Defining Delicious!!

My Aunt Dolly made the greatest cakes the world has ever known, including wedding cakes! She passed away when I was around 3yrs old. We made a real connection in those few years though, so when I create an awesome cake, I know she had her hand in it.   And yes, I did just say I create awesome cakes because I have been known to do this from time to time.  I've created some real disasters also!  Experience is the best teacher! lol!   Someday Aisle Do will have a cake division but meanwhile I love sharing my practical cake knowledge. 

There are many trendy things happening in the world of wedding desserts.  Maybe I'll make this a series and talk about the other less traditional but very cool dessert options out there. (should I?) But for the moment, I'll focus on the traditional wedding cake!  There are enough aspects of wedding cake that we could talk about this all week and still have more to say next week.  So let's get on to it.

What makes a delicious cake?  Well, there's a variety of cake types, frosting types and endless flavors to choose from. So it might help to know what is what so if you are heading to a wedding cake tasting, you can compare apples to apples and buttercream to buttercream!  

Buttercream Frosting - in it's most basic form:  butter (unsalted), powdered sugar (10x Domino is my favorite, recipe on the side of the box!), flavoring/extracts (vanilla, lemon, almond, etc. ) and a scant amount of liquid (milk or water) to make the mixture smooth and spreadable is all beaten together until fluffy.  The more liquid added, the less likely this can be used to make frosting flowers and other piped decorations.  Buttercream frosting could get fancier by adding cream cheese.

 - note, if this is made with shortening rather than butter, 1- it would be decorating frosting and used to make roses and other flowers that need stability.  2. It will not be nearly as tasty even with extacts. 

Buttercream

French Buttercream -  Rather than powdered sugar, granulated sugar is made into a hot syrup and poured into beaten egg yolks. This is beaten until cooled and then butter is added in - twice the butter of the above buttercream frosting!  So this is a rich flavored and creamy frosting.

Italian Buttercream - similar-ish to French Buttercream.  The hot sugar syrup is poured into beaten egg whites, making this a fluffy and light tasting buttercream.  It takes to flavorings / extracts well.  It's also going to be closer to a pure white than it's French cousin.




Not really Swiss or Italian Buttercream, but close variation called White Mountain Frosting.


Swiss Buttercream - good gracious, does every country need their own version? Well darn good thing the Swiss got in on this, because this is quite tasty, albeit a tad more technically involved.  There is no sugar syrup that is poured into this, it's just egg whites, butter and sugar (and flavoring / extracts as desired)  But since you don't want to serve raw egg whites, this frosting is beaten in a bowl over a hot water or steam bath.  Also called a Bain Marie. 

Fondant - This is a rolled out dough-like coating.  It has a smooth satin finish (although any of the above buttercreams when applied by a real cake-pro can be just as smooth!) and it can give a rounded edge where the top of the cake  I honestly couldn't tell you how to make fondant because when I have used it, I just bought it. I know there is powdered sugar, glycerin, gelatin, shortening and flavoring.  There are homemade varieties that use marshmallows as the base.  I haven't tried this, but if you like marshmallows I'm sure it would be delish! Not all commercial fondant is created with good taste in mind, but there are a few good ones!  Satin Ice and Fondarific are brands that deliver a high quality and tasty product.  If you are considering covering your wedding cake in fondant, definitely ask to taste it or ask them which brand of fondant the use if they don't make their own. 

The stars, letters, cap and gold stripes made of fondant.

Chocolate frosting!  Before I sign off (we'll talk the cake part of the wedding cake tomorrow!)  I would really be unkind to not mention chocolate frosting!  All of the above can be made as a chocolate variety. However, chocolate is a very temperamental little son of a gun. You can't just add chocolate and expect that it will be a delightful chocolate version of buttercream - or anything for that matter. 

Over the years, I have made an undisclosed amount of really heinous chocolate frosting.  I am not even kidding! I would not kid about nasty chocolate!  So here's what I've learned - if you taste a chocolate frosting and it feels dry, flat, and just short of good, it's because cocoa powder or melted chocolate alone was added to the existing frosting recipe with hopes for the best. 

Alternately, some bakeries will make a ganache which is fine, but ganache is ganache and buttercream is not ganache! Chocolate needs some extra love and care.  I use both cocoa powder and melted chocolate and I find a the pinch of salt I typically don't add to a regular buttercream, adding it to a chocolate buttercream frosting is kind of necessary.




Chocolate!  Before I learned how to make good chocolate frosting!


Tomorrow we'll talk "cake"!  Just cake and nothing but cake!