I'm with A, B, and C: cream cheese frosting is a Good Thing. But I second Patsy in saying that cream cheese frosting with Fiora di Sicilia is a GREAT THING. Seriously. I urge everyone to try it. (Everyone reading this board that is. Closer to home, I use it, watch the reaction [like catnip for cake-eaters], bask in the praise, and say, 'Oh, that's my secret ingredient... can't tell you that'. A woman's got to have some mystery, after all.) As they used to say in the ads, 'run, don't walk,' to your cupboard and get out the fioria next time you are making cream cheese frosting. You'll win prizes, praise, a following. You'll never go back to plain, old CC frosting again. There's only one downside to cream cheese frosting with Fi di Si: you'll want to eat it off the spoon, and you may not have enough for the cake. I'm also curious about the same thing Joy asked about: what's the 'science' behind loosening the cake immediately to avoid getting a crater? Oh, you are so funny and sneaky at the same time! Loosening the sides will help release the tension as the cake is cooling. Maybe this is a good thing to do when the cake is heavy with ingredients? PJ? Elisabeth @ KAF If you don’t loosen the sides (and they haven’t naturally pulled away from the pan during the baking process), the edges will tend to hold onto the sides, while the middle settles a bit, thus yielding taller sides, and the appearance of a sunken middle. As Elisabeth says, this is more apparent with heavier/denser type cakes. PJH

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