Wow that title was a mouthful. How about cwc sm buttercream?

This buttercream!!!

Also, before we get into it, I know, it looks like I have gathered sandwich bread, layered it between jam and covered it in peanut butter. And I’m not gonna pretend that doesn’t sound delicious but this is better, way better!

The story of this cake begins with cranberry curd. If you like lemon curd you will LOVE this stuff. It’s sharp and sweet and totally lights up your tastebuds. It’s fairly easy to make: soften the cranberries with some sweeteners by boiling then add butter and temper in some egg. Hello heaven.

And then you’ve got these leftover whites from making the curd and…

What is Caramelized White Chocolate?

Let’s stop here for a minute and talk about cwc. This stuff is incredible. Simple manipulations to everyday ingredients which lead to transformative results are my game: basically you spread a lot of chopped white chocolate on a baking sheet and bake it for 45 minutes or more – turning every now and then. It turns rough and beige at first and then as you stir you find it turning darker on the bottom. Stir and repeat. Get to the point where the color you see is the color of caramel and it starts smoothing out again. Once you are at stage you like, puree it – sneak a taste, it’s so good. You can use it immediately or save it for later use.

Later uses like, cwc sm buttercream?? Hells yeah! Onto it.

Assembly tips:

• There are a million guides online for how to frost and assemble a layer cake so I’m not going to bore you here with more text, instead I’ll link to this video which I think is really helpful.

• I baked my cake in two 5” molds and then sliced both in half for 4 cake layers. With this cake, the more layers the better because you get more curd.

• Before you put the curd onto your cake layer, pipe a circle of buttercream around the border to prevent the curd from leaking out.

• Make sure you to put a bottom cake layer upside down on the top of the cake to make for even frosting.

P.S. for the white trees on the cake:  melted and tempered white chocolate and piped out trees onto a piece of parchment paper. Once set (if the chocolate is tempered properly this won’t take too long), one by one put them on the cake. They taste so much better than glaze or fondant! And they give a nice little crunch in every cake piece.

Caramelized White Chocolate

First let’s caramelize your white chocolate, I use more than I’ll need.

I like this guide from David Lebovitz (also, check out my instagram highlights for a walk-through in photos) essentially you’ll take as much white chocolate as you want and bake it at 250, stirring it from time to time until it turns the color of caramel

I puree mine as soon as I’m happy with the color and then let it set on a parchment-lined 1/4 sheet pan. Then, once it is firm and set, I chop it up and store it in an air-tight container.

For the swiss meringue buttercream formula, I mostly followed this recipe from Stella Parks.

Caramelized White Chocolate Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Smooth swiss meringue buttercream made and flavored with caramelized white chocolate.

Yields: 3 cups

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Ingredients

• 6 egg whites
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 300 g or 1 1/2 cups granulated or brown sugar
• 452 or 2 cups butter softened, unsalted or salted is fine
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 400 g caramelized white chocolate melted and cooled

Method

• In a heatproof bowl, whisk together the egg whites, sugar, lemon juice and salt. Place over a pot with boiling water and cook for about 10 minutes, until you can pinch it and can't detect any sugar granules (about 185 F).
• Pour mixture into a stand mixer and whisk on high for about 10 minutes, until it becomes thick, pale and glossy. It'll take up to ten minutes to get to stiff peaks.
• Add the butter slowly, no more than a tablespoonful at a time, allowing each to be incorporated before adding another. It might start to look separated but just keep whisking until you see it become smooth (stop the mixer at any point to test it by running your finger over it).
• Add vanilla and mix. Then pour in the melted chocolate and whisk on medium until it all comes together. Because of the warm chocolate the buttercream may seem not solid enough but it will firm up in the fridge and at room temp, holds up just fine.

Notes

Make the full recipe for an 8 or 9 3-4 layer cake, half for a 6.

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