Welcome to the Cake Decorators Q&A
Butter cream for wedding cake
Hi all, I will be making a 3-tier wedding cake with butter cream frosting and flowers. My question is as how Long in advance can I make the butter cream flowers and what kind of butter cream should be used for the cake frosting. For the flowers I will be using crusting buttercream, but as I live in Singapore and the weather is quite hot and humid, I’m afraid of using Swiss meringue buttercream. And was unable to find high ratio shortening here in SG. Any suggestions ? Thanks!
Hi all, I will be making a 3-tier wedding cake with butter cream frosting and flowers. My question is as how Long in advance can I make the butter cream flowers and what kind of butter cream should be used for the cake frosting. For the flowers I will be using crusting buttercream, but as I live in Singapore and the weather is quite hot and humid, I’m afraid of using Swiss meringue buttercream. And was unable to find high ratio shortening here in SG. Any suggestions ? Thanks!
Hi Kbakes
I find the best way of stabilising buttercream is by adding melted chocolate to it. Have a look at my answer here: http://www.cakeflix.com/questions/white-chocolate-quantity-for-buttercream
Paul also has his buttercream tutorial in the free section which covers buttercream structure, please refer to lesson 4 in the tutorial here:
There are more discussions about hot weather and buttercream, click on posts most relevant to you here:
http://www.cakeflix.com/questions?s=buttercream
Stabilisers for buttercream include meringue powder or corm starch beaten in with the buttercream. Quanitites approx 1 -2 tablesspoons to a weight of 500g of butter to 1k of confectioners sugar. I would suggest making a small quantity of each to see how it behaves in your climate. I’ve just seen this which looks helpful:
http://www.craftsy.com/blog/2013/06/hot-weather-cake-decoration/
The flowers can be made up a few days in advance and stored in the freezer. When you need them, use a pallet knife to easy them off parchment paper and place on the cake. Working in an airconditioned enviroment will also help greatly. If you still want to try shortening I would suggest searching in Amazon or Ebay in you area. You could also try the larger bakeries who may be able to sell you some from their stock or at least give you a contact where it can be purchased. Shortening does leave a greasy film in the mouth if the correct proportions are not used.
Hope this helps.
Hi madeitwithlove, thank you so much for extremely helpful and detailed answer. I have to deliver my first wedding cake order on 26th this month and was hell worried as the forecast for the coming two weeks is 35-40 degree celcius . The tips you shared are Super helpful and easy to follow, thanks again:).
How will you deliver the cake? will you stack and decorate at the venue or will the cakes travel as single tiers?
Will you be able t keep the cakes cool in your vehicle?
Some of the information in the following link might be helpful:
The UK links there won’t be much good to you but you could find similar in SG and the youtube video by Caljava could be useful.
Good luck, let us know how it all goes. 🙂