Tuesday 16 December 2014

Golden vanilla cake with honey curd & cream cheese frosting!

After baking a rainbow birthday cake and frosting it, I ended up having a lot of egg yolks left.

I have found a recipe for a Golden Cake, that uses egg yolks.

Well, I have no words... It is the tastiest, moistest vanilla cake I have ever had. Every one loves it and it pairs so good with cream cheese, orange, vanilla, honey, lemon, .... you name it!

Golden Cake 

The recipe for the cake is from the very talented Summer at Cake, Paper, Party. Generally I use it as it is given, but this time I changed it a bit: 9 yolks and 1 egg.

Honey Curd

300gr honey
2 yolks
zest of 1 lemon and 1 orange
orange juice from 1/2 orange

* Put all the ingredients in a small pot.
* Stir gently over medium heat.
* Keep stirring.
* It will thicken a little, but it will still be runny.
* Put it in a jar and let it cool.
* Once cool, put it in the fridge and it will thicken up.
* Use in a tart, on a cake or eat it with a spoon....

Cream Cheese buttercream frosting
recipe inspired from here

250gr cream cheese
250gr butter
vanilla or vanillin
600gr icing sugar
a few drops of lemon or orange juice

* Beat butter and cream cheese.
* Add the vanilla (as much as you want, I use vanillin).
* Add the icing sugar gradually.
* Adjust for thickness.

So easy!



This one is a little blurry, but you have to see this honey curd oozing.... OMG!!
I cut this small cake in the middle to add even more frosting and honey and get an even better bite each time!

It has to be one of the most successful and tastiest cakes I have ever made!


Louise.

Note: these layers freeze so good! You simply thaw them on the kitchen counter completely and they are ready to use!

Thursday 4 December 2014

Rainbow Birthday Cake!

My little nephew turned three a couple of days ago and his request was a rainbow cake!

It is a cake that I had tried only once before with little success, so I was a bit intimidated. It took some planning and research and going back and forth to the store for butters, but I think I did it!

Rainbow Birthday Cake

for the layers:
White Cake
recipe slightly from the talented Summer of Cake, Paper, Party

Even though you can achieve the coloured layers with a classic egg batter, I wanted to be certain that the colours would be exactly as I had imagined them. So I made a basic white cake, using only egg whites.

The quantities are tripled (from the original) to make a round tall cake 28x15cm with 8 layers.

510gr butter
180gr olive oil
1000gr white granulated sugar
15 egg whites
5 tsp vanillin
870gr all purpose flour
70gr corn starch
2 tsp salt
6 tsp baking powder
720ml whole milk

* Preheat the oven to 165oC.
* Line the bottom of the pans with parchment paper.
* Mix on low the butter, oil and sugar until combined, but not light.
* Add the egg whites and mix on low until just absorbed.
* Add vanilla on low.
* Sprinkle in the dry ingredients and mix on low until just moist.
* Add gradually the milk on low and then mix on medium until well blended.
* Divide the batter into 8 small bowls and colour them.
* Bake them about 25min. until a toothpick comes out clean.
* Let them cool.

The layers will be thin.

for the filling:

I prepared a simple buttercream with almond flavor.

800gr (about) icing sugar
400gr (about) butter
2 tsp almond extract

* Beat everything together and adjust for desired thickness with a little milk.

for the covering:
I made Swiss Meringue Buttercream with almond extract, using my favorite recipe from Sweetapolita.

5 large egg whites
250gr white sugar
340gr butter, cubed, cool
2 tsp almond extract
pinch of salt

* In the metal bowl of a mixer, put the egg whites and the sugar and place it over a pot with simmering water.
* Whisk constantly and gently until the mixture reaches 71oC. This takes about 10-12 min.
* Remove the bowl and start whisking in the mixer, until the meringue is glossy and the bowl is room temp.
* Using the paddle attachment start adding the butter, one cube at a time.
* It will curdle, but keep beating. It will come together!
* Add the almond extract and beat a little more.










(excuse the lighting...)




Assembly:
Follow the colours of a rainbow!
I started with the lilac on the bottom, purple, blue, green, light green, yellow, orange and red. In between I piped a very thin layer of buttercream.
I let the cake in the fridge to firm up, before covering it, because the layers started to slide. I also inserted 4 dowels.
I covered the outside and decorated it with small candy in the matching colours.



 You can see here that the dowels are drinking straws.

Great taste, very very moist cake! Everybody loved both the taste and the colours!

The little kids went crazy!!!!


 Happy Birthday to my little nephew!



Louise.

** As for the many many egg yolks, well, the next post will be about it....