Helping Aspiring Bakers Everywhere With Online Cakes

Watch all the cooking competitions, but if your own secret (or not-so-secret) are aspirations to being a great cook or baker, tuning into the following can only help. 

Image by jwalsh via Flickr

Some of us watched “The Great Australian Bake Off” in rapt attention because we are sweet demons. Some of us may have been accused of salivating in front of the screen in the way a teenage boy looks at Margot Robbie or a teenage girl looks at Liam Hemsworth. Nonetheless, all we can imagine is sampling the delights. Then again, there are those who tune into TGABO and other cooking competitions because they adore the drama, the emotional outbursts, the…epic fails.

But there’s a strong minority of viewers whose emotions and intentions are geared more towards their own spirit of the game. Meaning, sure, you’re happy Nancy Ho and her 22-year-old self and her signature white chocolate mud cake with sour cream and white chocolate ganache won the whole kit and caboodle. But there’s a side of you, one that you might not want to voice, for fear of reprisal: you know you could do well on the show. You’re not entirely sure you’d win (that’s a whole combination of elements, all falling into rightful places), but you would be a fierce competitor. If you could just get a little help to prep you… luckily, there are well-established and highly regarded services like Planet Cake offering online cakes Sydney and world-wide (all you need is the Internet) with courses that will push you towards your goal of master baker.

Get motivated by keeping up with the best and brightest Australian television has to offer chefs, cooks and bakers – and anyone who just likes a good TV show. Here are some shows you must tune into:

MasterChef Australia

We couldn’t write about TV cooking shows/cooking competitions without mentioning the juggernaut that is MasterChef. Since it first aired in 2009, the Logie Award-winning series captivated Aussies everywhere. And, in the interest of transparency, it elevated the original inspiration, Britain’s MasterChef.  When a “mere” I.T. office manager (38-year-old Julie Goodwin) won the first seasons, audiences were addicted. The drama only increased when second-season winner Adam Liaw took the prize over next-best competitor Callum by the tiny margin of seven points! Four more seasons only garnered more viewers. The second series final became the third-highest rated show of all time. The show was so profoundly successful that it sparked spin-off fever (“Celebrity MasterChef Australia,” “Junior MasterChef Australia,” “MasterChef Australia All-Stars,” and “MasterChef Australia: The Professionals.”)

Planet Cake TV

No matter how many steps your favourite on-air baker or chef goes through on one of their television shows, you’ re going to need better and more thorough directions. That’s where Planet Cake TV comes in. The online cake decorating school allows anyone who has Internet the opportunity to bake and decorate like a professional. Planet Cake has the distinction of its uniquely decorated cakes, so this is definitely a situation where they know what their doing. Subscriptions are available monthly and annually and members have access to all Planet Cake TV courses and the new tutorials, which debut monthly.

My Kitchen Rules

What can we say? We love a good cooking competition show and “My Kitchen Rules” certainly qualifies. We love the “grace-under-pressure” moments, especially “Rapid Cook-Off,” “Showdown” and “Sudden Death,” because if you’re rooting for a chef, and as the time seems to speed up, it’s effectively emotional and stressful. At my house, we refer to the series as “Amazing Race in the Kitchen.”  The “Video Diary” is dubbed “Top Model in the Kitchen.” The results (food cooked) on “My Kitchen Rules” are consistently out-of-the-box and are interesting and lively. Yes, the show has borrowed from others, but they borrowed the best and the show is very strong.

Given the success of the aforementioned series, it’s likely you’re already watching these shows. If not, it’s definitely the right time to try it out. You’ll feel honoured and supported.

I love Paula Deen

As an amateur chef, I like to watch cooking shows. I admire  some of the famous chefs. I really look up to Paula Deen. I love that she is so down to earth and seems really sweet. I totally love her story and how she went though a lot. She started by making sack lunches and selling them. It may be that she is a single mom like I am. She started out with nothing but determination and turned in to one of most recognizable faces and voices in America.  She is truly an inspirational woman.

I am a sucker for southern cooking too. Growing up one of my best friends lived in North Carolina so I embraced everything southern especially the food. I used to try and talk with a southern accent horribly. I remember that  we used to visit our friends and had delicious southern feasts.  Usually their neighbors would also cook too and it would be a pitch in meal that we enjoyed after sitting in chairs on the lawn or on the deck.

When I started watching Paula Deen, I really loved her style and thought she had great tools to work with. I was extremely excited when I learned she has her own line of kitchen accessories. I immediately fell in love with her line and just had to have everything. I love that it really shows off her southern charm. I love how classic everything is. Everything is amazing quality too. It would last a long time. Every cook needs a few things that have a history and that are aged and well loved.

