Specialty Cakes Menu & Options
When choosing the design of your unique wedding cake, one of the choices to make is the type and color of frosting.
As you begin the process of designing your unique wedding cake, you will have some choices to make. The exterior of the cake is just as important as the inside texture and flavors. A reputable bakery should give you a list of icing options, and help you identify which icing will be best for your design. Grocery store bakeries will give you limited options in this area. It is very helpful to do a bit of research prior to meeting with your baker. Here are the standard icing to choose from:
Fall Wedding Cake Vanilla buttercream with chocolate buttercream piping.
Simple (Decorating) Buttercream. Made of butter or shortening, or both, confectioners’ sugar, flavoring and milk or cream to modify its consistency. It is commonly used on all cakes. It finishes fairly smooth on the outside of a cake. All buttercreams can be made chocolate flavored with relative ease. I like to use both cocoa and ganache (melted chocolate and heavy cream) in my chocolate buttercream. It has a rich, fudgy taste.
Swiss Meringue Buttercream. This is a cooked icing which has a sophisticated taste. It is made with a significant amount of butter, egg whites, which are cooked in the preparation, granulated sugar and flavoring. Commonly, liqueur is used to cut into the butter flavor. This
icing is not recommend for a child’s birthday cake. This icing gives a fairly smooth finish on a cake exterior.
French Buttercream. Another cooked icing, made from granulated sugar, milk or cream, butter, a bit of flour and flavoring. This icing has a delicious flavor. It makes a wonderful filling and is suitable for a birthday cake.
Valentine sugar cookies iced with Royal Icing
Royal Icing. Made from egg whites, or meringue powder with water, confectioners’ sugar and flavoring. I use this icing for decorating and creating firm finished flowers and decorations on fondant covered cakes. This icing is commonly used for sugar cookies. We use royal icing in varied consistencies to create desired effects. Royal icing will dry completely hard, and makes an excellent “glue” for creating gingerbread houses. This icing should not be used when the exterior of a cake is iced in buttercream.
Royal icing is easily tinted with color gels.
Rolled fondant wedding cakes on display at Caffè Victoria.
Rolled Fondant. Formal in its appearance, fondant has revolutionized cake decorating in the last decade. If only they could revolutionize its flavor. Lack of butter in fondant relates to its lack of depth in flavor. Fondant is made from corn syrup, gelatin and confectioners’ sugar. Chocolate fondant can be created by adding unsweetened cocoa and chocolate liqueur to the basic white fondant. Fondant takes food coloring gels readily and evenly. This is a great option for cover cakes ultra-smooth, and to create artwork on wedding and specialty cakes. You can expect your cake to cost more from most bakeries if you opt for rolled fondant over butter cream.
It is most helpful to have a picture of your design to share with the baker. A skilled baker can create your cake from a picture or sketch. Having a picture is a good way to avoid any issues of ambiguity and dissatisfaction in the final creation. A picture is worth a thousand words, right?
