Rachel's cake

so for little rachel's b-day, i was going to do a mocha cake. but after talking to jon i decide to make her a strawberry cake.

i talked to rachel a little about it and how it was assembled. and well, if you've known me for more than 10 minutes, you know my mind tends to wander. So I sort of winged it. and if i say so myself, this cake turned out really good. i am not a huge fan of strawberries. but it had a great flavor

I used the usual buttercream recipe except I omitted the chocolate and replaced it with strawberry goodness.

I threw a half pint of berries into a pot with ~.25 cup of sugar

added a pinch of salt and turned the heat to medium.
cook that stirring occasionally. it will break down the berries and add awesomeness.


it's important to taste it at this stage. this batch of berries were not super sweet. so i had to add sugar to get the taste right.
then, i hit it with the stick blender to smooth it out.
now cook it on low for a bit until it is reduced and thickened. make sure to stir it so it does not burn.

set that aside to let cool. once the butter has been added to the buttercream, throw about a half cup of the strawberry mixture in to flavor. i added a few drops of red food color as well. so the end result is nice and pink. cooked berries can get a muddy color after a while. as well, this makes a good strawberry sauce. just strain it to remove any of the those evil little seeds. seeds are agents of the devil.

throw the buttercream in the fridge to get it set up. you can make this a few days ahead to save time.


The Cake

this is the yellow butter cake from the cake bible
super easy and really quick

oven to 350

6 yolks
1 c milk
2.25 tsp vanilla (or 1 bean)
10.5 oz cake flour (sifted)
10.5 oz sugar
4 tsp baking powder
.25 tsp table salt
6 oz butter


combine the yolks and about .25 cup of the milk.
combine dry ingredients and mix for a minute or so
add the butter and remaining milk, mix on low to combine
then mix on medium for a few minutes
scrape sides of the bowl
add egg mixture in 3 steps, scraping after each addition

when you put the batter in a pan, remember that these will rise more than you expect. so make sure not to fill the pans to more than halfway.

The Filling

rachel gave me a general description of the filling in this cake. so i took a swing at it.

i put 2 8 oz pachages of room temp cream cheese in the mixer. started it on low to get it broken up and added about a half cup of sugar and a pinch of salt. let it go on med low for a minute or so to get mixed well. just make sure there are no lumps. you can add vanilla if that floats your boat. (it floated mine)

then i diced up 4-5 strawberries



and folded them into the mixture


i then whipped about a cup of cream with some powdered sugar. i didn't really measure the sugar. just add enough to make it taste good. start with .25 cup and go from there.

once it was at medium peaks, i folded that into the rest and it all goes into the fridge.


i cut each cake into two layers and filled it with a layer of the cream cheese mixture along with halved berries



keep doing that until it's time for the buttercream. as always, i did a crumb coat first.



the final result.


and since hakamadog has been given a clean bill of health by the doggie oncologist, she gets more ice

Lemon chiffon cake filled with lemon curd, topped with raspberry mousse

I really need to find a shorter name for this. How about "Lemon/raspberry awesomeness"?

This is a multi-part recipe with one fairly specialized piece of equipment.

So first, let's make the cake.

As usual I use a recipe from The Cake Bible. This is the "Lemon Glow Chiffon Cake".

Rose (I call her Rose because she and I are tight like that) has this cake being made in a tube pan. I simply put it in the usual 10 inch cake pan, sprayed with Pam then sugared.

Cake flour, sifted (always sift cake flour) 8 oz
Sugar 10.5 oz
Baking soda .5 tsp
Salt .5 tsp
Safflower oil .5 cup ( I used a a combo of olive and corn oil since I didn't have any safflower)
Eggs (separated) 7
Egg whites 3
Water .66 cup
Lemon juice 2Tbl
Lemon zest 1 Tbl
Vanilla 1 tsp (I used 1 pod)
Cream of tarter 1.25 tsp

Oven to 325

Mix flour soda, salt and all but 2 Tbl of the sugar. Beat for ~1 minute.


Add the oil, yolks, water, juice, zest, and vanilla and beat until smooth.

Put that to the side and beat the whites until it starts to foam.
Add the tarter and beat to soft peaks.
Add the reserved 2 Tbl sugar and beat to stiff peaks. I tend to not do super stiff. I'm middle aged now and ...oh wait, wrong conversation. But I think that the line between stiff and overwhipped is very fine. So I usually put it up just short of what a lot of folks would call stiff peaks.

