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I’m always amazed at lit­tle ones!  How in the world did my then 4yo daugh­ter decide she wanted to learn to play the vio­lin?  While being exposed to lots of music I cer­tainly hadn’t sug­gested she learn to play an instru­ment let alone a clas­si­cal one.  No wor­ries we got her started and away she went with gusto…  Well this post isn’t about music but recently I was asked by my friends to make their 3yo daugh­ter a birth­day cake. Appar­ently she had requested “a rasp­berry on the inside” birth­day cake.  I’d never made one before but love a chal­lenge so this is how I did it.

WARNING — Heavy text as some dummy (me) for­got to take progress pho­tos… but it turned out great so bear with me folks.

First off I thought I’d start with a white cake recipe and add my rasp­berry good­ness to it.

White cake mix or this from scratch recipe…

Ingre­di­ents

• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup butter
• 2 eggs
• 2 tea­spoons vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 3/4 tea­spoons bak­ing powder
• 1/2 cup milk

Then To make it Rasp­berry Flavoured…

Ok.. great but it had to be rasp­berry flavoured…  I could not for the life of me find fresh rasp­ber­ries that day that weren’t grow­ing fur, so my next best option was a heap­ing table­spoon of rasp­berry jam (jelly) with the seeds for authen­tic­ity AND I added a 1/3 of a sachet of Rasp­berry Jello Crys­tals dis­solved into a half cup of water.

Cake Crumb

I fig­ured it wouldn’t throw off the bal­ance of the cake since it thick­ens as it sets up.  My the­ory proved right and the cake was rel­a­tively dense (with a fine crumb tex­ture like a Madeira or pound cake) but still light and very flavourful.

Direc­tions

1. Pre­heat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour two eight inch round pans or line a muf­fin pan with paper liners.
2. In a medium bowl, cream together the sugar and but­ter. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Com­bine flour and bak­ing pow­der, add to the creamed mix­ture and mix well. Finally stir in the milk until bat­ter is smooth, the jello crys­tals and the rasp­berry jam. Pour or spoon bat­ter into the pre­pared pan.
3. Bake for 30 to 40 min­utes in the pre­heated oven.  For cup­cakes 20–25 mins.

Rasp­berry Jam (Jelly)

For this lit­tle lady’s cake I made two 6 inch and two 8 inch round cakes to stack.

In between each match­ing pair I spread a fine layer of rasp­berry jam (jelly) and then added rasp­berry cream cheese frost­ing (my orig­i­nal recipe with some rasp­berry jello crys­tals and a small amount of jam added to it).

I placed wooden dow­els inside of McDon­alds straws into the 8 inch stacked cakes and then placed the 6 inch stacked pair on top.

Dow­els

All of the cakes were cov­ered in my crust­ing cream cheese frost­ing prior to stack­ing as they wanted it smoothed to look like fon­dant.  I then cut out about one hun­dred or so pur­ple and one hun­dred or so pink fon­dant flow­ers for dec­o­ra­tion.  This cake was to com­pli­ment a Tin­ker­bell cake topper.

The glit­ter is edi­ble sparkle glit­ter.  The cake was a lot of work but my friends loved it.  Hubby enjoyed the crumbs I had cut off the top so much I made him his very own rasp­berry cake the next day.  It was pretty much gone in an instant.  Don’t for­get to email me if you have any ques­tions.  Happy Baking!

Rasp­berry Cake

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This is the cake I made for my daugh­ter Megan’s baby shower this past week­end.  The cake on the bot­tom was yel­low cake filled with white cream cheese frost­ing and then cov­ered with the same frost­ing coloured blue.  I added balls of choco­late fon­dant to the sides and for the circles.

