This was a first-time cake on many levels! Txkat's scratch cake recipe for Vanilla Cognac, SMBC, and working with colored piping gel! YUCK!! I will stick to FBCT from now on!! The adults liked this cake, kids hated it! The SMBC was good but I truely felt like I was eating all 6 sticks of butter that were in the recipe!! Maybe I'm just too conditioned on american buttercream!! My 58 year-old BIL loved his cake though and that's what counts!