I made my own birthday cake. I think this is pretty standard for bakers, and I'm totally ok with it. I was actually not going to make a cake at all, since I was knee-deep in Pastry School at the time, but my husband insisted that we needed one, even if that meant buying one from the grocery store.
This is harder and harder for me to do these days. Buying a grocery store birthday cake used to be a thing (I know they are gross to some, but I love the sickly sweetness - I'm sorry!). These days I know I can (and have) made better, so I can't bring myself to buy them.
It helped that I still had a couple cake layers in the freezer from when I baked them for my Flat Top Cakes post. The recipe I used was my Almost Scratch Cake. So with the cake layers already done, all I had to do was defrost them, make the frosting, and decorate.
I wanted to try something new (to me) and do rosettes all around the cake. I've seen this done before and it looked amazing, so I wanted to give it a try. I had done rosettes before, but usually just as decoration on top of the cakes or on cupcakes, not something that would cover the whole cake. I could have winged it, but I'm glad I checked out a couple of video tutorials first. I wouldn't have thought to offset each row of roses to fill in the gaps.
I stacked and iced the cakes and did a masking layer on the outside - thicker than just a crumb coat, but not too thick, as the rosettes would add a lot of icing already. With the rosettes, I started at the bottom and worked my way around, then the next layer, then the top. All in all, the rosette part was really easy and probably took less than 10mins. It's a simple way to decorate your cakes and make them look stunning!
I've had a hard time finding a good, simple buttercream recipe - what some would call American Buttercream - that uses mainly butter and icing sugar. I've made meringue-based ones, which are delicious but take more effort, and I was most certainly looking for something with very little effort.
The BEST vanilla buttercream I'd ever had was on my wedding cake, a cake we commissioned from Gannon's, the restaurant we had our reception at. We didn't do any tastings or see any samples, we just sent them a picture of what we wanted it to look like and chose our flavors.
This cake was unbelievable, the buttercream so smooth and delicious. We had a ton of leftovers, which we happily took back to our condo and devoured over the next few days.
I'd mentioned multiple times to Ryan that I wondered how they made it. I assumed it was a meringue-based one because it was so silky smooth, but it was less buttery than ones I'd made before. Icing sugar based buttercreams always feel so gritty...it couldn't be that.
Unbeknownst to me, Ryan had emailed Gannon's and asked them for the recipe. He should probably get some kind of award, right?! I would never do this. I honestly did not think they would divulge their secrets, but they sent over a recipe! Now, I'm not convinced this is the same buttercream that was on our cake (it still felt gritty when I made it, not as gritty others before), but it was delicious. I am super happy with the end result and will definitely be making this buttercream again!
DELICIOUSLY SIMPLE VANILLA BUTTERCREAM
Yield: enough to frost two 8" cake rounds*
6 cups confectioners/icing sugar (sifted)
2 cups butter (room temperature)
2 tsp vanilla extract (or flavoring of your choice)
2-4 tbsp whipping cream
- Prepare a stand mixer with a whisk attachment.
- Whisk butter until creamy.
- Reduce speed to low and add in icing sugar 1 cup at a time until well blended.
- Increase speed to med and beat for 3 minutes.
- Add vanilla and 2tbsp cream and continue to beat on medium for 1 minute.
- Add more cream as needed until desired consistency is reached (I added all 4).
- I whipped this for a few minutes longer as I was determined to get rid of the graininess.
- Frost on a cool cake and chill.
*This made enough to frost the rosette cake but would likely be too much if you're just looking to do a regular frosting on a 2 layer cake. If so, I would suggest cutting this recipe in half.
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