Butter, Butter, Butter: BETTER!

Well, what HAVE you been doing while I've been away the past week or two?  I know...I know...crying yourself to sleep because there hasn't been a Cake Lore post. 

Well, cry no more! 

I'm covered in a fresh coat of butter cream icing and I'm feeling the excitement of this month's wedding cake extravaganza!  We're talking four tiers of towering tastiness - lemon, raspberry, almond - I bet you wish you knew where this cake was going so you could crash it and have a slice:).

As I was laboring over my first of many batches of butter cream today, I was reminded, yet again, why it is the Queen Mother of all icings.  Fondant is gorgeous if done correctly, but it's not everyone's favorite texture or taste. 

Then there's the ever-present "butter cream substitute" which is just a bunch of crisco and powdered sugar beaten in to a fluffy mess - a mess which, in my opinion, never ever gets as smooth as real butter cream and tastes nothing like the real thing. 

Real Butter Cream...and my cake bible, Sweet Celebrations by Sylvia Weinstock

I think I've reached a turning point.  As much as I appreciate and love my friends at Wilton, I have to take an official stand on this one.  Crisco icing is gross.  Buttery butter cream is AMAZING.  It's like dressing a cake in a silk ball gown.  Smooth, satisfying, delicious butter cream...I just can't go back to that other stuff. 

I'm trying to carve out a niche for myself.  Here it is:  REAL icing. 

The bride who ordered this month's wedding cake was at my brother in law's wedding last September.  That was the famous lily cake you see displayed so proudly in the banner of this blog.  She said she'd never seen wedding guests go back for seconds of a cake and it was some of the best she'd ever had.

And that almost made ME cry.  What a lovely thing to say!  I confess being so tired I hadn't noticed people going back.  Cake is an exhausting business. 

So that's what I'm striving for...something different than the white stuff that passes for icing in most bakeries.  I want people to know my cakes by the flavor - and the flavor is BUTTER.