Taking stock of your options in .NET

Printer Code 128 Code Set A in .NET Taking stock of your options

Mull over the various ways you can design your cake based on your inspiration Depending on the time you have and your eagerness to explore, you may want to pull out a pad of paper and sketch out a few of the ideas you have in mind

You may want to ease into your design For instance, if your original plan of building a pirate ship cake from scratch seems overwhelming, don t be afraid to step back and take a simpler approach Consider your skill set before committing to a cake design Cake decorating should be an enjoyable, continuing activity not one that you immediately abandon after a frustrating first go To that end, realize that every design or the thought of a design carries a multitude of choices; be open to all possibilities For example, rather than build a pirate ship out of cake, you could draw one on the cake s surface and fill in the ship s spaces with crushed candies If drawing the pirate ship on the cake seems too daunting, find a toy pirate ship or a cake topper set of pirate paraphernalia and pipe waves of blue frosting around it After you come up with the perfect design, make a rough sketch of it Don t worry if you weren t an art major or think you can t draw; you can sketch just fine for cake planning purposes The sketch is a visual, handheld guideline that you can easily muck around with and make adjustments to for the exact look you re trying to achieve with your cake Believe me: You don t want to be standing over your cake with only a mental snapshot of what the cake should look like To sketch out your design, you need the following: Sketchpad of plain white paper Drawing pencil Pencil sharpener Set of colored pencils Gum eraser

Part of the design process is assigning colors to your sketch, the blueprint for your final cake Use your colored pencils to color in your sketch and see how the color combinations you re expecting to use look on your design Each season, the fashion industry adopts a hot color palette of the hues that are in If possible and appropriate and particularly for cakes and celebrations for grown-ups you may want to use some of those colors for your cake You can either check out fashion magazines for the latest shades, or type color trends or hot colors followed by the current year into your Internet search engine and investigate the sites that pop up You can also visit one of my favorite sites for color at wwwpantonecom Pantone s business is color It s a company that facilitates both communication and technology about color for a variety of industries, and it offers a plethora of the current season s eye-catching hues and other related valuable information on their site

Don t choose a color for the cake just because it s your favorite (unless it s for your own birthday!) or because you think a few colors pair well in your mind Use your coloring pencils to experiment and actually see what goes with what You may be surprised to find that, when you see hues side by side, they aren t anything like what you expected or they look better than you thought, giving you more confidence in your design 7 offers further advice and instructions regarding finding and mixing colors and coming up with the best shades for your work

Having come up with the design for your cake and given it the colors that work best, you must determine if your planned cake will be the event s definitive culinary centerpiece You want the celebrant to revel in the cake s taste and creation and all the cake eaters to remember it as a vibrant, delicious cake For a final review, consider this last set of questions to ensure that you re embarking on a successful cake decorating adventure If you re comfortable with your answers, you re well on your way to an amazing amount of fun in the kitchen Have I tested this flavor combination of cake, frosting, and, if appropriate, filling Am I sure the flavors complement one another Will the majority of the cake eaters like the cake s flavor Is the design congruent with the celebrant s style Is the design appropriate for the event Do the colors pair well with each other and with the event Is the design too complicated for my skill set Before I begin baking, do I have the design clearly mapped out Before I begin decorating, have I reviewed and tweaked the design sufficiently