Open Letter To Rose Levy Beranbaum
Rose,
You have guided me for longer than I care to reveal. Your recipes have inspired me to create birthday celebrations at an unreasonable scale. I have made baskets out of spun sugar, I have molded tempered chocolate into cake coverings, I have erected a wedding cake after just six months and twenty practice cakes. You have taught me that nobody really likes to eat fondant although it's pretty to look at. Rose, Rose, Rose.
I've made classic buttercream, neo-classic buttercream and four types of mousselines. They all spread and taste incredible. (Given the amount of butter, really, how bad can they really taste even if you were to screw up?) So, Rose, why can't I get my buttercream to pipe better?
Why do my roses turn out less than perfect?
I can make a rose out of chocolate paste that actually looks like a rose. But when I try to create a simple rose, or any other flower for that matter, from any of your buttercream recipes, they droop, fade, fall and lose shape?
The only tips you have for butter creams in your book involve what to do if your frosting curdles or cracks. Rose, my buttercreames never, never curdle. Rose, a monkey can make a buttercream without it curdling so long as you let the candy thermometer hit 238.
I'm waiting, Rose.
I'm not making another cake until you let me know what to do.
Thanks.
posted by Champurrado at 5:26 PM
8 Comments:
TigerGrrl's birthday is in July. She doesn't like chocolate, so you could practice straight buttercream, no chaser. I think your cake (I assume it's your cake) looks good though. What's the problem?
Oh, foil. How much time do you have? What a fuckin' loaded question.
I made this cake Saturday morning for Mrs. C's birthday.
Woke up at 4:30 so the kitchen would be cool enough for the piping.
G's B-day is in August. Ever try to make buttercream in August or July for that matter?
Let me know if you have a refrigerated kitchen and I'll talk you down with T-Grl's b-day cake.
Thanks for stopping by
Maybe it is the humidity as much as the heat? Sugar absorbs water like an SOB of course.
Prom: Right you are. It's the bane of bakers from Bute to Bakersfield. However, I made it on Saturday morning and barometer was where it should be and humidity level was actually pretty low. I can make flowers out of a vegetable shortening base but while it would look nice, it would taste like crap. With powdered sugar butter cream, all you have to do is add more sugar and the piping gets actually crispy. Again, tastes like crap. Do a tastes test compare between one of these lesser alternatives and real buttercream and the differences are massive. A buttercream flower will softly land on the tongue and slowly melt, releasing the fragrance of the flavors and the subtle, smooth, velvety sensation of everything in your life actually working out ok.
The other flowers don't.
Thanks for stopping by.
How about making the decorations using colored white chocolate or is that stuff an abomination?
What do I know, I don't eat any of the sugary stuff.
based on your description of how the buttercream flowers languidly melt in your mouth while slowly releasing all kinds of flavors.......who cares what they look like. let's savor them! NOW! where's mine?
Yeah, for kids' birthdays, anyway, they're just going to end up wearing as much as they eat (even turning-seven-year olds, especially if they have some fun food fights), so looks, schmooks. Let's have it taste good. Maybe you have some travel hockey to DC in July?
Foli:
Sorry to say all the travel in the summer is towards Canadia, as we call it.
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