Decorating cakes has got to be the most frustrating thing in the world when it comes to baking. I can bake the cake and whip up the icing and manage to get the two to taste delicious in concert, but putting it all together into some kind of cohesive decorative centre piece... Not so much. If it were up to me, I would leave that to the professionals who actually have the skillz.
But I am practicing. My goal is a bold one: to be able to produce a decent looking cake that people will be eager to inhale as soon as they see it. I was going to say that my goal was to be able to create a cake that people would be reluctant to eat because they would be unwilling to ruin the fine art that... no. Too bold. I know my limits.
For the cake, I used the white cake recipe from Martha Stewart (the same one I've used for a princess cake) and the italian meringue buttercream recipe from Baking, by James Peterson infused with lemon and key lime zest. I made these elements yesterday and let them sit in the fridge for me to use today. Unoftunately, when I pulled the buttercream out of the fridge today it was all curdled and gross looking. I guess this is completely normal for italian meringue buttercream after it's been cooled for a while. To fix it, I put the metal bowl on a gas burner and let it sit over the low flame for about 20 seconds, then whipped it up in the mixer for a few minutes. Perfect! I was stunned to tell you the truth. I tried this trick fulling expecting to have to make a whole new batch of icing.
I guess you could say that flowers (roses in particular) were the focus of today, but really it was the crumb coat and the basic layer of icing because that's the part that I most struggle with. All in all, I think it turned out better than last weeks... I just hope it doesn't fall apart before we get to eat it.
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