frosting

Rainbow Cake

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!  And happy birthday to my sweet niece Maren who is having a great 2nd birthday party in Brooklyn today that we are sadly not attending.  My parents will be there to help celebrate the big day with my sister’s family.  Happy Birthday, Maren!

We don’t really do St. Patrick’s Day, but I was seeing so many fun rainbow and pot o’ gold crafts, snacks and baked goods on blogs and on Pinterest that I just had to make this rainbow cake.  I’d originally seen rainbow cakes in layers, which I think is so beautiful and orderly.  But I do not have enough cake pans of the same size, nor do I have the patience and willingness to make 3 cakes, then wash and dry the pans and make 3 more.  So I found this rainbow cake on Hostess with the Mostess who links to Omnomicon’s tutorial for making this fun and easy rainbow cake that only requires you to have 2 cake pans of the same size!  Perfect.

I used the cake recipe from Omnomicon, which is simply 2 white cake mixes and 3 cups of Diet Sprite.  No oil, no eggs, no joke.  So I suppose this cake could be considered “good” for you.  But then I used a not so good for you buttercream instead of the cool whip and pudding frosting that she uses.  The cake in its entirety is kind of like ordering a diet coke along side your big greasy hamburger.

The cake recipe honestly had me a little worried.  Was this diet soda thing really going to work?  Well, it did!  For the most part anyway.  The cake took a little longer to bake, about 40 minutes, and even then it was so moist that it fell apart a little after being removed from the pans.  One layer split almost totally in half, but I was able to squish it back together with the help of a bit of frosting.  It was also stickier than normal cake mix cakes.  I let the cakes cool upside down on racks and when I went to take them off I had more breakage because it had stuck to the rack.  Again, frosting repair was needed.  Here is but one of my frosting repair jobs.

But even with the problems that made cake assembly a little difficult it was oh so very tasty, moist and delicious.  I think with cupcakes you could use this cake mix + diet soda method and be quite pleased with the results since you don’t have any layering to do, and there’s less guilt involved.  I think you might only get 12-18 cupcakes out of one cake mix and 1 1/2 cups of diet soda.  2 cake mixes and 3 cups gave me what a cake mix with the usual eggs and oil would have.  But there might be some deflation due to mixing the batter once all together and then again to make the colors.  I don’t know.  I am not a scientist.

Dividing and coloring the cake batter was pretty simple.  I used a scale to get the same amount in each of my 6 bowls, but you could easily eyeball it and not suffer any serious consequences if you were a little off.  You really should use gel colors if you want the lovely bright colors.  The food coloring you use for dyeing Easter eggs won’t cut it.  I used Wilton gel colors.  If you do any cake or cookie decorating at all, you should have some of these.

Grease and flour 2 8-inch cake pans and fill the first pan with red, orange and yellow.  Pour the red in first, right in the center of the pan.  Follow with the orange, also right in the center and try your best to make it a circular shape (mine was kind of amoeba shaped) and the do the same with the yellow.  In the second pan fill with green, blue and violet.  If you are a science nerd you noticed that I left out Indigo from ROYGBIV.  Feel free to divide your batter into 7 and make yourself some indigo colored batter, but I took a short cut and liked the ease and equality of 3 colors in each pan.

Use your favorite recipe for vanilla frosting or the one below.  I love the white frosting against the bright colors of the cake.  This cake is a lot of fun.  It would be great for a kid’s (or adult’s) birthday party.  You can use the same method with cupcakes, just layer the colors with teaspoons of batter.  In a 9×13 pan it might be hard to get good layers, so you could just randomly dollop colors for more of a tie-dyed effect.  If you do bake in something other than 8-inch cake pans, refer to the baking times and temps on the box of cake mix and then check for doneness, adding more time if needed.

Rainbow Cake

From Omnomicon

Ingredients

  • 2 boxes white cake mix
  • 3 cups (24 ounces) diet lemon-lime soda

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
  2. Mix cake mixes and soda together until well combined.
  3. Divide batter evenly into six bowls.
  4. Color each bowl of batter red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet.
  5. Grease and flour 2 8-inch cake pans.  Pour red, orange and yellow batter into one cake pan, starting with red, yellow on top of that, and then orange.  Repeat with green, blue and violet.
  6. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until tops bounce back when pressed lightly or cake tester inserted into the the center comes out clean.
  7. Let cool in pans for 10-15 minutes then remove and let cool completely on racks.
  8. Level cakes if desired, then layer one cake on a plate or cake stand.  Frost with vanilla icing, top with second layer of cake and put on a crumb coat of icing.  Refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
  9. Finish frosting the cake with the remaining icing, chill until ready to serve.

Simple Vanilla Buttercream

Ingredients

  • 3 sticks of butter, softened
  • 4 1/2 to 6 cups of powdered sugar
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 2-4 tablespoons milk or cream

Directions

  1. Beat butter until smooth, then add in powdered sugar.  Start with 4 1/2 cups, then add more in 1/2 cup increments to achieve a thick but still spreadable consistency.
  2. Beat in vanilla and milk, starting with 2 tablespoons and adding more if needed.
  3. Use to generously frost a layer cake or 24 cupcakes.

