This past weekend my dear friend asked me to make a cake for her baby boys baptism, I accepted.I haven't made a cake for a really long time, maybe since the baby shower? Not sure. But I was super excited and honored that she wanted me to make the cake. I asked her for a few ideas since I had no idea what a baptismal (?) cake looked like. She requested a white cake with blue flowers and I accepted the challenge. I was up for challenging myself and seeing what I could do.
I knew for the actual cake that I didn't want to cover it fondant, but I was going to have to use some for the flowers. It took a hot minute to find the right cake flavor, especially since I needed a white frosting. I thought about going traditional with vanilla/vanilla, but BORING! Just kidding, I actually didn't have a good vanilla cake/frosting recipe. Do you have one you would like to share? I'll share with you the recipe I made (wink, wink) A little quid pro quo... a nice Chianti. Alright enough Silence of the Lambs.
I went with a strawberry cake with a Swiss Meringue Butter cream (SMB). Fun fact, there are 3 different types of butter cream: Swiss, French and Italian. I'm not certain enough with all the differences but when I figure it out I will share it with you. OR if you know the differences, you can share! SMB, is so super good it's crazy, and ridiculously easy to make.
Moving on, turns out making flowers with fondant is way more difficult than I thought. It was probably made more difficult with the fact that I used marshmallow fondant and didn't have any of the right tools. I attempted fondant roses- you can see those on the cake- and those are alright, nothing fancy and definitely not AWESOME, just pretty cool. I ended up doing a tile-like design for everything and I liked it. I also used a little food coloring, rum and edible sparkle to "paint" the tiles to look mosaic-ish.
It was a lot of fun and her little boy is just too cute! Make this cake for any occasion, it's so good, even 4-5 days later, still tastes amazing.
Strawberry Cake (makes one 9 inch cake or a dozen cupcakes)
Pre-heat oven to 350* line a dozen muffin wells or grease a 9in cake pan.
1 1/2 C. Flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2/3 C. Strawberry puree (I used slightly thawed frozen berries, but you could use fresh)
1/4 C. Milk
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 C. Butter
1 C. Sugar
1 egg
2 egg whites ( Whipped)
In a medium sized mixing bowl sift baking powder, salt and flour, set aside.
In another bowl combine pureed strawberries, milk and vanilla, set side.
In a mixing bowl start fluffing room temperature butter then add sugar and beat till a light shade of yellow. Add egg until combined then add fluffed egg whites. Alternately begin adding liquid mix and flour mix. Remember to scrape the sides as you. Stop mixing as soon as everything is combined. Divide amongst wells or pour into pan.
For cupcakes bake for 22-25 minutes.
For cake bake 25-30 minutes.
Allow cakes to cool for 10 minutes in pan then transfer to rack to finish cooling. Once cooled frost!
Swiss Meringue Butter Cream:
Used from smittenkitten
1 cup sugar
4 large egg whites
26 tablespoons butter, softened (3 sticks plus 2 tablespoons)
4 large egg whites
26 tablespoons butter, softened (3 sticks plus 2 tablespoons)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Transfer mixture into the mixer and whip until it turns white and about doubles in size. (Here’s a tip: when you transfer to the mixer, make sure you wipe the condensation off the bottom of the bowl so that no water gets into the egg whites. This can keep them from whipping up properly.)
Add the vanilla.
Finally, add the butter a stick at a time and whip, whip, whip.
To layer the cake I did a line layer of the frosting, layered with fresh strawberries then atop goes the next cake.
Seriously -- so good!
Piece!
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