I was wondering what kinds of fillings you guys would suggest for "HOT" weather. We live just on the other side of Greece and typical buttercream doesn't work here, I learned from experience when all of the icing started sliding off my stepdaughters b-day cake!!!

I was reading that swiss meringue is a good choice because it's more stable (from some cake decorating books) but my "Proessional Baking" book says they are not very stable and should be used only in cool weather.

Any experiences or ideas on "hot" weather fillings?

Thanks
Amy

Hi Amy,
First of all I want to say how excited I am to be responding to somebody living in Greece....that's the cool thing about this website.

I live in the Northeast USA, and our summers are very hot and humid....90's and up sometimes. I always have very good luck with fruit fillings i.e. raspberry, lemon, strawberry etc. When it is very hot I use half shortening, half butter, bc and I add a few Tablespoons of merinque powder. Lately the shortening in the US is all going "transfat free", so a good number of us are having our problems with slippery icing. I've heard about hi-ratio shortenings, I don't know if you have access to those in Greece, but apparantly they still have transfats in them and they are better for icings. I just bought my first can this weekend, so I can't wait to try it out.

Just make a real good icing dam with stiff bc before you apply the fruit filling, and you shouldn't have any problem with the filling oozing out.

Good luck!
Hope to speak with you again! Did I mention I love Greece and it's on my "top 10 travel dream vacation destinations"?

HTH
Deb

Thanks Deb,

I thought about fruit fillings as well but we don't have the pre-made type here so I would be making from scratch or with jam so I don't know how that would go over because I have never done it!!!

Actually I am in Cyprus which is east of Greece but they are Greek here anyway. There are lots of places in Greece that my husband says are very beautiful but I have only been to Athens a handful of times and Thessaloniki.

I will check on the high ratio shortening to see if we can get it here from the so called "bakery suppliers".

Thanks again
Amy

Wow, Greece!!! I'm jealous. So, let's see, mostly sesame seeds, fruits, nuts, and HONEY! Try using Glyka KoutaLiou. Pretty close to fruit preserves if I remember and could be added to a shortening based BC for a different stable flavor.

Hi Amy,

I just made a cake this weekend with a raspberry filling.....I used the recipe from this website (modified) instead of all water as the recipe called for I used 1/2 water and 1/2 raspberry liquor(Chambord). It was awesome and it thickened up really well.

The recipe I used was: 1pkg of frozen raspberries (10 - 12oz)
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup raspberry liquor
1 - 2 drops of lemon extract
Put above ingredients in a medium saucepan and bring to a gentle boil, turn heat down and simmer for approx. 10 min. Meanwhile mix 2 - 3 Tablespoons of cornstarch with 1/4 cup of hot water.
Press raspberry mixture through a sieve or collander...pour back in saucepan and add the cornstarch mixture. Cook until thickened...about 2-3 minutes. Refrigerate...it will continue to thicken. You could switch out raspberries for any other kind of fruit and it will also work well.

Have fun,
Deb