Posts Tagged ‘buttercream’

I’m making a cake for my neighbour’s baby shower. Other people who don’t know me are going to be attending so I did a test run just to make sure it would work. I’m very happy I did it as I know what’s to be expected. Baking my way through The Cake Bible, I settled on the Golden Butter Cream cake with Strawberry Silk Meringue Butter Cream.

To make the Strawberry Silk Meringue Butter Cream I first had to make a strawberry conserve. The conserve wasn’t that bad to make, it took a lot longer to reduce. I reduced it a bit too much, 2 cups instead of 3.5 cups, but it looked so runny. Canning the conserve was a pain in the butt. I didn’t have jar tongs so the jars kept slipping. It’s really good as a spread and even though I had a horrible experience canning, I’d be willing to try it again with the proper tools.

I forgot to puree the conserve so the buttercream looked a bit gummy and it didn’t have the nice pale pink that I had envisioned. While this buttercream won’t win any beauty pageants, it’s absolutely delicious!

I made the cake into cupcakes for Movie Man’s potluck at work. I wouldn’t recommend this cake for cupcakes because it didn’t really grip onto the wrapper and didn’t produce a nice dome shape.

After some troubleshooting at the Real Baking with Rose forums, I’m going to try doing the mousseline and I’ll remember to puree and strain the conserve. I’m hoping that this will give me a pale pink colour.

The last time I made buttercream that wasn’t just butter and icing sugar turned out to be a huge failure. It would just melt into a grainy puddle. I had wanted to make cupcakes with bourbon buttercream for a “meet the neighbours” event and I ended up having to leave the tops bare with just caramel drizzle. I was so distressed about my buttercream results that I e-mailed the author wondering what I did wrong. To my surprise I got a quick e-mail back and once I get the courage I will try making the recipe again. Flipping through the Cake Bible it looks like the recipe may have been a mousseline buttercream as Rose states the butter must be at the proper temperature otherwise it becomes a puddly mess.

It was a friend’s birthday and his favourite treat are chocolate cupcakes. What better way to test out a Cake Bible recipe? I made the All American chocolate butter cake and used the chocolate neoclassic buttercream. I overbaked the first batch by about a minute or 2 and they were a bit dry. If you leave them for a few hours or overnight, they become fudgier. I had almost wrote this recipe off because it wasn’t mind blowing, but I think I’ll give it another chance making sure not to overbake it. The chocolate neoclassic buttercream is to die for! I’m not a huge fan of frostings, but this is definitely worth making and piling on a cupcake. I also had no problems with the buttercream, it was a breeze to pipe with and held up quite well.

Recipe for cake here
Recipe for buttercream here