Buttercream Swirls

So, this past weekend's cake was a simple buttercream cake:

It was pretty basic, with SMBC finish and swirls.  Fresh flowers, provided by the florist as embellishment...  My clients tend to come to me when they want fondant work.  I somewhat specialize in fondant design with clean, elegant lines (or, so I like to think, lol!).  So, it was refreshing to have this "easy" little order. 

But, you know what they say... the easy ones tend to give you the most trouble!  Back when I booked this cake in February/March, it was cold out.  When I was told it was going to be a buttercream cake in August, absolutely no fondant... I asked the big question, where will the cake be displayed?  Inside, out of the sun, it's pretty cool in there, they always put the cakes there... Okay, it was cold outside, I wasn't in a "summer heat" frame of mind at that point.

Cut to last week when I'm trying to make this "simple" cake and we were in a 100°F heat wave here in New England!  Eeeek!  Not good for Swiss Meringue Buttercream!  It was so difficult to get the cake smooth, difficult to pipe scroll work while fighting the icing melting in my "hot hands."  But I persevered and pulled it off!

Okay, time to deliver the cake!  This made me glad I had put so much thought into my summer cake deilveries!  I think I am going to make a video (during all that free time I have between the hours of 3am and 7am!) with my tips for summer cake deliveries!  But, my saving grace for this sweltering delivery was dry ice!  I packed the cake in a double thick, heavy duty cardboard box and put in some dry ice.  Cranked the AC and drove 2 hours to the venue in a refrigerated SUV, lol!  The cake made it there in one piece and even though the room was hot, the cake held up! 

*For those of you who are wondering about using SMBC in hot weather, I still do not recommend it!  The heat had begun to break on the day of this delivery, the reception was in the evening and the outside temp was going down.  The room was very warm, but still only in the lower 80's by the time I delivered the cake.  If it had been up in the 90's-100's, I would have asked the caterer to keep it refrigerated as long as possible.

So, there you have it... Happy Cakes by Renee does buttercream cakes too, no biggie!

I know this isn't a very exciting post, and I didn't have a ton of pictures of this cake... so, later this week I will share photos of another cake from my photo shoot with Allure Bridals!

Happy Caking :)