Just for fun: cake icing!

[jstarfireb]

What are you all doing for your cake icing? I''m what I like to call a fonDON''T. Fondant is expensive and doesn''t taste all that great, even though I''ve been known to eat it (any icing is better than none!). And while the super-smooth texture is kinda cool to look at, it also creeps me out a little...as in "that''s edible?!?" Not a big fan of cream cheese either, but I''ll eat it. I love buttercream, which is what I used for my cake. So what are you all using?

 

[SassyB]

fonDON''t is funny! I hate the stuff! It is pretty however.

I''m also doing buttercream. YUM! I love cream cheese frosting but it sometimes looks yellow and I did''t want that.

 

[charbie]

my sister is making my cake! she is a pastry chef. but she''s making a "fake cake" with fonDON''T (agree...) and one layer will be "cuttable"- then fake cakes for eating in the back. a whole lot cheaper, plus she can make the cake look extra awesome!

 

[charbie]

Date: 7/30/2009 3:07:37 PM
Author: charbie
my sister is making my cake! she is a pastry chef. but she''s making a ''fake cake'' with fonDON''T (agree...) and one layer will be ''cuttable''- then fake cakes for eating in the back. a whole lot cheaper, plus she can make the cake look extra awesome!

scratch that- REAL cakes for eating in the back. i won''t make guests eat fake cakes!

 

[SassyB]

Date: 7/30/2009 3:08:24 PM
Author: charbie

Date: 7/30/2009 3:07:37 PM
Author: charbie
my sister is making my cake! she is a pastry chef. but she''s making a ''fake cake'' with fonDON''T (agree...) and one layer will be ''cuttable''- then fake cakes for eating in the back. a whole lot cheaper, plus she can make the cake look extra awesome!

scratch that- REAL cakes for eating in the back. i won''t make guests eat fake cakes!

Thank you - I was confused! ha!!

 

[ts44]

Totally agreed on the fondant grossness/weirdness. It IS super cool to see the crazy things pastry chefs can do with that stuff, though.

I''ve been sort of thinking a small, 1-layer cutting cake for pictures and then a cupcake tower for the guests with different flavors/icings. My friend runs a delicious cupcake company.

 

[FrekeChild]

HOLD IT.

This pastry chef wants to know what kind of buttercream you guys are using. As a helpful guide:

American: Shortening and powdered sugar (occasionally butter instead of shortening)
Italian: Italian meringue and butter
Swiss: Swiss Meringue and butter
German: Pastry cream and butter
French: whipped egg yolks, sugar and butter

And for the record, I''m not having a wedding cake. Or a wedding dessert. Unless it''s off the menu.

 

[musey]

We had chocolate ganache

I cannot tell you how many shocked, confused looks we got while shopping for a cake designer. "You want a CHOCOLATE frosted cake? As in, BROWN?!" Um, yes, we prefer it, thankyouverymuch.

And for the record, it was delicious AND beautiful. In my very humble opinion.

 

[princessplease]

We''re also going to do a "fake cake" made from styrofoam pieces iced and decorated with fondant. I do not like the taste of fondant at all, but I really wanted the look, so we decided a fake cake would work pretty well. It''ll have a compartment at the back where a piece of real cake will go for us to "cut" and feed to each other. We''ll then have sheet cakes in the back for serving to our guests.

 

[SassyB]

Date: 7/30/2009 3:46:59 PM
Author: FrekeChild
HOLD IT.

This pastry chef wants to know what kind of buttercream you guys are using. As a helpful guide:

American: Shortening and powdered sugar (occasionally butter instead of shortening)
Italian: Italian meringue and butter
Swiss: Swiss Meringue and butter
German: Pastry cream and butter
French: whipped egg yolks, sugar and butter

And for the record, I''m not having a wedding cake. Or a wedding dessert. Unless it''s off the menu.

