Welcome to the Cake Decorators Q&A

What buttercream recipe would people suggest for a 3 tier semi- naked wedding cake. It’s not till September so I am hoping hot weather won’t be an issue….then again I’m in Scotland so it’s never an issue.

Also anyone got a decent recipe for a champagne flavoured cake and buttercream.

Thank you

Hi mtfhayes

Reading through many naked cake forums, it appears most people use 2:1 ratio icing sugar to butter for the buttercream. However, if this is too stiff it can be softened by adding liquid of your choice to bring it to a more spreadable consistency. For the champagne flavour, you could either use intense champagne flavouring such as:
https://www.thecakedecoratingcompany.co.uk/colours-flavours-c46/flavourings-c56/foodie-flavours-champagne-food-flavouring-15ml-p6520

Alternatively use a combination of the food flavour and a champagne reduction. To make the reduction, bring to the boil approx 250ml of the champagne and reduce to half the amount. Reduction intensifies the flavour. Use the reduction when cool to slacken the buttercream instead of other liquids. Same can be done to flavour the sponge. If you need more than 250ml champagne, use more and reduce as required. For champagne simple syrup, use equal quantites of champagne and sugar, bring to the boil for a couple of minutes. Make sure all the sugar is dissolves without stirring the liquid. Take off the hob, allow steam to die down and place a lid on the saucepan. Once cool, use to moisten cake layers before filling. To balance out the taste of the syrup I would suggest using a dry, rather than a sweet champagne. For pink champagne buttercream, use a small amount of red or pink food colour

Champagne is expensive, suggestion for experimenting for reduction taste would be to use perry, cider or elderflower champagne.

Hope this helps.

Thanks this is great!