Cake #22: Starry Night

As I mentioned in my last post, I have been wanting to try my hand at a frozen buttercream transfer. After seeing Van Gogh's Starry Night on cupcakes in the book Hello, Cupcake, I thought it would make the perfect design for my first buttercream transfer.

After last week's failed attempt at baking a sheet cake, I decided I was going to break down and actually buy a Wilton cake pan designed specifically for sheet cakes. Since my cake last week had been so short, I decided I was going to compensate for this by using more mix. The directions on the cake pan called for approximately 7 cups of batter; I mixed two mixes (which should have yielded 9-12 cups.) My original plan was to use ¾ of the mixute in my sheet cake and then make an additional dozen cupcakes; however, when I started pouring the batter, the pan didn't look "full" until I had used all but the last cup...and what's the point of making just 3-4 cupcakes? So, I simply added the remaining cup in with the rest.

Well, 15 minutes into the baking process, I smell something burning; when I opened the oven, I discovered that the batter was erupting from the pan and coating the oven's bottom! Fortunately, I was able to add a cookie sheet beneath the cake to catch most of the spillage. Although a mess, I must say the end result was quite satisfactory; my cake was the prefect height and nearly flat.

To decorate this cake, I used a buttercream icing that was actually made with half shortening and half butter; this mixture was much more creamy than the all shortening mixture I usually use. It also taste much creamier - in fact, one friend compared it to the icing found in the middle of a twinkie. To make the buttercream transfer, I merely printed a color book outline of Van Gogh's painting, and started adding the color. I'm not entirely sure that Starry Night was the best topic for a buttercream transfer, but the idea of copying it free-hand just wasn't an option. The technique itself was fairly simply...although I would definitely using an easier picture next time. I will also warn that it is completely necessary to throughly tape the wax paper to the coloring sheet - I only used two small pieces of tape, which resulted in the paper warping (which led to unslightly line across my design.)

I finished the cake off with a quick shell border around the top and bottom, but the creaming icing and the warm weather didn't combine too well - resulting in the loss of several shells in the bottom left corner. Overall, I did enjoy experimenting with buttercream transfers and will definitely be trying this again in the future!