Amount of buttercream / fondant on cakes these days

[Ceàrdaman]

Is it me or is the amount of buttercream / fondant on cakes these days, just totally bonkers?

It's like the cake isn't important, but the toppings are the main event now?

Sure they need to look nice, but jeez

I guess IABU if the decorations and fondant are the important bits

And IANBU if the cake should take centre stage

(Images from google)

I do love buttercream icing but if I can't get it in my mouth it's off putting! Although I do tend to cut the cup cake in half and redistribute the icing.

The big fondant ones I think look great. I had one for 1 big event recently and the actual cake under it was very very tasty so it probably depends on who makes it

Oh, no, horrible cream has no place on a cake.

Plain cakes are nice, but more to have with a cup of tea than for a celebration.

Love a plain cake. Nigella’s Madeira cake or a seedy cake ideally.

And no need for the Massive Salad digs - a proper cake has a lovely fuck tonne of butter and sugar in it anyway.

I always think these massive shop bought buttercream things just taste like cheap marg.

Actually I don’t think I’ve ever eaten a disappointing cake. Maybe the occasional slightly dry one, but that’s all. I don’t find icing or buttercream or fondant sickly - perhaps if I ate stacks of it, yes. But on a normal cupcake, no way.

I predict this thread will just turn into people blaming America and people reminiscing about the 70s/80s/90s when things were apparently better 😂

I bake a lot so don't buy cakes, which is fortunate as I HATE buttercream and fondant. They make cakes look pretty but to me it's all about the flavour of the cake. I have made a wedding cake in the modern, naked style and decorated it with flowers and fern.

Agree, there's more buttercream than cake on most things you buy now.

As with so much, I think social media is to blame. It's all about the appearance in carefully framed photographs rather than how it actually tastes. The pretty pics get likes and followers and therefore sales. Added to that, people buying them mainly want to wow others on their on wankstagram or bragbook.

Generally agree but because most icing you get on shop bought is awful and making up for a cake that has no flavour and all the fat (the bit that tastes of anything) out so you just get sugar on sugar.

I pride myself on making amazing tasting cake with fillings and icing that also taste amazing. I made a caramel cake (sugar and butter boiled into caramel then poured onto dry ingredients) with caramel filling and icing. Also made an amazing strawberry cake with homemade compote in the cake and buttercream which was unbelievable. Tasted of fresh strawberry's and real buttercream nom.

On cupcakes yes but not really on cakes. I bake a lot and cakes like the big one on the pic don’t need much. You do a basic crumb layer that should only be very thin and then you don’t need much more to do a smooth finish. If you’re putting a very thick outside layer on it’s likely you’re doing it wrong, except if you’re putting stripes in the buttercream as you need more for that. Also, those Christmas ones from Jane’s patisserie can easily be done with far less than that pic implies.

I agree but I suppose it stops me eating office cake offerings as they are so gunged up with goo and the cake underneath is never actually very nice

Fondant icing always tastes musty to me. I love real butter cream but just a dab/thin layer.

You are SO not unreasonable. All that sludge. Totally ruins the cake. I just want cake

Totally agree! I like naked cakes. You scrape on the buttercream then scrape it off, leaving a half finished look thats trendy but just gives you enough of a taste of the buttercream.

I'm all about the icing! You lot can pass me all your scraped-off fake buttercream, I don't even care if you've licked it.

Remember the Baker Boy cupcakes? I miss those.

I agree, and the quality of the cake itself doesn't seem to matter anymore. Just cover a bland heavy sponge with so much pasty icing that you can't taste it anyway.

That first one's a drip cake- is the icing fondant or buttercream? I can't tell. Fondant's horrible IMO. Most of the excess is the stuff piled on top, which you could choose to eat or not.

I have no time for cupcakes whatsoever. If you want a massive calorie blow out, have a lovely big slice of something. Cupcakes are neither fish nor flesh.

But most cakes don't have a fucktonne of (whichever) icing- it's just the "celebration" cakes. And according to my mum's scrapbook with the recipes she cut out of Women's Weekly in the 1970s, massive amounts of buttercream have been de rigeur for your hedgehog and space rocket birthday cakes for at least 50 years....

I make my own and to be honest you need a good amount to look smooth. Just learn to make your own if you are not a fan or scrape it off? I'm self taught. I don't always make the above. Sometimes just a cake with. Bit of icing does the trick but if you want fancy made, you do need more I find.

15 years ago massive iced cupcakes were big - I think they are still around but there is more variety these days. Some are too much but I like icing providing its proper buttercream! Equally I’ve had cakes out that are dry because they’ve needed more icing - usually homemade.

I bake a lot and sometimes scale down the icing or make ones that don’t need it.

I love it! Sometimes I leave the cake... 😂

Lightspeeds You are every 4 year old at every birthday party I have ever thrown. Would you like some crisps to go with that? 😆

Based on some of the cakes that I have tasted recently for big birthday celebrations it seems that lots of buttercream is hiding the fact that the cakes look amazing but are tasteless.

I love buttercream on a cake (or, if I make it, out of a bowl) but I like a tasty cake to go with it.

Fondant icing is horrible, I’m always disappointed with a cake covered in it. Buttercream however is the most exciting part of the cake to me, stack it high (vanilla flavour) and I’m one happy little piggy!

I also follow way too many pages on Facebook that are buttercream cake decorating videos. So soothing to watch and look delicious.

I might buy that book Sophist. Do many of the recipes involve icing/buttercream? I'm getting sick of my usual recipes - I tend to make loaf cakes that don't need any topping (ginger, lemon drizzle, cherry almond etc)

I'll fight you for it

I absolutely adore buttercream, so totally on the side of as much as possible. It’s one of my biggest weaknesses.

Don’t like fondant at all so quite happy to pass up any cake with fondant altogether. Just for looking at, as others have said.