Ermine (heraldry) Puns

MC is staying with either strangers or distant relatives in a large old house. She gets up in the night and meets a strange man in a long cloak who takes her to another world. He may be called Blue Mantle but I might have remembered that from elsewhere. There were knights (I think) name after heraldic colours and squires ditto. I think one of the squires was called Azure. I've an idea that there were also characters called Ermine and Vair. Definitely heraldic animals like unicorns and lions. If there was a unicorn on the cover, it was doing the heraldic rearing up and could have been on a shield; rest of the cover could have been dark red and black.

I'm planning to make this to go along with a vanilla cake. Never tried it before. How does it taste like? Is it good?

Update: I made it! I honestly expected it to fail since it was fairly complicated (to me) to make but it turned out great! It was very buttery when I tried it on its own, but it goes along perfectly with the cake.

I've always been interested in creative anachronism, and I've been a lifetime attendant of the Minnesota Renaissance Fair. I designed a coat of arms for the theming of my Swiss Mercenary outfit, Gules a stag furious argent. It looks great in an old-timey setting, but I'm thinking of using a coat of arms for more than that. I chose the stag for themes of "one who does not attack unless provoked," themes of regrowth, and peace, and want to keep that. My favorite color is red (Gules) but the colors looks a little too Swiss for me. I have a hard time choosing the tincture of the field and charge. I've thought of quartering or dividing the field in some other way, and I've thought of changing the tincture of the charge to Sable, viewing it as a fur (in the Germanic tradition). But black and red just scream angsty teenager who shops at Hot Topic, which isn't exactly what I'm going for.

So, I've settled on Pean a stag rampant Or

My question is, do you folks see variant furs as pretentious? It feels a little pretentious, but at the same time, that may just be me overanalyzing everything.

In a lot of the heraldry of big cities in Brittany there are white ermines, a lot of restaurants and other places are named Blanche Hermine and the Breton flag has ermine in it. How, why and when did the white ermine become this symbol for Brittany?

Aka heritage/ boiled milk frosting. I'm not the biggest fan of buttercream. I mean I do like the frosting on cakes I buy from the store/ bakery. But it's usually sickly sweet and gritty - especially if I make it at home.

I'm starting a small home baking business and I just feel like I don't want to be serving something I wouldn't eat and that's cake with a lot of sweet buttercream. I don't want to make Swiss/ Italian buttercream either. I just wanted to get an opinion of Ermine frosting since it's super smooth and less sweet than most frostings. Do you enjoy it? Any other advice and tips welcome. Thank you!

I discovered ermine frosting via Nana's DFC and the "Ding Dong Cake." From my intensive research, I've found several method variations to prepare ermine frosting:

1. Make roux with:
   1. flour and sugar**
   2. flour and sugar and cornstarch

Add cooled roux to whipped butter.

OR

1. Make roux with flour, and then:
2. add sugar to roux, then add cooled roux + sugar mixture to whipped butter
3. whip butter with sugar, then add cooled roux to whipped butter.**

I've tried the two methods that I have starred (**) above. I'm curious what method other folx use, and why that is the method they use!

Thanks in advance!

Hey y'all- I recently came across some blazons for some guys (unrelated to me) which feature a chapeau gules turned up argent. Now, this confused me since I thought most chapeau gules were turned up ermine. Is there a reason behind it being argent and not ermine, or any special significance?

I'm making my sister a hazelnut sponge cake for her birthday. She wants it with coffee buttercream (which I've used to fill and frost the cake before) but I don't love the coffee (italian) buttercream recipe I've used previously as it has a lot of butter and I have found it too stiff because of this (2 hours out of the fridge and it still is quite solid). In saying this, I generally don't like buttercream.

I've never made ermine frosting but I've heard good things about it. What is everyone's thoughts on ermine frosting? Is it as easy to flavour as buttercream?