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 liked the sound of the Plain Cake Appreciation Society but I went to order the book and the cover pic is a sponge piled with an absolute ton of buttercream.

I loathe it. Most people seem to, including a lot of children.

I think its telling that at village events, the cakes that go fastest are the old style fairy cakes, with just a touch of glace icing and some hundreds and thousands or slab cakes cut into squares with similar. Not the fancy stuff.

Oh yes - just looked and the cover cake seems to have about 2 inches of buttercream on top!

Buttercream is the jizz of the devil

It has no place on a civilised cake

None

😈🎂

I'm from the continent and I find cakes and cupcakes in the British isles much too dry. Fondant isn't wonderful, buttercream is nice but can be too much, but at least they both improve on the dry cakes.

Stunt pineapple? Do tell

Nothing better than this

Although possibly a layer of sharp damson, in a perfect world..

What bit of it?

Because although I am firmly in the buttercream is evil camp, I do think most UK cakes are decently moist compared to say Italian cake which is so dry you could choke to death on it

On a completely unrelated note literally the only plus point of Brexit is people saying ‘the continent’ like my granny did. I love it.

Meh. Some cakes are made for looking at and the eating experience is a secondary consideration. On those, stacks of fondant/buttercream are usually a necessary requirement. I recently made my DC's Blaze-themed birthday cake and yes, it was quite fondant-heavy. I scraped most of it off before wrapping slices for party bags in consideration to the parents, but one greedy little toerag managed to get his hands on two of the painstakingly crafted 3D monster trucks and chow down huge lumps of fondant before I could stop him. I bet his parents had fun that night 😂.

Some cakes are made for eating. I make a rather sad looking banana and ginger cake that tastes amazing (being really modest here 😁) and I do enjoy people's faces when they taste it not expecting anything special.

But unlike the pudding, the proof of the cake is not always in the eating. Some are made to be (admittedly edible) visual experiences and that's fine.

I like plain vanilla fairy cakes dipped in melted raspberry jam and then into desiccated coconut.
Delicious and quick.

The driest cake I ever had was Sachertorte from the original hotel. British cakes don’t even come close to that level of desiccation.

I have found my people. I always take the buttercream or icing off a cake. I'm a monster though, I also eat around the jam...

Thank you, I've just ordered a copy.

I've found my people!

I bloody hate the ridiculous celebration cakes that everyone seems to want. Fondant smondant, too much crap buttercream, and the cake is just something old and hard to hold it's form for the heavy decoration.

Bring back the fresh bouncy bakes with a simple filling/icing to compliment the cake, and beautifully moist carrot cakes, and heavy chocolate cakes, and the simple currant bun.

Cake should be cake, not silly fondant decoration.

Never fear - I've turned up now! The icing is usually the best part of a cake in my opinion. A crime to think that on MN I know - but thank goodness I'm far from being a typical MN paragon 😄

Fondant is awful, but buttercream is delicious, especially chocolate or coffee flavoured. I mostly just want cakes to look like cakes, though. Posh cakes can have a bit of piping on the top, but I never need a cake to look like a mermaid, a dragon, a cat or a baby. Just cake that looks good enough to eat.

I am another who thinks icing is the best bit! Fondant is easy to remove so you can just have the cake, buttercream is harder to get off.

I also think that for a celebration there’s nothing wrong with wanting to have a cake that looks amazing, I think a beautifully decorated cake really adds to an occasion

Agreed. I'd much rather have a delicious, plainer cake.

I made these for a young children’s birthday along with a big buttercream decorated cake. The plain and icing sugar decorated ones went much quicker than the others. The more heavily iced buttercream cake was barely touched. Though maybe that was down to my baking 😂.

• I support all forms of icing, as long as they are in my belly.

There's something about fancy cakes that I find completely repulsive. All those little bits of fondant icing being rolled about in the decorators hands and not cooked.

I understand that cooks need to touch food, but then it generally goes in the oven. Icing does not and it bothers me.

I also don't have a sweet tooth and cake leaves me cold anyway. I'd only eat a cupcake with icing like the ones in your pictures OP if I was starving and there was no alternative.

I don't like the taste of the fancy looking ones, I lke the basic stuff we had back in the 1980's or so

the stuff these days is too hard

Honestly, now I’d like a chocolate rice crispy cake from the 90s, with a mini egg on top. The bake sale special if anyone remembers? Or a mini battenburg from M&S. Much better. But I digress. Mmmm cake.

I learned about stunt pineapples on here. In the olden days you you could rent a pineapple to display in your home and show off how rich you are.
Heavily decorated cakes remind me of that!

YANBU I thought the same thing recently.

There is zero fondant on any of these cakes so YABU.
And it's alllll about the taste. Of course it is. (I am a cake maker)