June 2013- Week 4

ORGANIZATION SKILLS

I would say that this week was very productive. I didn’t only manage to get skills and knowledge from professionals, but was able to browse loads of things off the net.

COMMUNICATION WITH SUPERVISOR

This week, I didn’t communicate with my supervisor at all.

INFORMATION

This week in IPS, my teacher taught me the basic of Italian Buttercream. Italian Buttercream is a meringue-based (egg whites and sugar) buttercream, and is commonly used on top of cupcakes.

Italian Butter Cream:

-250g unsalted butter

-1 g salt

-60g Egg white

-150g Sugar

-100g water

1. Cream the butter until very pale and soft, about 4-5 minutes. The butter needs to be at room temperature, but not half melted.

2. Form soft peaks by whipping the egg whites.

3. In a pan, heat the sugar and water, and wait until the temperature reaches 114°C. Don’t stir.

4. Pour in the sugar and water mixture to the whipped meringue, and use the mixer to whip the two components until the bowl isn’t hot anymore.

5. Put the butter in the sugar, water, and meringue mixture, and use the hand mixer to blend them up until soft and fluffy.

The buttercream turns out to be rich yet not overly sweet in flavor, light and creamy in texture, and holds its shape very well. Therefore, it is the form of cooked buttercream that is easiest to work with when decorating cakes, and in which I most likely is going to use on my cakes later on. The only problem I had to deal with this buttercream is that it melts so easily when put into an area with warm to hot temperature. I also browsed some cake decorating shops I will most likely going to visit later on my upcoming vacation to the UK. Some of the really interesting shops I could go to are: http://sugarshack.co.uk/, http://www.cakecraftshop.co.uk/, and http://www.bake-a-boo.com/.

Italian buttercream on top of vanilla cupcakes