New textures with buttercream
This has been the most exciting few months for me as a cake maker, as new techniques for buttercream have evolved to completely transform the look for luxury wedding and celebration cakes.
If you love the vibrant colours and abstract character of impressionist art, check out these painted designs, which have been created using a palette knife. The technique suits a repeated motif and the slightly raised texture gives an embossed effect to each shape.
Painted buttercream wedding cake by Emma Page Buttercream Cakes London
Painted buttercream wedding cake by Emma Page Buttercream Cakes London
Impressionist floral wedding cake by Emma Page Buttercream Cakes London
Drawing on the influence of Russian sculpture painters, like Evgenia Ermilova (www.evgenia-ermilova.ru), who paint three-dimensional floral designs with plaster, a few of us started experimenting with manipulating buttercream in the same way: loading more material onto the knife than you would if you were simply painting to create shapes with more volume. This is very tricky. If the buttercream is too cold, it will be stiff and break when you try to adhere it to the cake. If it’s too warm or soft, it won’t have enough definition and will just flop like an ugly lump. The Italian meringue buttercream that I use is pretty stable and tends to hold its shape well, but I still had lots of sweary tantrums when I was trying to get the hang of this difficult but addictive technique.
These cakes have sculpted designs. You can see how the flowers and foliage have more volume than the painted effect. The buttercream is much thicker. These cakes are busy and have bags of character. The flowers really seem to be growing up or tumbling down the cake, which is why sculpted designs work best when the elements are arranged as a cascade, with three of five statement blooms entwined with smaller flowers, foliage and spikes.
As sculpted cakes have a thicker coating of buttercream, I would strongly advise a meringue buttercream over an American buttercream, as there is a lot less sugar.
Sculpted buttercream wedding cake by Emma Page Buttercream Cakes London
Sculpted buttercream wedding cake by Emma Page Buttercream Cakes London
Four tier sculpted buttercream wedding cake by Emma Page Buttercream Cakes London
Sculpted designs take longer to create than painted designs, which is why they are more expensive. The fun really starts when you start to combine different techniques. this cake, for example, combines sculpted hanging bunches of small flowers with piped blooms.
Sculpted and piped floral buttercream wedding cake by Emma Page Buttercream Cakes London
Or this, which combines piping, sculpting and painting to create a really dynamic pattern: perfect for a single tier, but this effect would also work on a larger cake. Those rich colours!
Single tier painted, sculpted and piped wedding cake by Emma PAge Buttercream Cakes London