wedding cake help

[brokenscale]

so im working on a wedding cake and i had some questions. I am shooting for a chocolate cake. The filling the bride chose was chocolate kahlua and she wanted a light frosting.

The way i normally make the chocolate kahlua is fill the cake with a soft ganache. I was thinking this might be too rich? what do you think.

Next i found a recipe that soaked the cake in kahlua and made a tiramisu frosting and filling that looked pretty good. My question about this recipe is that im afraid even just misting the cake with kahlua will give it too boozy of a taste. Any recomendations as to what i can do?

Normally I have plenty of time to figure it all out but the wedding is next week. which leads me to why the heck would you plan a wedding in two weeks? some people i swear

[Lisa Shock]

You could bake strong coffee into the cake, or mist it with it. I recommend making cold brewed coffee, let it steep 24 hours under refrigeration, and making it very strong -1 cup ground coffee to 1 quart, or less, of cold water.

You can also make coffee extract by soaking ground coffee in grain alcohol for a few days and then using that in the cake and icing.

[brokenscale]

I decided to make the tiramisu cream the filling. And because she wants the cake covered in fondant, im gonna cover the cake with a thick ganache, 1-1. Should solidify enough to cover the cake in fondant. Im gonna cook the kahlua in a simple syrup and see how it turns out.

[ChrisZ]

I've made two chocolate wedding cakes that included kahlua. You would have to use loads and loads of kahlua for the cake to taste alcoholic. If it's a really rich chocolate cake the kahlua will only add a subtle note to the flavour, but even if the cake is light I don't think you'll ever get to a 'boozy' stage.

The first chocolate-kahlua wedding cake I made used a chocolate/kahlua mousse between layers of chocolate cake. A mousse is lighter than a buttercream or ganache but you want to make sure it's firm enough to support the weight of the cake. You can add kahlua to the mousse mixture to your taste, so you can easily add a little at a time until you reach a flavour balance you're happy with.

The second one I made used an espresso buttercream that's much thicker, richer and more decadent than a mousse. The kahlua was very subtle here, coffee was the dominant flavour but again you can keep adding kahlua until you're happy with the balance.

In both cases I also mixed kahlua with milk (in equal proportions) and sprinkled the cake layers with a few tablespoons of the mixture as I was layering it up. This lets a kahlua flavour permeate the cake as well as adding moisture and richness.

BTW if you're planning on using a white chocolate ganache to cover the cake (because it's a wedding cake) then I would suggest that 1:1 will be too runny to spread. With white chocolate you'll probably want a 2:1 ratio of chocolate to cream, and allow plenty of time for the ganache to set (more than a day). Then whip it again and it will become less yellow as well as more spreadable.

[JeanneCake]

If you are using fondant to cover the cake, you would want to use a buttercream on the outside so the fondant has something to stick to. Because it firms up, ganache doesn't provide a surface for the fondant to stick to. In our shop, we use a simple syrup flavored with the appropriate liqueur or juice to add some subtle flavor notes but if you're looking for a stronger Kahlua taste, you might consider making a creme anglais to serve alongside the cake, and put the liqueur in that....

[brokenscale]

i read on cake central about a book by planet cake that describes in detail how you can ganache a cake and then add fondant to it. They have a video of a ganached cake being covered in fondant on youtube, just search planet cake.

I found this recipe for a smbc

http://www.epicurious.com/reci.....eam-109239

The cake im working on is a kahlua infused tiramisu filled choc cake. I plan on spraying the cake with a simple syrup of 4oz water 4oz sugar 2oz kahlua. Does this sound like a good ratio?

Then what i would like to do to the smbc and where most of my questions come from is infuse it with a tiramisu flavor. In europe and australia they have concentrate wich would be great but we dont have it here so what I was thinking is for the liquid at the end use 3fl oz of amaretto creamer and mix it with a teaspoon of instant expresso. Making sure to do this before it goes into the buttercream so that the expresso doesnt make it grainy. Do these ratios work?

The next and last question i have is, i want to add marscapone cheese to the cream. Can I use it in place of the butter or do i need to add it after. Also how much do you think I should use?

[CanadianBakin']

-Can't comment on fondant over ganache.

-Your link for SMBC doesn't work. Can you please post again.

-Ratio for simple syrup sounds fine. Just want to confirm you're adding Kahlua after making the simple syrup? Taste it before using it.

-Not sure why you would use amaretto creamer. Amaretto, Kahlua or vanilla will easily dissolve the instant coffee. Stir into the coffee, let sit a few minutes, stir again and it should be dissolved. How much you use depends on how much SMBC you're making. 1 tsp coffee doesn't sound like enough to me. To give you an idea, to flavour 1 dozen muffins I use 1/2 oz vanilla mixed with 1-1/2 Tbsp instant coffee/espresso granules. Make the paste and then add to taste.

- "add mascarpone to the cream"...do you mean the filling or the SMBC? I wouldn't add it to the SMBC. Instead I'd add a bit of cream cheese. I know it's not the same but I'm not sure the mascarpone will hold up as well at room temp which is the ideal temperature for eating SMBC. Cold SMBC isn't great. Either way, I wouldn't replace the butter, it must be at room temperature and add it at the end.

-Colette Peters suggests 8 oz cream cheese per recipe. Her SMBC recipe is 20 oz sugar, 10 oz egg whites, 20 oz unsalted butter. For espresso she suggests adding 2 tbsp instant espresso dissolved in 2 tsp vanilla. http://www.amazon.ca/s?_encoding=UTF8&search-alias=books-ca&field-author=Colette%20Peters

[brokenscale]

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Swiss-Meringue-Buttercream-109239

theres the link it didnt paste over properly before.

The reason im using amaretto creamer is to get the almond depth of the lady fingers into the filling. I just like the taste in my tiramisu. I will strengthen it up and mix it in slowly to taste to see how it comes out.