Spring !

When spring blooms all around you, there is no dearth of ideas to decorate a very special Birthday cake ! Enjoy the season !

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stripe It Up!

Last post of 2016! A striped birthday cake I made sometime back for a dear friend's daughter.

I LOVE stripes. On anything. And I have been wanting to try a striped cake but couldn't trust myself to pipe so many straight lines. Well, lets be honest, I couldn't pipe even one straight line. Until I discovered buttercream texture combs.

The combs are quite simple to use. Slather on your base color like you would when you frost a buttercream cake, run the comb of your choice around the cake just like you would a bench scraper. Chill the cake between passes and once the grooves are just like you like it, chill it for at least an hour. Now take your contrasting color and slather it on. Make sure all the grooves are well filled with your contrast color. Then scrape off the excess with a bench scraper. That's it! And the result is so extraordinary!

Go give it a try and let me know how it turned out.
And wish you all a Happy New Year!

A Buttercream Watercolor Cake!

 Another buttercream floral cake that I made for a dear friend's baby shower.

I loved the water color effect on the sides of the cake. It was so fun to do. And there was a little sleeping princess in the buttercream garden.

And some matching cupcakes to go with the cake.

Buttercream Floral Wreath

So it was Archana's milestone birthday a little while ago and what better way to celebrate her than with a floral wreath to represent the beautiful, kind and talented person that she is. Unfortunately, in all the excitement we didn't get a chance to take proper pictures. But luckily Deepa was there and was able to get a few decent ones. Thank you Deepa!

This cake was a first of many for me. This is the first time I made traditional Swiss meringue buttercream also known as SMBC. It is the most delicious butter cream I have had, very smooth, the right amount of sweetness and more protein because it is made of egg whites. Here's the link to the recipe I used. 

This is also the first time I made a double barrel cake. A double barrel cake means there are actually 2 tiers of the same size stacked one on top of the other and frosted as a single cake. This double barrel is 8" in diameter with each tier having 3 layers of vanilla cake. The top tier had apple cinnamon filling and the second tier had lemon marmalade. 

Typically, my cakes are 4 layers, but I went with 3 layers to keep the height manageable. I would highly recommend going this route with your first double barrel. Another thing to keep in mind while doing a double barrel, is that you'll need an extra tall bench scraper to smooth your frosting. Your standard 6" scraper will definitely fall short. (Tee hee ;)

Go on and dare to make a double barrel, and let us know how it turned out.