Bridal Shower Cakes and Mike McCarey

What in the world do bridal shower cakes and Mike McCarey have in common?  Well nothing, really.  Except that I had the chance to use his buttercream recipe on a couple of bridal shower cakes that I made recently.

In case you saying who???  Let me start off by saying that Mike McCarey is probably my favorite cake decorator/instructor.  He owns Mike's Amazing Cakes in Redmond, WA and has been on several cake challenge competitions.  He is especially known for his 3-D sculpted cake masterpieces.  He also teaches several cake classes on Craftsy.  I highly recommend his Craftsy classes.

Anyway, I had a chance to use his unique buttercream recipe on this bridal shower cake recently and I loved how creamy it was, the taste, texture and workability.  The recipe calls for pasteurized egg whites, powdered sugar, vanilla extract, and butter....lots and lots of butter.










Mike uses this buttercream as a base for all his amazing sculpted cakes so I thought I would give it a try under a simple fondant covered round cake.  I didn't take into account the humidity factor where I live.  In Mississippi, it is pretty humid all year round.  Even though I didn't have any problems rolling out my fondant, when I started to put it on my chilled cake, the condensation-humidity factor kicked in.  I could barely get the fondant attached to the cake before the condensation on the cold buttercream started to make the fondant extra sticky.  I couldn't even smooth it.  I had to wait for all the condensation to dry before I could touch the cake again.  Unfortunately by that time, the buttercream had become soft which renders this technique useless as it relies on a hard buttercream to help make the fondant smooth.

I still like the way it turned out, but I wish the buttercream would have stayed firm enough for me to get it smoother.  The bottom layer is my standard bakery icing in hot pink and the top is black fondant.











So...my conclusion is that this would be a great buttercream for a filling and perhaps as frosting (when the weather is not too warm) but I don't think I can use it as a base for fondant due to the condensation factor.  I am pretty sure that chocolate ganache is what I am going to have to use to get around the refrigeration-condensation issue.

Here are a few more bridal shower cake ideas: