American Baker in Germany

This cake was for my own birthday. Comes around every year. This year, I wanted a maple cake. So, this is a 6-inch maple cake filled and frosted with maple Swiss meringue buttercream.  I also put the maple buttercream in two piping bags with medium open star tips. There was a lighter brown and a darker brown. If you saw my recipe on maple buttercream, I explain that it is naturally off white. But I feel that people don't taste a flavor properly unless it looks like it tastes like it does. So, I colored the majority of the buttercream with brown food coloring with a bit of red to warm up the color and I colored some of it a darker brown using the same method. I first started piping with the lighter brown. I piped a star border along the bottom of the cake. Then I piped a reverse shell border along the top edge of the cake. This is a twist in opposite directions: right, then left. Then I piped some swirls on top of the cake. And I piped a border along the top side of the cake. Then, ...

 I love maple. Almost as much as cinnamon. I decided it was time to make maple buttercream. Maple Swiss Meringue Buttercream: 7 egg whites 2 cups (400g) brown sugar 2 cups (500g) butter 1 tbsp maple flavoring 1/2 tsp salt Separate the eggs, putting the egg whites in a heat-safe bowl (either metal or glass). Whisk in brown sugar. The mixture will be thick. Heat over a double boiler until the mixture is thin, frothy, there are no sugar grains left and the mixture feels hot to the touch. It should be thin like this. Beat the sugar-egg mixture until it reaches room temperature. And is white and glossy and gorgeous.  It should also be about soft peaks. Beat in the butter about 2 tbsp at a time. Beat in maple flavoring and salt. Continue beating until the mixture reaches buttercream consistency.  The recipe is great because it basically doesn't have much color. It's basically off-white. Isn't that beautiful?  But, my experience is that people often don't think something ta...