Sunday, March 04, 2012

Attempt #1 - Almond cake with raspberry filling and white chocolate buttercream

These are the awesome people for whom I am baking a wedding cake:
Once word got out that I was baking their wedding cake (via me telling everyone with my big mouth), I got a couple more requests (aka I demanded to make cakes for more people). I am also going to bake the wedding cakes for my friend Kelly and her fiance Ryan, as well as the wedding shower cake for a friend Carolyn (whose shower my mom is hosting).

So what do these events say to me? I better get practicing!

This weekend I was home alone (with only my two canine roommates) so I decided it was prime time for my first attempt. I decided to try an almond cake with raspberry filling and white chocolate buttercream. I took the cake and filling recipe from here and the frosting recipe from here (if anyone wants it I'm happy to share).

Yesterday I went out to three separate stores to gather all the ingredients. Did you know that the Whole Foods in Mount Washington chooses Saturday evenings to restock and therefore are out of a lot of things? Me neither. Now I do.

Side note: Almond paste, while hard to find, is delicious. I am thinking of making it a new main food group in my diet.

So first, make the batter using the beautiful KitchenAid mixer:



Butter makes everything better.  


Divide the cake batter among the 3 prepared pans. By prepared I mean I sprayed them with Pam and left them on the kitchen counter.  It would have been nice had they all been the same size, but they weren't. Such is the life of the underprepared.

I made a pretty huge mess baking this cake. Lucky for me, I had these two weirdos to help me clean up the floor (Notice Mugsy licking his chops). 


I meant to take picture of the layers after they were baked but I ran into some problems. The two smaller pans baked really unevenly. As in, half of each of the layers in the smaller plans were not baked. When I tested them, I happened to pick spots that WERE baked so I took them out of the oven, but when I released them from the pans I discovered the bad news. Luckily I was able to cut off the unbaked half of each of the bad layers and glue the two good halves together with icing. As such, my three layer cake became a two layer cake. Oh well.

I froze the layers (which was one of the best moves I learned from all the internet trolling I did, they were SO much easier to handle while frozen) while I made the buttercream,
 then I "dirty iced" them - for those who don't know, it's a thin layer of icing to trap all the loose crumbs so they won't come up in your top layer of icing. This is what the layers looked like dirty iced:
Dirty is apt, no? (I cannot wait for my turntable to arrive in the mail so I can ice more easily.)

After the dirty layer was applied, I stuck them back in the freezer while I filled my pastry bag. Again, I will NEVER use a pastry bag again without using this pointer (I was going to say tip but that could be confusing).

I took some time to admire my new piping tips in their tray in my little cake bakers toolbox (nerd alert):

When they came out of the freezer. I applied another layer of icing to cover the dirty coat (it still wasn't pretty). And then, I piped this cake as much as I possibly could (mostly to cover my own mistakes). I used the the largest open star tip I had, the largest closed star tip I have, and two round tips. I made shell borders along the top in opposite directions, then filled in with stars and some criss crossed latticework (if you can call it that). I piped some large french dots around the very bottom, and another shell border around the middle of the cake (since the two layers were slightly different sizes). Then I decided to try something I hadn't done before. I'd seen it on Cake Boss a bunch of times, so I decided to try "swags" (I think that's what they're called)...the little stripes of icing that scoop between two spots. And it was pretty successful! I can definitely use some more practice, but for a first shot I think it was good! Then I topped each swag with a flower from an open star tip.

Overall, it's still pretty messy and my piping/icing skills can use some work, but that's what practice is for right?





We'll see how it tastes...I'll let you know...but from what I've licked off my fingers, the verdict will be good :) I'll let you know about my next attempts!

ADDING ON:
We tasted the cake tonight. I had a slice and he had a bite (or two) of said slice. Why does a girl who loves baking fall in love with a diabetic boy? More cake for me, I guess. Anyway, my thoughts:

  • the raspberry filling is what makes this cake. it is the star of the show. next time i would not only put raspberry filling between each layer, i would tort each layer (cut it in half after it's baked) and throw raspberry filling in THERE too. 
  • making an entirely white cake (as in, all egg whites, no egg yolks, yes i do have ten egg yolks in my fridge right now) means that the cake is apt to dry out very quickly. i had the option of adding a simple syrup bath but chose to forgo said step. i would not do that again - it needs the bath...especially if it's going to be eaten the second day. then again, maybe by the second day the raspberry filling will have further saturated the layers, causing them to become more moist. we shall see. 
  • the flavors were spot on...i wouldn't change the flavors. very rich though, you need a beverage with this one. "light and refreshing" aren't words i'd use to describe this cake, but "indulgent" is. 
So. That was Trial #1. Left to try in terms of batters are wedding cake white, buttermilk (sounds interesting to me), lemon, and hazelnut. The only concern I have with almond and hazelnut cakes are that people with nut allergies will not get to have any cake. Jared, what are your thoughts on that? Have any close friends/relatives with nut allergies? I could always make special nut-free cupcakes for them to eat. I also need to try a classic vanilla buttercream and a swiss merengue buttercream frosting...but i think the raspberry filling is already there. 

Jared do you have an absolute lack of interest in any of the above flavors? If so, I won't try them. Also - what are your thoughts on cream cheese frostings? 

2 comments:

the bee said...

wow, fancy pants!

JK said...

I like all frostings - and that cake looks freaking fantastic. Can you freeze a slice for me so I can try it when I am there?

I'm unsure of any nut allergies in my family - I have two vegan cousins that will be there....Is there such a thing as vegan cupcakes? They sound disgusting.