The kid’s birthday was already at the start of the month, but of course with my body being an asshole again I couldn’t make a cake for her actual party. Thank goodness teenagers mostly require insane amounts of food and not attention, so she could have her friends over for a small party.
Last weekend we celebrated with our friends and she got her cake for that day. She went for her favourite Eevilution, Leafeon.
©Giliell, all rights reserved The eyes are not my best work.
©Giliell, all rights reserved Yes, that’s a ton of individually cut and applied grass blades
The inside of the cake is a standard vanilla cake with a cream cheese and cream filling. The filling was really easy and tasty: I used a packet of lemon flavour jello to mix with the cheese and the whipped cream, added some lime zest and cut canned peaches. The only problem that I had was cooling it down quickly enough for the jello to work so it wouldn’t run all out on me. I then covered the whole thing in a thin layer of buttercream before adding the fondant.
Because a German buttercream (butter with custard) has too much liquid for fondant and an Italian meringue buttercream (my usual go to buttercream) was too much work for the state of my recovery, I made an American buttercream. I usually consider American buttercream the symbol of everything that is wrong with American cake making: It’s just butter and sugar, too heavy and too sweet. I love watching cake videos, but quite often the American ones leave me a bit puzzled: Yes, this looks amazing, but all you have in there is cake and buttercream. Where’s the flavour? Do Americans really spend 200 bucks on a cake that looks great but doesn’t taste of anything but butter and sugar? Please do tell me.
It did work well here, btw, because it was only a small layer to get the surfaces even and it contrasted nicely with the tart lemony filling.
Oh, it gets worse. American commercial “buttercream” is vegetable shortening and sugar.
That is a beautiful cake.
A sweet combination of 2D graphics and sculpture. It is beautiful.
That is a really impressive cake.
Niiiiice!
Was it tasty, too?
Wow, that must have taken hours to make and cut all those pieces. The Pokemon is adorable but how do you make the 3d flowers?
Yes, Americans pay a lot
Wow, that must have taken hours to make and cut all those pieces. The Pokemon is adorable but how do you make the 3d flowers?
Yes, Americans pay a lot of money for mediocre baking, restaurant food, phone service, insurance, etc……
Buttercream frosting is usually flavored with vanilla, though you could make it any flavor you like. Real buttercream is delicious, the type made with lard is disgusting, especially when they then add food coloring and make decorations from it.
I’ve always thought of it as ‘French buttercream’ since it’s not at all similar to the white icing I know as frosting.
That type is cooked and then you dip your cookies and cupcakes into it. For cakes you need to let it cool so it’s still liquid, but not so liquid it runs off or soaks in.
A lot of Americans think crispy creme doughnuts are edible too. (Shudder) You would cry at what is sold as bread.
All the texture and flavor of upholstery foam, plus it does not mold or go stale for a month. Now they’ve all started using soybean oil too, so it’s pretty much poison to me. On the plus side, it forced me to learn how to make good bread.
WMD Kitty
It was very delicious. Lemon and lime and peaches
Tethys
The flowers are simple silicone moulds. You lightly starch them and then press the fondant into it. French buttercream is actually delicious, but pretty complicated: You need to whip the eggs and the sugar in a bain marie and incorporate the butter later. But yeah, white icing is probably what the US call “American buttercream”
It sounds delicious and looks fabulous. I’m sure getting it done was difficult and I hope your body recovered from it quickly.
If you have agar-agar powder, agar-gel sets while it is still hot and is not damaged by heat too much if the cake is also warm. Guar Gum and Xanthan Gum together can help set foamed cream, too.