Baby Shower Cake

The top cake was made using the good old Wilton Teddy Bear pan.  I made this for her first birth­day some 20+ years ago so thought it would be a nice touch for this cake.  The cake is choco­late cake and is iced with a choco­late flavoured cream cheese frost­ing.  The dia­per is thinly rolled white fon­dant made using Car­rie Big­gers’ recipe.  Sorry but I can’t give that to you here because Car­rie sells it on her web­site as one of her prod­uct range.  It’s a great recipe and tastes so much bet­ter than com­mer­cially pro­duced fon­dant.  I am always hor­ri­fied when I see the fon­dant being torn off of wed­ding cakes by folks that have only had the shop bought kind.  The home made stuff is so much nicer and very edible.

Ok, so I have to “fess up.”  Even expe­ri­enced bak­ers and dec­o­ra­tors make mis­takes.  Stu­pid mis­takes actu­ally.  That bear on the top took three attempts before I got it right.  I can’t believe it since I’ve made it many times before but the first time around I didn’t add enough bat­ter to the pan so when bear came out he had NO LEGS!  Um no.  That bear became choco­late cake balls that I put into the party favour boxes for our guests to take home with them, so not a total waste.

With my sec­ond attempt I totally for­got to insert the cone into the cen­ter of the pan which ensures even cook­ing.  Not real­iz­ing my mis­take I took the “per­fect” bear from the pan and then won­dered why his head was cav­ing in.  After a crack formed I could see that the bat­ter inside was still liq­uid and not even close to being cooked.  This poor bear met his demise down the garbage dis­posal.. sorry bear num­ber 2.

So finally at 11:30pm on Fri­day night (the party was the next day) I baked off bear num­ber 3.  You might think this one worked out per­fectly.  Well not exactly.  Prob­a­bly due to the fact that it had been one heck of a busy week I did remem­ber to insert the heat cone this time BUT for­got to spray it with cook­ing spray.  As I pulled it out a crack formed across poor bear’s face.  Thank good­ness for but­ter­cream which I used to patch him up with.

So next time you make a mis­take or for­get some­thing, don’t worry too much, we all do it!

Happy bak­ing!

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Here’s a thought that crossed my spoiled mind this evening. What if, say, like my fam­ily in Aus­tralia, I can’t just run to the store and grab a box of red vel­vet cake mix off the shelf. I’ve obvi­ously for­got­ten that it wasn’t that many years ago that I didn’t even know what a red vel­vet cake was! Imag­ine that.

This week I received an email from a fel­low cake maker who asked me to share my favourite red vel­vet cake recipe since she wasn’t able to buy a box mix. Fel­low bak­ers give me mixed reac­tions when I openly admit to using (insert scary music here).… red vel­vet cake out of a box!! Well, I do and I’m not afraid to say it. Why not? It’s bad enough get­ting cov­ered in red cake mix, which I usu­ally do, with­out hav­ing to mess with red food colour­ing when mea­sur­ing it out for a “from scratch” recipe.

Actu­ally, there is a lit­tle his­tory to my dread of red…  I used to own a small bak­ery in Aus­tralia and had left some dec­o­rat­ing items out on the din­ing table in my brand new din­ing room, in my brand new home.  To cut a long story short, my youngest daugh­ter was a climber and the result was red food colour­ing all over her and the brand new car­pet!  We bleached it out and then had to dye the car­pet back lov­ingly with teabags.  So you might now under­stand my dis­like of red food colour­ing, even if red is my favourite color!

Ok, back to the cake at hand.  I tend to look at box cake mixes as a start­ing point, and usu­ally tweak them by chang­ing out the oil with apple sauce for instance, and adding my own flavour­ings, add-ins etc. I’m sure the good peo­ple at Dun­can Hines, Betty Crocker and Pills­bury didn’t just whip them together in five min­utes. It is my under­stand­ing that they have spent years per­fect­ing their mixes for our con­ve­nience. And very often that is the time I have no com­punc­tion in reach­ing for one.

Sure there is noth­ing quite like a del­i­cately cre­ated sponge or genoise but there are times when I just need to get out two dozen cup­cakes in a hurry and trust me, 5 year olds very rarely call me out on using a box cake mix over a scratch baked cake. Their beam­ing lit­tle faces cov­ered in frost­ing are all the proof I need that some­times, it’s ok.