Sprinkles Strawberry Cake

There is something just plain fun about making layer cakes.  I shared this thought with Ben as I put the finishing touches on this cake that I’d started working on almost 24 hours earlier.  Cookies, cupcakes, brownies, bars, etc. are great because they are typically pretty easy, not terribly time consuming, you can make enough for a big group, and they are hard to screw up.  Cakes, on the other hand, can be troublesome for me because I worry about them not turning out and then not having a single thing to show for my hours spent in the kitchen.  Not to mention you have a big, sugary, calorie laden commitment on your hands…unless you’re giving the cake away or serving it to at least 12 people.  You also are not as free to taste test with a cake.  You can sneak a cookie, or a cupcake (or 2) without being found out, but steal a slice of cake before it’s served and everyone notices the big gaping hole and the crumbs you’re trying to wipe from your mouth.  Despite all that, making a layer cake is therapeutic and the end result is more rewarding than a batch of cookies.  I feel the same way about pie.  They are both big glorious circles of sweet goodness, meant to be displayed on a pretty cake plate and served on those lovely dessert plates you never use.  Am I being too dramatic about baked goods?  I guess it wouldn’t be the first time…

For some reason I was in the mood for strawberry cake, maybe it was all the pretty pink cakes I’d been seeing on Pinterest.  I’ve made Spinkles strawberry icing before, but never the cupcakes.  So I printed the recipes off of Martha Stewart and headed to the store, a girl on a mission to make a delicious cake.  I was pretty excited about it.

I doubled the cupcake recipe to make two 9-inch cakes.  I made 150% of the frosting.  At first I thought about doubling it but when I realized that meant 4 sticks of butter I decided we would just make do with less, and it was plenty.

The cake is dense, not too terribly sweet, and not at all like the strawberry cake you can make from a box.  I wonder if it’s even possible to create a cake from scratch that is close in texture to a box mix.  If you know of a recipe, please send it to me!  Those soft textured cakes do tend to fall apart when frosted and stacked too high, so a dense cake is probably better when you’re planning on stacking 4 layers.  I usually grease my cake pans, line them with parchment circles, and then flour them.  Somehow I’d managed to run out of parchment and not buy any more.  So with a bit of fear I simply greased and floured my pans.  They came out perfectly!  That was a nice surprise.

The frosting is SWEET.  Quite possibly too sweet, not for me, but for the average person.  I like sweetness and sugar…a lot.  If you are not as much of a sweet fan, maybe use half butter and half cream cheese for the frosting to give it a little tang.  Now that I am thinking about it,strawberry cream cheese icing sounds pretty incredible, so I might have to try it myself.  The frosting has little strawberry seeds, and some people may not like that.  So, use a sieve to strain the seeds from the puree if you’re one of those people.  I like my frosting stiff when I frost a layer cake so that it doesn’t start to fall off the cake.  In order to achieve this I had to add more powdered sugar than the recipe calls for (which explains the sweetness) but really does make frosting and decorating less stressful.

Here are some tips for layers cakes that I’ve found helpful.

  • Bake the cakes and let them cool completely.  I like to do this either in the morning or the night before.  If I do it the night before I wrap the cakes in plastic wrap overnight so they don’t dry out.
  • Make the frosting on the thicker side.  (Unless you’re frosting a really delicate cake.  It will pull on the cake too much and cause it to fall apart.)
  • Level your cakes so that when stacked the cake is not domed or slanted.  I use this, but some people are amazing and are able to just use their eyes and a serrated knife.
  • If you’re slicing the cake layers in half, measure to be as close to half as possible.
  • Use an offset spatula for frosting.  It is just easier, buy one.  I use them for loosening the sides of a cake from the pan as well.
  • When you start frosting, plop a little frosting in the center of your cake plate and center the bottom layer on it.  This will keep the cake from moving around.
  • After layering, put a thin coat of frosting on the cake (your crumb coat) and then chill it for at least an hour.  This will allow your next layer to be smoother and free of crumbs.
As far as decorating goes, there are so many beautiful things you can do.  I am not so great at the decorating.  I used my extra frosting to pipe around the bottom and top of my cake.  Here is a great resource from King Arthur that will help you.  This kind of thing takes a lot of practice, so you’ll have to practice, and probably mess up.  When I was piping the top edge I noticed I’d started using more pressure as I was going around the cake so that when I finished there was a huge difference in the size of the rope.  I carefully wiped off what I’d done, smoothed the icing and did it again.   A good way to practice, if you ever find yourself with extra icing, is to use different frosting tips and just pipe onto wax paper.
I hope you think of an excuse to make a layer cake!  If you can’t, then try this recipe for cupcakes.

