Welcome to the Cake Decorators Q&A

Hi,
I’m wondering if anyone knows the quantity of white chocolate I would use to make a white chocolate buttercream. I’ve watched paul’s tutorial on adding stability but in this he uses ganache and I would like to just use melted white choc if possible. I’ve seen his chocolate buttercream tutorial in which he uses 250g milk choc to 500g butter and 1kg butter and was just wondering what the equivalent in white choc would be. I’ve searched the site for this and can’t find it so sorry if I’ve missed it somewhere.
Thans in advance 🙂

HI fi28

What application will you be using the white choc buttercream for? If it’s for filling only, you’ll find a small recipe in my eggfree cake blog here:

How to Make an Egg Free Cake + Vanilla Extract

Scroll down the page and you’ll see it under the picture of the cake layers. This recipe is for filling only. It does not crust and is unsuitable for using under sugarpaste.
White chocolate and milk chocolate are pretty much the same when it comes to setting and making structure. I’m not able to view Paul’s recipe at present ( lack of signal!). If he is using his milk choc buttercream as a crumb coat, the same quantities would work for white. If you want it to set harder just add an extra 100g of melted chocolate.
Hope this helps. Please post again if you need more information.

Thank you for your extremely helpful answer as always.
Sorry to be cheeky but on a slightly different note I am finally sitting down and working out costings of cakes so I’m not constantly costing myself money for friends cakes but I’ve worked out a 12″ square chocolate cake (paul’s recipe) with ganache, sugarpaste, board box etc would cost about £34 to make! My 12″ square fruit seems to be about £42, do these sound anywhere near right or have I drastically worked them out wrong? any advise would be greatly appreciated x

These are the ingredient costs?? What you should do is keep the bill for every single ingredient bought including cake cards, cake boards cake drums, ribbons, boxes and anything else which you may have used in the baking, making and presenting the cake.
Friends and family can be a nightmare to make cakes for. I know from bitter experience the amount of times I’ve been severely out of pocket so it really is vital to keep track of every penny you spend. Have a look at David’s extremely helpful blogs here:

Front Page

The pricing with confidence blog has a solution by the yellow teddy. Read it carefully to see how you should be charging. However when charging immediate family and very, very close friends you might want to reduce some of those costs. It’s not a good idea to do it for anyone else ( no friends of friends!). Undercharging set a precedent of inexpensive cake expectation which will definitely see you well out of pocket and cheapens your skills. Hope David’s blogs sets you off in the right direction. x

Thank you so much madeitwithlove I will definitely read the blog and I’m sure it will help. It’s terrifying adding up all the little bits that go into making the cakes and that’s before any decorating time! Thanks so much for your help I really really appreciate it x

You’re welcome fi28, just don’t get caught out as I did! Good luck with costings. x

Thank you x

Hi fi28, I use an app on my phone called cost a cake pro. In the app you can add all your store cupboard ingredients (butter,sugar,cake board, ribbon etc), then you can add your recipe for your cakes, buttercream, ganache, sugar paste, you also add your hourly rate for your time. Then when you come to quote for a cake you add your recipes, extras and your time and it calculates your quote. It also automatically saves your previous quotes so if someone asks you how much a cake that you have made was it is there for you without having to work it out again. I love it as a few times I have had a quote in my head but when I calculate it out using this app I would have undercharged for the cake. I hope this helps

Thanks alot mrsmitch I’ll definitely take a look at that. Thanks 🙂