HELP!!!! Cake and Icing Recipes!!!

m_89

HELP!!!!!!!!!

I've been asked to make a birthday cake for a family member! It's quite a big birthday and now the more i think about it....the more i'm beginning to panic!!!
I've always been quite a keen baker but never done anything like this before...EVER!!! :eek:

I'm thinking of using a victoria sponge for the cake and filling it with jam and either cream or buttercream! I'm also gonna venture into fondant icing for this cake too!!!!

But i'm just wondering can anyone help me get the buttercream to a white colour??? I want the kind of icing that bakers and professional cake shops use on there cakes(i.e. a basic birthday sponge cake) but i dunno is it a buttercream icing that they use or not! If anyone can help me with this I would be eternally grateful!!:) I know that there are some family members who find that the buttercream icing(rachel allen's recipe) I usually use can be too heavy for them!

Also am i wise to stick with the victoria sponge?? Crowd pleaser??

Any suggestions or tips will be greatly appreciated

Sigma Force

When you beat the buttercream it goes pale yellow but a bit later it goes almost white. I dunno..I don't really like the super white pristine butter cream being what it is..ie made with real butter I think it should have a tinge of yellow just like when using vanilla I prefer to see the yellow or the vanilla seeds.
With a Victoria sponge a freshly whipped cream filling using double cream can be nice you can even add a teaspoon of real vanilla extract without it going too yellow it should stay white because there's a lot more cream than vanilla in it.

Buttercream can be a bit sickly if you're not too fond of it so if you do use it perhaps a thinner layer of buttercream and a bit more jam. I always prefer more jam on sponge but it's all about personal preference.

I know I bang on about it but Nigella has a lovely recipe for an old fashioned chocolate cake, it's very simple to make, and although has lots of chocolate in it the sour cream cuts the sweetness, it's more rustic looking but that's part of the charm of it.

phormium

You will never get home made buttercream white, whiteish maybe but never white because our butter simply is not white.

As for the stuff you get in bakeries remember chances are they did not make it and bought it in a giant bucket full of lovely chemically goodness! Our nearest equivalent is probably the Betty Crocker frosting in supermarkets.

If you want to sugarpaste the cake then I would not advise using fresh cream as the finished cake cannot be refrigerated or the sugarpaste will sweat. Also if there is not a firm filling in the cake it will be hard to smooth the sugarpaste using any sort of pressure as the filling wil bulge out.

If you are using a victoria sandwich recipe and sugarpaste I would suggest swiss meringue buttercream, not the easiest but better tasting than the basic stuff. You can find tutorials on youtube showing how it is done. Raspberry jam would be nice with it.

Chocolate cake can often be the easiest as you can use a chocolate ganache which is a great filling and coating if you are sugarpasting a cake. You can make a white chocolate ganache but I am not fond of it, consistency is fine but I just find white choc awful sweet.