Strawberry Cake

From Sprinkles via Martha Stewart, doubled from cupcake recipe

Ingredients

  • 1 1/3 cup whole fresh or frozen strawberries, thawed
  • 3 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
  • 1/2 cup whole milk, room temperature
  • 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
  • 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 2 large eggs, room temperature
  • 4 large egg whites, room temperature

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour 2 9-inch cake pans; set aside.
  2. Place strawberries in a small food processor; process until pureed. You should have about 2/3 cup of puree, add a few more strawberries if necessary or save any extra puree for frosting; set aside.
  3. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside. In a small bowl, mix together milk, vanilla, and strawberry puree; set aside.
  4. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter on medium-high speed, until light and fluffy. Gradually add sugar and continue to beat until well combined and fluffy. Reduce the mixer speed to medium and slowly add egg and egg whites until just blended.
  5. With the mixer on low, slowly add half the flour mixture; mix until just blended. Add the milk mixture; mix until just blended. Slowly add remaining flour mixture, scraping down sides of the bowl with a spatula, as necessary, until just blended.
  6. Divide batter evenly among prepared cake pans. Bake until tops are just dry to the touch, 30 to 35 minutes. Transfer cakes in pans to wire racks and let cool for 10 minutes.  Then, carefully remove cakes from pans and let cool completely on wire racks.

Strawberry Frosting

Ingredients

  • 3/4 cup whole frozen strawberries, thawed (I used fresh)
  • 1 1/2 cup (3 sticks) unsalted butter, firm and slightly cold
  • 1/4 teaspoon coarse salt
  • 5 1/2 to 6 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
  • 3/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Directions
  1. Place strawberries in the bowl of a small food processor; process until pureed.
  2. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together butter and salt on medium speed until light and fluffy.
  3. Reduce mixer speed and slowly add confectioners’ sugar; beat until well combined. Add vanilla and about 6 tablespoons strawberry puree (save any remaining strawberry puree for another use); mix until just blended. Do not overmix or frosting will incorporate too much air. Frosting consistency should be dense and creamy, like ice cream.
  4. Use frosting to top cupcakes or cake.

 

1-2-3-4 Cake with Caramel Frosting

Have you ever made a 1-2-3-4 cake?  I hadn’t, or maybe just not noticed that I had, until yesterday.  “What is a 1-2-3-4 cake?” you ask.  It’s simple really.

1- cup of butter

2- cups of sugar

3- cups of flour

4- eggs

Of course there are other ingredients that accompany these 4, such as baking powder, salt, vanilla and milk.  What a great way to remember a recipe.  It reminds me of pound cake, in its original form, where you are to use a pound of each ingredient; butter, sugar, flour and eggs.  I have never made pound cake this way, but I feel like I should just to say that I’ve tried it.

I searched a bit into each of these cakes, and both seem to have arrived on the culinary scene in the mid to late 1700’s.  At this time, many people could not read, and so recipes that had easy to memorize ratios were perfect.  Originally the other ingredients were not used.  It was just the butter, sugar, flour and eggs.  I think the milk adds some moisture, the baking powder helps the rise, of course, and the vanilla is a lovely flavoring.  I used vanilla paste, so you can see little specks of vanilla bean in the cake layers.

The frosting recipe below is 150% of the original.  I found the original amount to be a little stingy, but I like frosting, so you may want to use the recipe here if you are not quite the frosting nut that I am.  There is a rich caramel flavor in this frosting that I think would be good on chocolate cake or cupcakes as well.

I found the cake and frosting recipe on recipeland.com, a site I just stumbled upon the other day.  It has TONS of recipes that make it a little daunting to sift through.  This recipe had no reviews, so I was a little hesitant to try it.  I am glad that I did because it was not only easy, but pretty tasty as well.  The cake was pretty crumbly, but it was sturdy and had good flavor.  The frosting is delicious, but very sweet, so its not the kind of frosting you just lick off the spoon.  Other people do that, right?  Anyway…good cake.  Try it.

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Spice Cupcakes with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting

These cute little cupcakes were for a December birthday lunch at work.  I really over-committed myself this week.  We attended Ben’s office party on Tuesday night, I volunteered to make a dessert for the birthday lunch, I’m bringing Swedish meatballs and a very time consuming little cookie to a Christmas party tonight, and I’m hosting a cookie swap tomorrow that I have yet to bake cookies for.  Yikes!  Needless to say, I did not want to make something complicated or too terribly time-consuming.  So, I made spice cupcakes…from a box! 

I wasn’t lazy enough to use canned frosting, so I made a basic cream cheese frosting and added a few tablespoons of maple syrup.  It was a bit of a stretch for me as a recipe follower, but it turned out to be a nice frosting for the spice cupcakes. 

spice1

Maple Cream Cheese Frosting

  • 1 stick butter
  • 1 8-ounce package cream cheese
  • 2-3 cups powdered sugar
  • 1-2 tablespoons maple syrup
  1. Cream together butter and cream cheese.
  2. Mix in powdered sugar, 1/2 cup at a time until it is a bit thicker than your desired consistency.
  3. Add maple syrup and beat until smooth.