I believe you can never have too many measuring cups or measuring spoons. I have an extensive collection of kitchen tools that I use often. I love to bake and cook different dishes at the same time and it is easier for me to just grab another item than take the time to wash and dry it, just to use it again.  I know in theory that makes more dishes to clean up later, but I just put everything in the dishwasher.  Another reason to have extra sets on hand because you can lose them. I have many measuring cups but only a couple fourth of a cups or a bunch of teaspoons.  Noah has been known to walk off with something and it never is found again. It gets lost somewhere in a toy box or thrown in the trash. It is essential to have a full set of kitchen tools. I have also lost them in moving over the years. I lost a spatula once that was never found even after we packed everything.

I would love to go to The Lady and Sons restaurant in Savannah someday. My sister and brother in law have been there a few times and really like it.  I think the next time we visit my sister and  brother in law i will see if we can go to Savannah.  It sounds like such a cool place to visit with lots of shops and history. Maybe we can even find out where Paula Deen lives and knock on her front door.  A girl can dream can't she? I would love to meet Paula Deen. Maybe someday I will. 

What are your most used kitchen tools? Do you have multiples of the same items too?

This post is inspired by BlogDash. All thoughts and opinions are my own. 

I Will Never Have My Own Cooking Show

I used to want to have my own cooking show.  Imagine me an eight or nine year old little girl in my kitchen talking to the imaginary camera, while I was cooking. It was really cute and I wish it was really videotaped because I am sure it was hilarious.  It was long before Food Network and most cooking shows. Those were mostly shown on Sunday mornings on channels like PBS.  I knew a woman who had her own cooking show on a local station in North Carolina. I wanted to have my own show someday.  When Food Network started I was in love and dreamed someday I would be on there too.  Eventually, I realized it wasn’t going to happen. It wasn’t because I was not going to be discovered.  It is not I am not an awesome cook, because anyone who has tasted my cooking knows otherwise.  The real reason is because I am not an exotic chef. I don’t want to make half the food those chefs make. I would never touch lamb anything. I don’t like baby arugula or curry or anything like that. I would be a very simple chef that makes food that real people like.  There isn’t really a market for that.

I would love to be on a cupcake show or a challenge show but, really I wouldn’t use any of those weird fancy ingredients that make me gag at the thought of not only putting them in a cupcake let alone in my mouth period.  I wouldn’t win because they judge on eccentric ingredients. I can hear Kerry Vincent saying in her British accent, your cupcakes are a bit plain and unordinary, I expected a bit more of you. My philosophy is that food doesn’t have to be full of weird and expensive ingredients to taste good.   Have you ever tried to make some of those recipes? Most of the ones I would eat have really expensive ingredients.  Especially spices, who wants to spend sixteen dollars to buy a jar of organic Bolivian green sweet pepper flakes for one teaspoon? I don’t really. 

One thing I fell in love with when I was visiting my aunt and uncle was that the grocery store they shop at sells spices in bulk so, in that instance you could get just as much as you need, but not many places do that.  That is how I ended up flying home with 2 pounds of Cumin.  I made sure I labeled it a bunch because my uncle told me that it looked like gun powder.  This is the same uncle who told me they were going to think I was the Unabomber because I had his old Montana license plates in my suitcase from another trip out there.  He likes to pick on me as I am the baby of the family. Anyways, I would have things like fried potatoes, meatloaf, taco bake things that are easy to make and not something you have to spend a week in Morocco to eat. It would be all classic things that wouldn’t make you poor by  making them. When I watch cooking shows I think well you didn’t have to actually pay for your ingredients and you got them from a giant warehouse where you can have access to the finest everything.  I just once want to see one of the products not be perfect, like a bruised fruit or something a little moldy.  Not that they would have to cook with it, they could get a new one, but make it like real life.  I am sure we have all had a bruised fruit or something that went a little bad at least once.

I have also noticed those thirty minute meals never take thirty minutes.  Most people are not really fast choppers or have little distractions otherwise known as our children who constantly need something or throw paper airplanes in the kitchen doing something to distract us.  Normal people do not have Rachael Ray’s super power of being able to carry twelve things at once.  She must practice because she never drops anything. I think she is part octopus, really I do. If they really took thirty minutes, you spend at least twice as long cleaning up and doing the dishes.  I don’t really get the idea of a garbage bowl, its just one more thing that has to be washed. Pull up the trashcan next to you. Everyone owns a trash can right? It’s cheaper and it eliminates the two extra steps.  So, don’t expect to see my bright and shiny face on a cooking show anytime soon.  I don’t have a broad enough palate for it.