AH! I don''t know! I know that it isn''t the typical grocery store variety. My pastry chef called it european buttercream , I think..
Hmmmm. I have tried it and loved it however!

 

[emeraldlover1]

We have 4 cakes. 2 are vanilla buttercream, 1 is brown sugar buttercream, and one is chocolate ganache. I don''t like buttercream one bit so I''m kind of at a loss. Did it for the design element.

 

[ilovesparkles]

Not 100% positive, but I am a fonDON'T as well, that stuff is nasty!

I need to investigate the difference in European and American buttercream because I never knew there was a difference until I became a bride on PS! Creamcheese is unlikely. I am thinking a small two tier real cake, and I mean small!, for us to cut and then sheet cakes in the back for the guest to save $ We would love to have ganache, but aren't sure about the price.


BTW, I think fondant looks like plastic!

 

[jstarfireb]

Really cool to see what all of you are doing with your cakes! I think the cake is one of the best parts of a wedding.

Freke, I have NO idea what kind of buttercream was used for mine! I had no idea there were even different kinds of the stuff. I can tell you that my cake was made by a grocery store for pretty cheap (I think around $300 to serve 125), and it looked like this:

I thought about fake styrofoam cakes, but they were actually almost the same price as the real thing from my bakery. Anyway, my cake tasted sooooo good, much better than some of the dry and flaky wedding cakes I've tasted.

 

[Bjedifish]

Marzipan!!! and I don''t even care if some people don''t like it!

Its been my dream since I was a little girl and I just love it!

YUM! Can''t wait!

 

[cocolaw]

buttercream! i like some of the styles from "a simple cake" or something like that-some NY company. ill be going with one of those!

 

[sugarjo]

yum.... i heart marizapan... tasty..

we are using fondant and peeling it off before service.. and serving it with a dollop on french buttercream...(the REAL love of my life)

 

[Dannielle]

I have no idea.. I was thinking using whatever frosting this is.. is it FonDON''T?

 

[cindygenit]

Date: 7/30/2009 2:38:42 PM
Author:jstarfireb
What are you all doing for your cake icing? I''m what I like to call a fonDON''T. Fondant is expensive and doesn''t taste all that great, even though I''ve been known to eat it (any icing is better than none!). And while the super-smooth texture is kinda cool to look at, it also creeps me out a little...as in ''that''s edible?!?'' Not a big fan of cream cheese either, but I''ll eat it. I love buttercream, which is what I used for my cake. So what are you all using?

jstar, as a very lucky girl to be marrying a pastry chef/baker...I *want* to have german buttercream as my icing. (don''t know if that can be done or not)

My FI once made a Queen Silvia that had german buttercream, bit of alcohol, and chocolate ganache in the layer and as the icing. He also makes really fantastic marzipan though so that''s another option!!!

I can''t decide.. i think it will be cute if we have a princess cake for our wedding since i''m his "

princess" but that''s so cheesy...

 

[rhbgirl24]

eww never liked fondant. we are having cream cheese icing.

 

[jstarfireb]

Dannielle - yup, that's fondon't! See that smooth plastic-like appearance? Now, don't get me wrong, it looks very structured and is certainly not horrible to eat. But for me, a cake is for eating more than for looking at. Fondant just seems to be so popular for weddings these days...of 6 weddings that I've been to recently, 3 had fondant, 2 had cupcakes, and just 1 had buttercream! (ETA: I guess you could consider the cupcakes as buttercream, but they were homemade by family/friends of the bride, so I don't really count them.)

Cindy - how lucky to be marrying a pastry chef!

 

[Honey228]

I''m picking between White Chocolate Butter cream and White Chocolate Swiss Butter cream. This is what my pastry chef said:

Buttercream is butter ,powdered sugar and vanilla
Swiss Buttercream is meringue ,whipped butter and melted white chocolate

I haven''t done a side by side tasting yet. Am I correct in assuming that the Swiss Butter cream will be lighter/fluffier in texture? Anyone have a preference?