So let’s get this red vel­vet cake made!

Ingre­di­ents:

• 1/4 cup dutch processed (dark) cocoa powder
• 2 table­spoons red gel food coloring
• 1/4 cup hot water
• 6 table­spoons unsalted but­ter ( softened)
• 2 table­spoons veg­etable shortening
• 1 2/3 cups sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 tea­spoon pure vanilla extract
• 2  1/2 cups cake flour
• 1 tea­spoon salt
• 1 table­spoon apple cider vinegar
• 1 tea­spoon bak­ing soda

Method:

Pre­heat oven to 325°. Line muf­fin pan with paper liners.

Whisk together cocoa pow­der, food col­or­ing, and hot water. Set aside to cool.

In the bowl of your elec­tric mixer fit­ted with a pad­dle attach­ment, cream but­ter and short­en­ing until smooth. Scrape down bowl and add sugar. Beat until mix­ture is light and fluffy, about 5 min­utes. Add eggs, one at a time, beat­ing well after each addition.

Stir but­ter­milk and vanilla into the cooled cocoa mix­ture. Sift cake flour and salt together into another bowl. With the mixer on low, alter­nate adding the flour mix­ture (in 3 parts) and the cocoa mix­ture (in 2 parts) to the egg mix­ture. Beat until incor­po­rated.  Com­bine vine­gar and bak­ing soda and stir until bak­ing soda dis­solves; the mix­ture will fizz. Add to bat­ter and stir until just combined.

Fill cup­cake pans 2/3 full with bat­ter. Bake 20 to 25 min­utes, or until a tooth­pick inserted in the cen­ter comes out clean. Remove from oven, trans­fer to a wire rack, and let cool for 10 min­utes. Remove cup­cakes from pan, and let cool completely.

___________

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Dobos Cake (/‘doboʃ/, Hun­gar­ian: dobostorta) is a famous Hun­gar­ian cake, invented by and named after a well-known Hun­gar­ian con­fec­tioner, József C. Dobos (1847–1924) in 1884. It is a five-layer sponge cake, lay­ered with choco­late but­ter­cream and topped with thin caramel slices. The sides of the cake are some­times coated with ground hazel­nuts, chest­nuts, wal­nuts or almonds but the orig­i­nal cake is with­out coat, since it was a slice of a big cake. Dobos’s aim was to make a cake that would last longer than other pas­tries, in an age when cool­ing tech­niques were lim­ited. The caramel top­ping helps keep the cake from dry­ing out. The cake is also often called ‘Dobos-torta’ or ‘Dobostorta’.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is my Dobos Torte…  We made ours rec­tan­gu­lar and topped it with a poured caramel that set hard but before it did I scored it with a knife into por­tioned pieces.

I will get the recipe entered tomor­row (Sat­ur­day 2/21)

The guys that work with my Hus­band really enjoyed this treat!

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The Ital­ian phrase tirami su lit­er­ally trans­lates into “pick me up” which makes sense once you hear that this espresso laden treat was served to Venet­ian cour­te­sans between roman­tic con­quests to pro­vide them with an energy boost!  Ooh la la! (no that’s French)

Actu­ally, I haven’t been able to find evi­dence to sup­port this and it appears this dessert is of  more recent times.  Who cares!  Is what I have to say!  This dessert is too good to worry about who made it first and when…

Any­way, I have always loved this dessert and have a recipe for it that is quite easy to pre­pare and then enjoy!

My ver­sion has light sponge lady fin­gers around the edge with lay­ers of the same cake soaked with espresso flavoured sim­ple syrup.  Then there is a fill­ing made with mas­car­pone and cream with a few other ingre­di­ents thrown in for good mea­sure.  I’m sali­vat­ing just think­ing about it so I will get the recipe typed up as quickly as pos­si­ble for you!  PLEASE don’t be deterred by how long this recipe looks… I have just spelled it all out step by step which makes it look a lot longer!  It’s absolutely worth the effort!

