Cake! magazine by Australian Cake Decorating Network August 2015 | Page 79
Written by Marianna Saran
Their spectacular cakes and
cupcakes are always meticulously
covered in lush, fluffy buttercream,
their designs continuously pushing
decorating boundaries. Their
careers came accidentally after
creating sweet mothers’ day gifts
for their beloved mothers. It was
suggested they continue on this
baking and decorating journey. A
passion ignited and, as they say,
the rest is history.
The ACDN team were lucky enough
to meet Valeri and Christina recently
at the Cake, Bake Sweets Show in
Sydney. They took time out of their
hectic schedule to chat with us.
When you started decorating, why
did you choose buttercream as your
decorating medium?
Back home in the Philippines, we
grew up celebrating birthdays and
holidays with sheet cakes covered and
decorated with luscious buttercream.
We think 8 out of 10 Filipino kids can’t
help to not poke those cakes when no
one is looking to get a taste of that icing
- of course we are one of them! Also,
when we were looking for “easy” cake
decorating tutorials, buttercream is the
only medium that is easily sourced out
and cheap too.
What is the most important thing to
know before working with buttercream?
Buttercream is all about skills…
and skills are honed through
dedication and practice. There are
not a lot of specialist tools when using
buttercream as your medium so you
also have to combine your skills with
imagination, because this is the only
limitation in creating new techniques or
designs in buttercream.
There is often confusion about how
long buttercream lasts once applied to
a cake and whether it can be left out of
the fridge at room temperature. Could
you please clarify this?
In our buttercream recipe, we only
use water to thin it down if we need
too. Some use milk. If you use water,
you can keep your buttercream for
7-10 days even if left out of the fridge.
If you add milk, you can keep it for
about 4 days. But of course, make
sure to take into consideration what
filling you put into your cake. If it is
something perishable (cream cheese,
custard, etc), then by all means, you
should keep it in inside the fridge.
When you do, make sure to put it in a
box and cover with cling wrap all over.
If you are taking it out, take to room
temperature to thaw before you remove
all the wrappings. This will ensure that
your cake will not sweat.
What is the best way to achieve
deep colours when working with
buttercream?
First of all, avoid using powder colours
for tinting buttercream because the
micro granules do not easily get
dissolved in it, unless you dissolve
in water first which will make your
buttercream to become too soft. We
usually just use more amount of colour
if we needed to make it a deeper
shade. But for red, we usually mix even
amounts of 3 colours – any dark shade
of pink, then orange, and then finally,
red extra or any dark shade of red. If
it comes out bright red, then you can
add a hint of brown or black.
What do you believe are some of the
benefits of working with buttercream?
First of all, the ingredients to make
buttercream are very affordable and
you can easily get them from grocery
stores. Also the sweet fact that
buttercream is so yummy, you can
also finish decorating a cake in such
a short time. You do not need a lot of
tools to create the designs because
if you only have a couple of good
colours, piping bags, tips/nozzles,
the only limitation to your design is
your imagination. But for us, we think
that the BEST benefit in working with
buttercream is that you can use it for
decoration in ANY TYPE OF WEATHER.
Especially in Australia where it gets
really (really..really) hot, with our
buttercream recipe, you wouldn’t
worry that your cake will melt away.
We recently did a Buttercream Heat
Challenge in Arizona, Abu Dhabi and
India wherein we left a cake outside
for about 1-3 hours under the sun at
39C-40C and nothing happened. Next
challenge will be in Australia!!