I haven’t posted in a while.  I just want to share a cake I made for a friend.  It’s a bridal shower cake.  The lower tier is white chocolate whisper cake (TCB) filled with mousseline cream (pastry cream whipped with butter) and strawberries.  The top tier is German Chocolate Cake (from RHC).

Frosting is mousseline buttercream with grand marnier and white chocolate.

I made the monogram and flowers from gumpaste.

Jess

Excellent job Jess! The flavours sound delicious. Did you have a cutter for the monogram?

Jess,
Nicely done. How did you find working with gumpaste ?

Good job, Jess.  How did you make the monogram?

Thanks a lot!  I made the monograms using a Wilton letter mold.  I found it in the baking section of an arts/craft store (Michael’s).  I just put the gumpaste in the mold, let it dry a bit and then unmold.  My friend wanted the letters in Navy blue.  Since it’s hard to get that dark of color on the gumpaste, I painted the blue food color on the letters.

I enjoyed working with gumpaste.  I like making the carnation flowers.

I appreciate all the comments. Thanks again!

Jess

Would love to try both—I think the strawberry would be my favorite. Flowers are gorgeous, I truly though they were real!

The cake looks wonderful - and yes, like Matthew I thought the flowers were real!

Thank you.  The cake is pretty simple per request of my friend who ordered it.  I was originally planning on doing something with fondant.  But as we got to talking about it, she told me she didn’t like cakes with fondant.  So we went with just doing a simple buttercream cake decorated with flowers and monogram.

The carnations are actually not that difficult to make but they were pretty time-consuming.  Getting the color right also took a while because the request was for a deep red to go with the bride’s theme.  All in all, I think I spent about 2 to 3 hours getting the color right and making all the flowers (I made 9 but only used 6 for the cake).

Jess

Beautiful, Jess! I love the whole look, simple but elegant. Same with others, I thought the flowers were real. Love the deep red color, it’s very pretty.

Wow… those carnations are very life-like!  Great job!!

Oh my, it looks beautiful and absolutely decadent. Great job, so elegant.

Wow!  Looks beautiful and sounds delicious.

Wonderful cake, Jess!  I’ll chime in with the others, your carnations are absolutely perfect!

I’ve been wanting to try that pastry cream/butter bc for a long time.  How did you like it?  Is it only for fillings, or is it a consistency that would work for the outside of a cake as well?

So happy you posted.

Thanks a lot, guys!

Julie, I really liked the cream.  It was light and fluffy.  I originally wanted to just use whipped cream but I wanted something that tastes better and firmer that’s why I used it.  This particular recipe is mainly used for filling.  Its consistency is pretty good but lighter than buttercream.  You would probably be able to frost a cake with it, much like frosting a cake with whipped cream.  But tastewise, it’s not very sweet so I don’t really see it as a buttercream substitute.  The taste goes really well with fresh strawberries because the slight sweetness balances the acidity of the berries.

Jess

I thought the carnations were real, too! Well done!

Thanks for the tasting and consistency notes!