Com­po­nents

2 lb. 12 oz. Ladyfin­ger bat­ter
9 fluid ounces Sim­ple Syrup
2 fluid ounces Cof­fee or almond liqueur
1/2 fluid ounce Cof­fee extract
1/2 fluid ounce Vanilla extract
3 pounds Mas­car­pone Cream Mousse
Choco­late Ganache for dec­o­rat­ing
Choco­late dec­o­ra­tions, as needed

Ladyfin­gers

Ladyfin­gers are made from a sponge­cake bat­ter that is piped into finger-length strips. After bak­ing, these soft cakes may be eaten plain as a cookie or petit four. They are equally good when dried out in the oven, like bis­cotti. These ver­sa­tile cakes are used to line the mold for a Bavar­ian dessert. For con­ve­nience, the bat­ter may be piped close together to form a strip after bak­ing and used to line a mold or torte ring.

Ingre­di­ents

3 ounces Corn­starch
4 ounces Bread flour
6 Egg yolks
6 ounces Gran­u­lated sugar
6 Egg whites
1/2 tea­spoon Lemon juice

Method

1.    Sift the corn­starch and flour together.

2.    Whip the egg yolks with 2 ounces (60 grams) of the sugar until thick and creamy.

3.    Whip the egg whites until foamy. Grad­u­ally add 2 ounces (60 grams) of the sugar and the lemon juice. Con­tinue whip­ping to soft peaks, then add the remain­ing sugar grad­u­ally and whip to stiff peaks.

4.    Fold approx­i­mately one-quarter of the egg whites into the whipped yolks to lighten them, then gen­tly fold in the remain­ing whites. Fold in the flour mixture.

5.    Place the bat­ter into a pas­try bag fit­ted with a large plain tip. Pipe 4-inch– (10-centimeter) long cook­ies onto paper-lined sheet pans.

6.    Bake imme­di­ately at 425°F (220°C) until lightly browned, approx­i­mately 8 minutes.

Sim­ple Syrup (Cake Syrup)

Ratio: 2:1

Ingre­di­ents

16 oz Sugar

8 oz Water

Method

Place water and sugar into saucepan and bring to a boil.  Remove from heat and allow to cool before adding flavourings.

Mas­car­pone Cream Fill­ing
Yield: 3lbs

Ingre­di­ents

1 lb. 5 oz. Mas­car­pone , warmed to 105°F (40°C)
9 Egg yolks
8 ounces Gran­u­lated sugar
5 fluid ounces Water
1/2 ounce Sheet gelatin, soft­ened
1 pint Heavy cream, whipped to soft peaks

Method

1.    Place the warmed mas­car­pone in a large bowl.

2.    Make a bombe bat­ter by whip­ping the egg yolks in the bowl of a mixer fit­ted with the whip. Cook the sugar and water in a saucepan until the syrup reaches the soft ball stage 240°F (115°C).

3.    Pour the sugar syrup into the yolks, with the mixer run­ning at high speed. Pour in a steady stream between the side of the bowl and the beater. Once all the sugar is incor­po­rated, whip one more minute at high speed then reduce to medium speed and whip until the bombe mix­ture cools to approx­i­mately 110°F (49°C).

4.    Add the soft­ened sheet gelatin to the warm bombe bat­ter. Stir until the gelatin dis­solves completely.

5.    Fold the bombe bat­ter into the mas­car­pone cream.

Ganache
Yield: 2lbs

Ingre­di­ents

1 pound Bit­ter­sweet choco­late
1 pint Heavy cream
1 fluid ounce Almond or cof­fee liqueur

Method

1.    Chop the choco­late into small pieces and place in a large metal bowl.

2.    Bring the cream just to a boil, then imme­di­ately pour it over the choco­late, stir­ring with a rub­ber spat­ula to blend. Stir gen­tly until all the choco­late has melted.

