Experiments in cake, filling and frosting

This week, a friend I'm making a cake for made a request: could I possibly use her favorite box cake mix?

I will admit that it caught me by surprise. I agreed since it was what she wanted, but only for one tier of the two tiered cake because her favorite box mix was full of milk and my lactose intolerant daughter would also be at the party.

This was the first time I've made a box mix in easily 10 years. My impressions: I didn't really feel like it saved that much time. I mean, I still had to bust out my mixer, bake the cake in two layers, wash up afterwards... The cake itself was significantly lighter than mine. Lighter in color, lighter in weight. And it dried out faster as well. I don't prefer the taste. And it easily cost me 4 times what I would normally spend on ingredients for even my vegan chocolate cake. Basically, I'm not the biggest fan. Box mixes are great for those who never bake and don't have the ingredients at home, but I would never willingly choose to serve it.

 Here's the mix, half the batter in the bowl and half the batter baked in a layer and cooling.

 But it's also very clear the color difference to my vegan chocolate cake on the left. It's also maybe half the density.

The other new thing I tried this week is chocolate ganache. I'd never made it before and it turns out it's super easy. I didn't even have time to take pictures. It literally took 5 minutes. Ironically, I was told that ganache can take time to come together, but it didn't take much time for me. We used lactose free chocolate bars and lactose free cream. I will definitely be making this again.

 I used the ganache to fill the chocolate cakes for my friend.

 Then the real adventure. I wanted to try to make Swiss meringue buttercream. I'd only ever made American buttercream before, which only takes about 5 minutes, but meringue buttercream takes at least half an hour. Just count on it.

First of all, the online tutorials I found recommended I use a metal mixing bowl as a double boiler and we didn't even have one so I went out and bought one. Turns out this metal bowl has two layers to insulate it, and doesn't even work as a double boiler. I switched in the middle to a glass bowl. Even if it retains a bit more heat, it at least works at all.

 Once it started actually heating, it was pretty easy to tell when the sugar combined with the egg whites. Then it was time to beat them.

 Once the meringue was beaten and cool, I added the soft butter a tablespoon at a time. This was what it looked like after I had added about half the butter.

 At some point, though, it really looked as if the butter was seperating from the eggs. But I was told to just keep beating and it would eventually come together.

 At the end, it holds its own shape really well. It tastes much less sweet than American buttercream, and the butter is very much in the foreground. I would make it for clients, but would add 5€ per tier with this frosting for the time it takes to make.

Stay tuned for the final result of the cake I made for my friend.