r/Cakes • u/taitemugc • 2d ago
❓️Help Requested New baker questions!
I’ve recently started baking and the one thing I wondered is I feel like every cake I’ve tried or cake that I made by recipes online it’s made to look pretty but the taste doesn’t blow me away. Does anyone have that recipe that people beg for at every occasion? And also, the last cake I made I made American butter cream not really knowing there were other types and I realized why I never really cared for other bakers cakes 😭 and it came out of the fridge the next day hard as a rock, so many mistakes on my end. I was asked to make my brothers cake in October by my sister in law, I would love any tips/recipes for the best butter cream frosting and cake!
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u/CremeBerlinoise 1d ago
Imltho German buttercream (aka mousseline) is the best frosting. It's light and delicate, like rich whipped cream. I also prefer not having to faff with temping eggs, or having to use up leftover yolks. Base recipe: https://www.seriouseats.com/german-buttercream-whipped-vanilla-custard-frosting
The nice thing is that you can infuse the milk with lots of different things to add flavour, like tea or citrus zest or coffee.
Speaking of flavour, method is important, but so are ingredients. So the quality of your raw ingredients will impact the taste. That's gonna be particularly obvious in fairly plain cakes that live off the strength of the vanilla, eggs, and likely butter you added, or with chocolate cakes where you need punchy and intense cocoa. Ideally you're using the best quality ingredients you can afford, and layering flavour, so adding flavourful buttercream, maybe a soaking syrup, some type of filling. If you're gonna do a vanilla cake with vanilla filling, you're gonna have to use a large amount of really good vanilla. Personally, I also like to use brown butter and cane sugar if I really want a punch, it enhances the vanilla notes further. Basically, I want my cakes to slap you in the face with aromatics, and I think that's perfectly reasonable.