consider 9th grade math, which is fine if that's what you want, but if you want to make a college-level math-themed cake, I'm here for you. I start out with a frosted half-sheet cake, because we're going to want lots of space to write our formulas on it. I started out with Fermat's Last Theorem. The upside-down A means for all. It just makes it shorter to write. I'm using these store-bought writing tubes, which I regretted using because they seriously hurt my hands with the amount of pressure I had to use to get it out. This is Euler's identity. It connects five of the most significant numbers in the world. e, i, pi, 1 and 0. This is the Wallis product. This is one of the definitions of the exponential function. I never pass up a chance to use factorial. This is the fundamental ...