Using a wire whisk, fold the whites into the batter. Don't go crazy, just until they are blended.

Throw it in the oven and bake.

While the cake is cooling, start the curd.

Lemon juice 4 oz
Sugar 3 oz
Zest of lemon, organic non treated 1
Eggs 4 02
Sugar 3.5 oz
Butter, lump free at room temperature 6 oz

Bring lemon juice, first sugar and zest to a boil.
Meanwhile, whisk together eggs and second sugar without making the mixture thick and airy.
Temper the juice mixture into the egg mixture. Then back into the pot and whisk vigorously to a boil.

Boil 1 minute while whisking well. Remove from heat and cool to 120
You can use an ice bath or just let it cool. For this recipe, let's just let it cool. It will give us time to prep the cake

What I do is using a sharp paring knife, cut a circle into the top of the cake. Go about a half inch down. Then crosshatch the circle to make it easy to pull the cake out.


Once the cake is prepped, the curd should be close to 120, add the soft butter in 4-5 increments, stirring with a rubber spat to incorporate the butter.


If the curd is too hot, you will just melt the butter and that would be bad. If it's too cold, you will give yourself tendonitis trying to get the butter incorporated.

Once the butter is all in, simply fill the cake with the curd. And you can throw the whole shebang in the fridge and let it set. Before you do, put the cake ring around the cake. It'll make life easier when it's time to add the mousse.


And of course, take a break and give the big head dog some ice


Lastly, we begin the mousse.

Raspberry puree 1 lb 9 oz
Raspberry liquor (optional) 1 oz
Egg whites 5 oz
Sugar 9 oz
Water 3 oz
Gelatin 7 sheets (or one packet) bloomed in some water
Heavy cream, whipped to soft peaks 16 oz

To make the puree, I simply get a bag of frozen raspberries and bring them to a boil with a little sugar and a pinch of salt. Once everything is all broken down, strain the solids from the liquids. the result can be less than 1lb 9, but it works just fine.


Prepare an Italian meringue with the egg whites, sugar and water

This is much like making the buttercream icing process.
Whites in the Kitchenaid on low.
Water and sugar in a pot. Bring sugar to 250.
Once the sugar gets boiling, increase the speed on the whites.
This is a total timing game. The whites should be just getting to a soft peak when you add the syrup to them.
So once the syrup hits 250, add the geletin and stir. It will foam up and have a nasty, hot gelatin smell.
Now crank the speed on the mixer up to max and pour the syrup down the side of the bowl.
Let it run until the bottom of the bowl is just sort of warm to the touch.

Add .25 of the raspberry puree to the meringue and combine well.

Add the remaining raspberry puree to the meringue and gently fold together
Add soft whipped cream and fold together

Take the cake out of the fridge and pour the mousse into the ring.


Let it all set up for at least 3 hours.

I will have pictures of the final product later.

"It has carrots in it, it must be good for you"

The following recipe makes a boatload of cake. And since I was just doing some cupcakes, I trimmed it down by 75%.

Sugar 3 lb 5 oz
Cake flour 2 lb 8 0z
Baking powder 1.25 oz
Baking soda .75 oz
Cinnamon .75 oz
Salt .5 oz
Eggs 28 oz
Olive oil 48 oz
Vanilla 1 tblsp
Carrots, grated fine 2 lb 5 oz
Walnuts, chopped 1 lb (pecans work just fine too)



In a mixing bowl fitted with the paddle, mix the sugar, cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, salt and eggs on low for one minute.
Add a few clicks of speed and mix for 4 minutes.
Reduce to the lowest speed and gradually pour in the olive oil.
Add the vanilla
Add the carrots and walnuts and mix until just combined.



One quarter of the recipe made 25 cupcakes and an 8 inch cake. I'll post pictures later of the cake. But the process is the same as the chocolate cake I made the other day. Only this time, it will be with cream cheese icing.

This icing is the easiest icing ever. The formula is a breeze to remember

Cream cheese 1 lb
Powdered sugar 8 oz
Butter 4 oz
Pinch salt
Vanilla .5 bean

As you can see, starting with whatever the cream cheese weighs, take half of that amount and that is the amount of powdered sugar. And half of the sugar is how much butter.

A couple of caveats
1) the cream cheese and butter need to be room temp with no lumps. No one likes lumpy icing.
2) sift the sugar.
3) only ever mix of low. If you crank the speed up, the result will be a runny mess that won't hold its shape. So go slow.