A blogging buddy suggested that I post a picture here of the cake I made for Veronica's baby shower.
I am certainly not a professional, but I was pleased with how it turned out. Should I be embarrassed to admit that the first thing I did was look for some frosting for the cake in supermarkets? (You know, the kind of easy frosting already prepared and full of preservatives sitting on grocery shelves everywhere in the U.S.) Well this is Italy, and I soon realized that frosting is not commonly used, and certainly not sold in grocery stores. Maybe with unlimited time and patience I could have found pre made frosting, but I didn’t have either. So I did what anyone would do, and made my own frosting; my mom’s best cream-cheese frosting recipe, slightly modified with Italian ingredients. For the light pink color, I used granatina, a hot pink colored, and berry flavored syrup that my boys add to sparkling water for their own home-made soda pops.
Then I searched for ways to make the cake super cute... and found that these sweet little baby booties are easily made with cup-cakes. I still can’t believe how easy they were to put together.
I had ideas of making roses and leaves to add to the cake using frosting, but no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t get the frosting stiff enough to hold shapes. Probably if only I had added more powdered sugar (confectioners sugar) it would have been sufficient. But I had to grind regular table sugar to make the powdered sugar, because there wasn’t any at our local supermarket. So I only made only the bare minimum. They say necessity is the mother of invention, so I decided I would make the roses and leaves out of Marzapane . I am including the recipe here because it was so easy (and fun) to decorate using Marzapane. The roses were colored using a small amount of the juice of crushed berries, and the leaves were colored with mint and Genepy, a green liquor. As you can probably guess by now, food coloring is another item not easily found here... again, it probably is sold here, but I didn’t know where to find it. The marzapane was easy to create with, and I will be making it again. My kids already want a new batch so they can create rockets and other fantastical shapes with it. I hope it inspires you to make some Marzapane today!
I am certainly not a professional, but I was pleased with how it turned out. Should I be embarrassed to admit that the first thing I did was look for some frosting for the cake in supermarkets? (You know, the kind of easy frosting already prepared and full of preservatives sitting on grocery shelves everywhere in the U.S.) Well this is Italy, and I soon realized that frosting is not commonly used, and certainly not sold in grocery stores. Maybe with unlimited time and patience I could have found pre made frosting, but I didn’t have either. So I did what anyone would do, and made my own frosting; my mom’s best cream-cheese frosting recipe, slightly modified with Italian ingredients. For the light pink color, I used granatina, a hot pink colored, and berry flavored syrup that my boys add to sparkling water for their own home-made soda pops.
Then I searched for ways to make the cake super cute... and found that these sweet little baby booties are easily made with cup-cakes. I still can’t believe how easy they were to put together.
I had ideas of making roses and leaves to add to the cake using frosting, but no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t get the frosting stiff enough to hold shapes. Probably if only I had added more powdered sugar (confectioners sugar) it would have been sufficient. But I had to grind regular table sugar to make the powdered sugar, because there wasn’t any at our local supermarket. So I only made only the bare minimum. They say necessity is the mother of invention, so I decided I would make the roses and leaves out of Marzapane . I am including the recipe here because it was so easy (and fun) to decorate using Marzapane. The roses were colored using a small amount of the juice of crushed berries, and the leaves were colored with mint and Genepy, a green liquor. As you can probably guess by now, food coloring is another item not easily found here... again, it probably is sold here, but I didn’t know where to find it. The marzapane was easy to create with, and I will be making it again. My kids already want a new batch so they can create rockets and other fantastical shapes with it. I hope it inspires you to make some Marzapane today!
Yeah! I am so glad you posted it here! Ah marzapane....I remember having some in Taormina, Sicily..oh my was it ever delicious. The lady who made it smiled when she saw my initial reaction after having put it in my mouth. It is also made in Mexico, but I don't think it is quite as good as the one I tasted in Taormina. I'm going to make this sometime soon. Maybe for Christmas!
ReplyDeleteThis was the most gorgeous cake I have seen in a long time. We loved it and took tons of photos of it too. Thanks so much once again Amber.
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