American Baker in Germany

 This cake was for my colleague's wife for her birthday. He said that he didn't want her to make her own birthday cake. Makes sense to me. The request was for a chocolate cake with raspberry Swiss merinuge buttercream filled with fresh raspberries with some pretty piping and the words "Happy Birthday" in blue and white. I can do that. I made a batch of Swiss meringue buttercream, putting some white buttercream aside, and flavored and colored the rest raspberry and colored it blue. I put the white in piping bags with a small round tip and a medium star tip. And the blue raspberry buttercream in a piping bag with a small star tip.  I decided to try out a new recipe for devil's food cake, which turned out fantastic. So, this is an 8-inch round devil's food cake. I filled it with raspberry buttercream and fresh raspberries. It was three layers high. Then I frosted the cake with the blue raspberry buttercream. I piped a reverse shell border along the top edge, a sh...

 This year, my daughter is turning 12. She wanted two cakes: one for family, one for friends. But she wanted both to be similar enough, I thought I'd keep both cakes on one post. These are both 6-inch red velvet cake. The original thought was to frost and decorate the cake with white chocolate ganache. So, the first one was.  Unfortunately, I struggled with the piping part. The ganach was too soft to pipe properly. I was very unhappy with the consistency. The ganche also "wept" slightly, adding pools of oil on the cake board. Let's try again. This time, I decided to fill and frost it with white chocolate buttercream instead.  It was the perfect piping consistency. I only used medium star tips. This was the cake for my daughter's friends. I piped a reverse shell border along the top of the cake.   Then I twisted some piping around the top of the cake.   I also piped a pink shell boder along the bottom with a white shell border on top of it. I also piped some hear...

 This year for the fourth of July, I just wanted to do some piping and let the colors speak for themselves. So, I colored some vegan American buttercream red and blue and left some white. And I chose a star tip and a round tip for each color. And I put the buttercream in piping bags. I frosted a 6-inch round cake dummy with white vegan American buttercream. I piped a shell border along the bottom with red. And I piped some swirls on top of the cake with red. And I piped some blue swirls between the red swirls. And I piped some shells with blue buttercream pointing down on the side of the cake and a red star under the blue shell. And I piped some red drop lines with the points above the shells. And I added some blue drop lines above the red ones with a thin white drop line above the blue one. And I covered the points of the drop lines with a white shell, adding a white star between the red shells along the bottom border. Then I added some more red and blue swirls on top of the cake....