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 Post subject: Ideas on how to doctor an Italian buttercream?
PostPosted: Fri Aug 31, 2012 7:08 am 
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Location: Virginia
I'm taking a cake to a dinner party tonight and my first attempt was Joanne Chang's lemon layer cake from the Flour Bakery cookbook. When I baked the layers (to freeze) several days ago, I was a little concerned because they seemed really heavy (and thin--the recipe calls for using 3 9" cake pans and each layer is only about 1/2" thick). But...her cakes are typically dense and not particularly tall (and they're usually awesome). However It stayed in the back of my mind enough that I decided to make new layers from a Lori Ligganbotham recipe yesterday.

When I made the Flour cake, I also made the Italian buttercream and lemon curd that go with it, and I'm going to use the new layers with those components today when I assemble the cake. So the question(s) in this long story are, the buttercream tastes a little bland -- like it's missing some "oomph," and I'm wondering how to enhance it. I think it's just that it's not sweet enough, but I'm not sure how to make it sweeter at this point since it's already made. Would it work to just add a bit of confec. sugar to it? That seems weird since it's made with granulated sugar. But I assume at this point if I add even super-fine sugar, it could make it grainy. And if I make/add some sugar syrup, it would change the consistency and it possibly wouldn't be stiff enough, would it?

So if any of you bakers have any ideas as to what I could do to improve it, I'd love to hear them. Thanks!

Emilie


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 Post subject: Re: Ideas on how to doctor an Italian buttercream?
PostPosted: Fri Aug 31, 2012 10:07 am 
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Emilie
I would think that powdered sugar would help and not make it grainy. Could you add some other liquid flavoring to help it? i.e., vanilla extract or almond with a little powdered sugar might just give it the boost it needs. You could also try lemon extract or some lemon zest to punch up the lemon flavor. Another thought is to use the icing as is and make some lemon sugar and sprinkle the top of the cake with the lemon sugar to enhance the flavor of the icing (lemon sugar is just granulated sugar mixed with zest and allowed to sit a few hours for the zest to impart its flavor to the sugar.)
That's all I can think of right now. Hope it helps

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Last edited by gardnercook on Fri Aug 31, 2012 10:58 am, edited 1 time in total.

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 Post subject: Re: Ideas on how to doctor an Italian buttercream?
PostPosted: Fri Aug 31, 2012 10:47 am 
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Location: Near Toronto, Ontario, Canada
I'm not sure how this is all layered together, but thinking it might be on the bland side since it's paired with the lemon curd. if that's the case, but you think people might also eat it on its own, then I think Ilene's lemon sugar idea is great. or maybe adding some lemon zest to it.


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 Post subject: Re: Ideas on how to doctor an Italian buttercream?
PostPosted: Fri Aug 31, 2012 2:27 pm 
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Lemon zest would work, and a splash of lemoncello would help too. If you have some extra curd you can beat that in, but the icing will be looser as a result.


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 Post subject: Re: Ideas on how to doctor an Italian buttercream?
PostPosted: Fri Aug 31, 2012 4:53 pm 
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Becca, when I was at Flour, one of the things I loved about her desserts was that they were not super sweet, rather they let other flavors reign. I always make a little tester cake, so I can try the finished product ahead. My guess is that once it is all put together, the lemon will be the star. Her lemon meringue tart was the best I've had and that is my favorite pie. I like the Limoncello idea, I do that for the glaze in Giada's LEMON RICOTTA COOKIES WITH LEMON GLAZE. If you think the whole thing won't be lemony enough, you might putting a bit of lemon syrup on the cake. I use this for my LEMON BUNDT CAKE and it is so good.

Chang's Crispy Magic Frosting is among my top 3 preferred frostings. It was wonderful on her chocolate cupcakes.

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 Post subject: Re: Ideas on how to doctor an Italian buttercream?
PostPosted: Fri Sep 07, 2012 3:01 pm 
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Thank you all so much for the feedback -- I should have responded sooner but am just now getting caught up. So... Jean was right. I ended up with barely enough time to assemble the cake so just went with the buttercream as it was, and it was really delicious in total. I had thought previously that perhaps it didn't have much punch because it was going to be combined with the other elements, but what concerned me was that I had actually done a test of the curd fillling/buttercream frosting on two other lemon cake layers I already had in the freezer. And although it was good, it was missing something. That's what led me to consider doctoring the icing.

But what I realized in hindsight was that on that test version, the one thing I didn't do was the lemon-sugar syrup that is in the Flour recipe. So Alina was right on that one. On Friday I soaked the cake layers fairly heavily with the syrup, and then once it was all together, the flavors and sweetness were perfectly balanced.

And Alina, I'm trying not to turn green that you went to Flour! I'd love to visit one of her bakeries, but never get that far north. Can't wait to see her next cookbook! (She's talked about it on her blog -- I believe it's almost finished -- but I haven't seen a publication date for it yet.)

Anyway, thanks again! (Oh, and FWIW, I made some raspberry ice cream to go with the lemon cake (it has raspberries in between the layers so I knew the ice cream would increase the "wow" factor significantly). It was the first time I'd made that flavor and it was really, really good. And a wonderful accompaniment to the cake.

Emilie


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 Post subject: Re: Ideas on how to doctor an Italian buttercream?
PostPosted: Fri Sep 07, 2012 5:43 pm 
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Location: Chico, CA
Emilie, I am so glad it turned out right. I gave my daughter the cookbook digitally when it came out and was able to borrow it for 2 weeks. I copied almost every recipe into Living Cookbook before it timed out.

I had a panini with cheese and a fruit compote that was amazing. I hope the recipe is in her next book. I am heading out to Boston in November for a month, so I hope I can go again. DD bought a house in Newton so it is no longer walking distance, but I think it is worth a special trip. Then again, there are so many good restaurants in Boston that I still have not tried that it may be toss-up.

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