A Few Questions And Feedback On My First Cake

Baking By peony123 Updated 6 May 2016 , 10:01pm by kakeladi

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peony123 Posted 6 May 2016 , 1:03am
post #1 of 6

Hey everyone! 

This is my first time posting on here - lately I've been really getting into making and decorating cakes and wanted to ask for some feedback on a cake I recently did for my mom's birthday. I made a 4 layer yellow cake with a lemon mousse and strawberry curd filling and frosted the top and filled with sweet cream buttercream.  I have a few questions:

  1. So I began layering my cake and after the 2nd layer it started to topple over. I baked 2 cakes in either a 6 or 9 inch pan which was 3 inches deep. Now my cake mix filled the container 50% of the way and then it rose to 75% but it was pulling up into a cone shape so I had to cut it off to level the cake. Then I took the cakes and cut them in half making each layer approximately 1-1.5 inches perhaps, for a total of 4 layers - so roughly 8-9 inches tall altogether. I will say I'm still working on my cake leveling skills and they aren't usually even, but are there any tricks to help prevent the toppling over effect with larger cakes? I saw a girl on youtube use skewer rods to hold hers in place, so I stuck a few in mine that helped a little but not much. I did also layer a thin layer of buttercream, lemon mousse, and strawberry curd as the filling so the cake was very generously filled. Both the mousse and curd had a viscous pudding like consistency. 
  2. I tried a sweet buttercream recipe, and while I do enjoy cake decorating I don't particularly like the taste of buttercream - the recipe was lovely as it consisted of 2 sticks of butter, 4cups of powdered sugar, and 4-5 tablespoons of coffee creamer, but I did find it to be too sweet and buttery thick for my personal preference when it comes to eating cakes at home during the holidays. I was able to put two batches together (so that was 4 sticks of butter) and was able to pull together enough for the inside fillings of the cake and the top, but I was short on the sides and didn't want to whip out MORE butter for more buttercream so I went with a naked cake look for now. Does anyone have any suggestions on other frosting recipes which will give me the consistency I need to do some nice cake decor work but is light enough in flavor to still stomach eating? I've heard of swiss meringue and stabilized whip cream - any feedback? Also, what is the consistency I should look for in my buttercream? I would say mine was a little cream cheese like which made it a bit tough to spread onto my cakes, even after I froze the cake layers. 

Thank you all very much!

5 replies
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peony123 Posted 6 May 2016 , 1:06am
post #2 of 6

PS I've seen a few tutorials where each layer is placed on a cake board and then placed on the next cake layer so I wonder if this is what I should have done? But I know I've seen cake bloggers slide up their 4 tiered cakes and they don't have any layered in between? Should I do thinner/smaller layers? Any suggestions on what sizes to aim for?

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810whitechoc Posted 6 May 2016 , 3:27am
post #3 of 6

I had a customer today who ordered one cake but meant another cake flavour we do.  Didn't quite realise there was a difference between dark and white chocolate. Really.

Thank you Peony123 whoever you are, you've made my day!!!!!!!!smiley.png

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cakebaby2 Posted 6 May 2016 , 7:48am
post #4 of 6

I'm confused, I thought you were posting a pic for "feedback"? Lol x

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remnant3333 Posted 6 May 2016 , 9:19pm
post #5 of 6

I love stabilized whip cream but cake has to be kept in refrigerator since it is whip cream.

I always use Wilton's stabilized whip cream recipe which is on line.  You can pipe pretty good with this.

Another frosting is with flour in it. It is good for border piping but not too good for intricate piping. The experts here should be able to help you more than me since I am only a hobby baker. Still waiting to see your picture.

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kakeladi Posted 6 May 2016 , 10:01pm
post #6 of 6

Cake layers MUST be level to stack up into tiers.  One of the main reasons Idon't like 3" deep pans.  Using 2" deep pans makes leveling so easy - just cut across the top of the pan for perfectly level layers.  If you make a dam w/stiff b'cream or a rope of fondant it will hold the filling so there is little if any slippage of layers.  As for b'cream icing "2 of everything icing" is really good.  It's here on this site - just google '2 of everything icing on cakecentral'- it comes right up.  Wonderful taste, easy to use, pipes like a dream:)

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