 

[FrekeChild]

Date: 8/1/2009 9:05:12 AM
Author: Honey228
I''m picking between White Chocolate Butter cream and White Chocolate Swiss Butter cream. This is what my pastry chef said:

Buttercream is butter ,powdered sugar and vanilla
Swiss Buttercream is meringue ,whipped butter and melted white chocolate

I haven''t done a side by side tasting yet. Am I correct in assuming that the Swiss Butter cream will be lighter/fluffier in texture? Anyone have a preference?

I will pick Swiss any day of the week. It is less sickly sweet, and considering you''re having White Chocolate added to it, which one of the major ingredients of is sugar, I would definitely go Swiss. "Buttercream" aka American buttercream is often sickly sweet, and because they are using butter, the Swiss will appear an ivory color and the buttercream will be a light yellow/darker ivory.

 

[ckrickett]

oh gosh... see I love buttercream, but am so particular with it. If it''s made wrong it tastes horrible to me.
I do love cream cheese icing, yum and don''t mind fondant, but I would rather not spend the money on sugar dough.

 

[LauraSLP07]

Our pastery chef told us that she makes her buttercream icing with whipped egg whites, so I guess that it is like a French Buttercream (Thanks Freke for posting the name)!

Our cake was perfect because the icing wasn''t over-the-top sweet and didn''t take away from the delicious filled cake!

We had two different types of cake - white cake with raspberry filling and chocolate cake with chocolate ganache filling! The guests loved it!

 

[honey22]

We are using what''s called RTR in Australia - ready to roll (however in my case, it''s made fresh by the pastry chef). I guess it''s like fondant, but it doesn''t have that yucky almond taste. It looks perfectly smooth and it tastes nice too!

 

[FrekeChild]

Fondant doesn''t taste like almonds. You are probably thinking of marzipan, which is made of ground almonds. I am guessing that RTR is very similar to fondant, if not the same thing.

 

[gwendolyn]

Don''t know what we''re doing for a cake yet, but it probably won''t be a typical wedding cake, so probably no fondant. I love love love both buttercream and cream cheese icing, though, so I''m pretty sure it''ll taste great no matter what we choose.

 

[iheartscience]

We had cupcakes with buttercream...YUM. I love buttercream frosting so much!

 

[ficklefaye]

Date: 7/30/2009 5:33:42 PM
Author: jstarfireb
Really cool to see what all of you are doing with your cakes! I think the cake is one of the best parts of a wedding.


Freke, I have NO idea what kind of buttercream was used for mine! I had no idea there were even different kinds of the stuff. I can tell you that my cake was made by a grocery store for pretty cheap (I think around $300 to serve 125), and it looked like this:

I thought about fake styrofoam cakes, but they were actually almost the same price as the real thing from my bakery. Anyway, my cake tasted sooooo good, much better than some of the dry and flaky wedding cakes I''ve tasted.

not a fondant fan either, just not edible in my opinion, we''re having buttercream but i''m not exactly sure what kind

is that mario and princess toadstool on top of that cake?!

 

[charbie]

Date: 8/2/2009 10:18:01 AM
Author: ficklefaye

Date: 7/30/2009 5:33:42 PM
Author: jstarfireb
Really cool to see what all of you are doing with your cakes! I think the cake is one of the best parts of a wedding.


Freke, I have NO idea what kind of buttercream was used for mine! I had no idea there were even different kinds of the stuff. I can tell you that my cake was made by a grocery store for pretty cheap (I think around $300 to serve 125), and it looked like this:

I thought about fake styrofoam cakes, but they were actually almost the same price as the real thing from my bakery. Anyway, my cake tasted sooooo good, much better than some of the dry and flaky wedding cakes I''ve tasted.

not a fondant fan either, just not edible in my opinion, we''re having buttercream but i''m not exactly sure what kind

is that mario and princess toadstool on top of that cake?!

it totally is. and i totally love it.