Welcome to the Cake Decorators Q&A

Hi. I’ve attempted making the buttercream myself today but can’t seem to get a smooth finish. I have been wishing by hand as I don’t have the electrical whisk but you can still taste the tiny granules and I have been whisking for a long time. Any idea how I can get the smooth finish. Thanks.

Hi Sonhila

In order to save your ingredients for later use, eg. as sponge cake, first divide the sugar/butter mixture into four 375g portions and put in the freezer until needed, ( put each portion in a freezer bag separately then store in a plastic tub). When you’re ready and less tired, to make an eight inch sponge cake, take one portion from your freezer, defrost and bring to room temperature, add to it 125g butter, (this will give you equal quantities of butter to sugar) thoroughly blend together. Add four eggs one at a time, fold in 250g flour (SR or if using plain 1 tsp baking powder) and bake in the usual way. ( add the 125g butter each time you use one of the portions ).
Voila !! You have four cakes and no wasted ingredient. Hope you’ve had a bit of a rest and feel less frazzled.

Hi Sonhila,

What type of sugar did you use? There should not be any granules if you used icing sugar, however if you used caster or just plain granulated then that may be why you are tasting granules. I hope this helps and please re-post any results. Thanks.

Hi. Thanks for getting back to me. Yes I used casting sugar. I will have to redo it all over again what a waste. I think I may need a break lol. I attempted Paul’s ganache yesterday and made the chocolate cake according to his recipe today morning. Everything was fine. And I am in between Ganaching the cake so it would be ready tomorrow to decorate so thought it would be best to get the buttercream over with tonight. Nevermind. Thanks a lot for clearing that up x

Hi Sonhila

It doesn’t have to be wasted, if you haven’t thrown it away, break some eggs and bake a cake. It’s only sugar and butter creamed and that’s how we start our cake batter. You can pop it in the fridge until you have time to bake something else. Just bring it back to room temperature, beat it again and nothing has gone to waste, so it isn’t a disaster. x

Hi. Thank you for that. No it’s still in the fridge so glad I can still use it. I used 500g of butter with 1kilo caster sugar. How much of everything else would I need to put into the cake? Cos I’m guessing it is going to be a pretty big one. Lol x