Sixth Blog Anniversary

Today my blog is turning six years. Who would have thought! When the lemon tarts went online on February 15, 2017, I thought I would only bake other recipes. I thought I would focus on cookies (big cookie monster speaking) and I would not create anything myself. Yes, I did publish my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe soon on, which was around the 20th recipe I had tested. But I soon realized that I started modifying recipes. Either because Americans tend to overdo it with sugar. All American recipes needed a reduction of sugar to accommodate my tastebuds. Or I had to modify the recipe because I had problems, didn’t find the exact same ingredient in Germany, etc.

My first blog post: French lemon tarts

I was forced to create my own recipes when I started digging into Latin American recipes. If they had any type of measurements, it was often rough estimates or according to volume (cup measurements). This had me try and test many times, sometimes also because I didn’t have the same ingredients here in Germany. One prime example of this are below pictured small cheese puffs from Colombia, which are called pandebonos. Man, it took forever until I finally got the hang of it and was happy with the result!

Pandebonos, cheese puffs from Colombia

When I was asked if I could bake wedding cakes, there was another project to focus on. So far I had not baked any tiered cake and I was forced to find out how to bake a cake with a regular oven at home, how to stack it and also transport it. I did an entire series here, explaining how I calculated the size, etc. You will find the  recipes for the three-tiered wedding cake pictured on the right in that blog post.

One of my New Year’s resolution was to get better at decorating cakes without using fondant. For that reason you will find the recipe for the buttercream flowers on the side of the cake below. I already published one article on how to make flowers with buttercream, you will also find a video on how I make below beautiful rose on top of the cupcake just using the regular M1 tip from Wilton. The difference to the recipe below is the fact that I used palette knives for the flowers on the side of the cake, I actually feel this is more like “painting”.

A cupcake decorated with a rose made with buttercream

Tulips made from buttercream

Below recipe describes how the buttercream is applied with palette knives

Print Recipe

Painting Flowers Made from Buttercream with a Palette Knife

These buttercream flowers are painted with a palette knife.

Ingredients

• High cake (I made this blueberry lemon cake with 18cm in diameter and 12cm in height)
• Buttercream
• 6 egg whites (180 grams)
• 200 grams of regular sugar
• 375 grams of butter at romm temperature
• 
  
• Food colors (I had yellow, red, green, blue, and black)
• Palette knives (I had some from Amazon)
• Piping bag with a very tiny piping tip

Instructions

1

For the buttercream heat the egg whites with the sugar in a waterbath until the sugar has dissolved, this takes a few minutes. Transfer to a large mixing bowl and beat for about ten minutes until stiff and cooled off. Add the butter in chunks while beating. The final buttercream should be silky and creamy. If the buttercream gets gritty, the butter and meringue didn't have the same temperature, you will need to warm either a small part (half a tablespoon) of the buttercream in the microvwave or on the stovetop and then transfer back. This should bring everything together. If the buttercream is soupy, it was too warm, then transfer the bowl into the fridge or freezer and beat until you have a smooth and silky buttercream.

2

First frost your cake with the buttercream so that you have a nice white background. You can, if you want, also paint it, I wanted mine plain white. Chill the cake for at least half an hour, leave the remaining buttercream at room temperature. Take about one tablespoon of buttercream for each color, I placed the dollops on a cookie mat and mixed the colors with the palette knife. I recommend practicing on the cookie mat first. You can simply scrape off if you don't like it and try again before you try on the actual cake. I started with the daffodils and used yellow first, I made the center with orange. Later I did the leaves with the palette knife, I only used the piping bag for the stems. Even if you are not happy with your flower on the cake, don't worry, you can simply scrape it off and try again, that is the beauty of it. This does not need to be perfect, just have fun making this. Once you are done, chill the cake. It will be much easier to slice. If kept airtight, the decorated cake will keep for a few days. I used my blueberry lemon cake recipe for the inside.

I hope there are many more years to come for my blog!

P.S.: By now I have actually “painted” a world map onto a cake with buttercream, using the same technique. You can check the full blog post here.