Hot Knife Through Butter

Or a hot offset spatula through buttercream. I used to try and smooth and smooth and smooth and smooth but to no avail. Then I learnt a neat trick while at cake decorating class. One of the students had come with a beautifully frosted cake, and her tip was to dip the spatula in hot water before smoothing the buttercream. The buttercream melts a little under the hot knife, and results in a beautifully smooth surface. This is the smoothest I've ever gotten it to get and I guess I could have made it smoother if I'd futzed with it more. But then The Laziness is strong with this one. I was so thrilled by how successful I was with the hot spatula trick that I didn't even think to comb the sides once I was done. Hence the plain sides. And I put what I learnt in class into practice...tadaa! Piped stars \(^_^)/

Here's a picture of the cake with a portion cutaway. I usually just fill this cake with buttercream (gussied up with a bit of liquor), but I thought I'd fancy it up a bit and try a jammy filling. I was looking for something seedless and ended up with red currant jelly (coz it was on sale...The Cheapness is also strong with this one). The currant jelly was a might bit too tart though. I will have to continue my quest for seedless raspberry jam.

I received some feedback that it would be nice if clicking on the pictures resulted in bigger pictures. Truth be told, I'd been shrinking my pictures coz they're not very good ones. They're Monets ("From far away, it's OK, but up close, it's a big old mess." - Cher) . But I'll try to accommodate and hopefully not scare any potential readers away.