Serving up a Side of Struggle

It’s always when you think you have it figured out that something goes wrong. For this month’s bake I decided to make a Clementine Cake and I thought, what goes better with cake than a cake server. It was a simple and easy pairing (and an even easier construction).  I quickly rolled out a slab of clay and began cutting out a few forms resembling the style of the cake server that I saw in my head. I added a handle and a bit of fluting. They were elegant, simple, and a perfect pairing for any cake!

When it came time to firing them I decided on a bright white glaze that I had tested a few months back. Unfortunately, I never got around to test firing the final big batch of glaze until late into December. Of course once I thought everything was fine and that I was ahead of schedule, something had to go wrong. In this case it was a glaze mishap. As you can see on the photo below there are little holes the size of a pin scattered all over my freshly fired utensil.

It’s a very common mistake, but it’s horribly infuriating. Something with pin-holing is not something that I want to sell. The tricky part is figuring out what is causing the pin-holing. It could be that the peak temperature wasn’t high enough, or I had too quick of a cool down. It might even be from not bisque firing high enough.  Unfortunately, I have a lot of testing to do and January is almost over. Because of this I decided to fire the rest of my cake servers with my classic white glaze until I can solve this conundrum. If anyone out there has any experience with this problem I would love your input!