[Sca-cooks] Wedding Cake Advice (OOP)

[Pixel, Goddess and Queen]

Your friend needs to decide what sort of cake she wants, as Finn mentioned
(milk chocolate, dark, bittersweet, whichever) and what sort of
covering. White icing is usually made from a white fat (lard, hydrogenated
vegetable shortening) rather than butter, or it has a lot of icing
whitener in it if it's a butter base. White fats have very little flavor
of their own and tend to be very sweet. You can also flavor them with
pretty much any extract that is clear--the only use for imitation vanilla
extract, as natural vanilla will tint the icing.

She can also opt for a marzipan or a fondant covering. Marzipan is
almond-flavored, as you know, while rolled fondant is usually left
unflavored and is pretty much just sweet. When using fondant, commonly a
thin layer of marzipan is laid down first to provide a smooth foundation
for the fondant.

With that in mind, there are a number of options for filling. Orange curd,
orange marmalade, orange pastry cream, orange-flavored icing. Regardless
of which you choose, when you fill your layers, you will want to put a
barrier of icing around the edge as a retaining wall to keep the filling
from leaking out with the pressure of the upper layer. Use the coupler
without the tip on it, or a very large round tip, and just lay it down
nice and thick.

Rose Levy Beranbaum's (_The Cake Bible_) mousseline buttercream recipe
makes a really wonderful filling--it's like satin, without being too
sweet. You'd flavor it with liqueur, like Grand Marnier.

Feel free to email me privately with other questions--I love talking
cakes. ;-)

Margaret



On Thu, 27 Dec 2001, Laurie Hupman wrote:

> Okay, I know this has nothing to do with period
> cooking, but a friend was asking for wedding cake
> advice over lunch today.
>
> She wants chocolate cake, with orange filling and a
> smooth, white icing.  She thinks orange or tangerine
> curd would probably be a better filling than orange
> marmalade, but she's not sure if she wants bitter
> oranges or sweet.
>
> I'm not much of a pastry cook, so I'm out of my depth
> here.  Can anybody make some recommendations?  We're
> going to get together at my place some time next month
> (when we've both got the same weekend free) and
> experiment.
>
> Thanks,
> Rose