3.    Stir in the liqueur.

4.    Allow to cool, stir­ring fre­quently with a rub­ber spat­ula until the desired con­sis­tency is achieved.

Assem­bly of Tiramisu

1.    But­ter and flour two paper-lined full-size sheet pans. Using a plain medium tip, pipe half of the Ladyfin­ger bat­ter into 4 disks mea­sur­ing 7 inches (17.5 cen­time­ters) in diameter.

2.    To make the strips of ladyfin­gers to line the ring mold, pipe the remain­ing bat­ter into ladyfin­gers 4 inches (10 cen­time­ters) long placed close together so they join at the sides and form a strip the entire length of the sheet pan. Bake as directed.

3.    Lightly oil and sugar 4, 7-inch (17.5 cen­time­ter) torte rings. Place them on a paper-lined sheet pan.

4.    Cut the strip of ladyfin­gers in half length­wise. Trim the strips of ladyfin­gers on each long edge to fit evenly inside the ring molds.

5.    Posi­tion the ladyfin­ger strips inside the rings, cut to size to make a tight fit. Place a ladyfin­ger disk on the bot­tom of each ring.

6.    Com­bine the sim­ple syrup, liqueur, cof­fee extract and vanilla extract. Moisten the cake with half of this syrup.

7.    Divide half of the Mas­car­pone Cream Mousse between each mold.

8.    Place the sec­ond ladyfin­ger disk in the rings and moisten with the remain­ing cof­fee syrup.

9.    Fill with the remain­ing Mas­car­pone Cream, lev­el­ing it to the rim.

10.    Refrig­er­ate or freeze the tortes for 2 hours.

11.    Remove from freezer and cover the top sur­face with a thin layer of  choco­late ganache, or sprin­kle lightly with cocoa pow­der to gar­nish. Remove the rings then dec­o­rate the tortes with choco­late dec­o­ra­tions of your choice (I made roses from choco­late mod­el­ing fondant).

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Notes:

I made this fancy tear shaped cake by plac­ing card­board and heavy plas­tic strips in a large 14 inch round pan to achieve the shape I wanted.  LOTS of tape and smaller plas­tic molds were used to get the shape right.

Orig­i­nal recipe source:  OnBak­ing — Laben­sky 2005

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My friend Curt turned the big 50 recently. His wife Kristi and fam­ily threw him a party in Omaha’s Old Mar­ket area. I offered to make the cake and also wanted to sur­prise him by just show­ing up at the party.

I made him a four layer chocolate/yellow mar­ble cake with a mild cof­fee flavoured ganache as fill­ing. I also cov­ered the cake in a ganache frost­ing and made choco­late tomb­stones as dec­o­ra­tion. The board was also cov­ered in a swirl of dif­fer­ent coloured choco­late. My hus­band and I packed the cake in a heavy duty box sur­rounded by ice packs to make the long 500 mile jour­ney from Okla­homa City to Omaha Nebraska and set off about 4:30am on the Sat­ur­day morn­ing of the party.

The trip was going well until we were about 20 min­utes south of Wichita Kansas. It had been rain­ing heav­ily dur­ing the week and we totally dis­re­garded the Turn­pike truck with the big arrow on one of the side exit ramps. It wasn’t flash­ing or out in the mid­dle of the inter­state so all must be ok. Not two min­utes later the traf­fic came to a halt.

So we sat on Inter­state 35 North for an hour before a nice police offi­cer came to tell us that there was impass­able water over the road just ahead of us and we could drive up the inside of the trucks and turn through the 4ft high median where there was a break. Long story short… We arrived in Omaha about two hours late but they all got to enjoy the cake and Curt was really sur­prised. The restau­rant Chef said he and the staff thought it was one of the best cakes they had tasted in a long time! Yay! Happy Birth­day Curt xx.