I took a short break from my fresh yeast baking projects to make a birthday cake for my friend Dorothy. As usual, she gave me wide latitude in deciding what to make, but she did request something with a lot of layers. Being on furlough meant that I had as much time as I needed to make a cake, so I decided to take on a project with a somewhat high level of difficulty: the "Key Lime Pie Layer Cake" from Christina Tosi's All About Cake. The cake incorporates no fewer than five subrecipes: graham cracker cake; sour cream frosting; graham crumbs; key lime curd; and graham buttercream. The upside is that all of the subrecipes can be made in advance.
It so happens that I had made two of the five components before. A few weeks prior when I was improvising a s'mores birthday cake for my friend Jim's daughter McKenna, I made the graham crumbs and graham buttercream and added them to a devil's food cake with toasted marshmallow buttercream. The previous time I made the buttercream I had a difficult time getting it to emulsify into a thick consistency. This time I decided to see what would happen if I tried mixing it with an immersion blender. It worked out beautifully.
I made the key lime curd before baking the cake so that it would have time to chill before I assembled the cake. I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've made citrus curd where the recipe requires a blender. You start out by mixing sugar and key lime juice in a blender until the sugar has dissolved. Then you add eggs and blend until the mixture is bright yellow. You transfer the lime mixture to a pot and cook it over low heat until it starts to boil and thicken. Then you transfer it back to the (cleaned) blender; add bloomed gelatin, butter, and salt; and blend until the mixture is thick and shiny. After putting the curd through a sieve I put it in the fridge until I was ready to assemble the cake.
I am getting better at making Christina Tosi's cakes as I get more practice, and I didn't have any problems with the graham cracker sheet cake. I actually pulled out my digital timer to make sure that I mixed the batter for the amount of time specified in the recipe; a total of more than fifteen minutes of mixing is required. You cream softened butter with sugar until and fluffy; add eggs one at a time beating after each addition; slowely drizzle in a mixture of buttermilk, key lime juice, and oil; beat until the mixture has doubled in size and is very light in color; and incorporate the dry ingredients (cake flour, ground graham crackers, baking powder, and salt). You pour the mixture into a parchment-lined 9-inch by 13-inch pan and bake.
The final component, the sour cream frosting, was the easiest to make. You cream softened butter with powdered sugar and salt until fluffy, and slowly add a mixture of sour cream and lemon juice. You whip the frosting until it's silky and holds medium peaks.
Once I had all of the cake components ready, assembly was fairly straightforward. All of Tosi's layer cakes require a minimum of twelve hours of time in the freezer to set up, followed by three hours of defrosting in the fridge before serving. So I assembled the cake a day ahead of time. I used a 6-inch cake ring as a guide to cut out three rounds of cake from the sheet of graham cracker cake (one of the rounds was two semi-circles fitted together). Then I fit a cardboard cake circle inside the cake ring and lined it with a strip of acetate.
I put one of the cake rounds inside the ring and brushed it with key lime juice. Then I spread on sour cream frosting, followed by graham crumbs and a layer of lime curd. I added the second layer of cake, brushed it with lime juice, and repeated the layers of frosting, crumbs, and curd. After adding the final cake layer, I covered it in graham buttercream and topped the cake with more graham crumbs before popping the cake in the freezer.
The next day I took the cake out of the freezer, pushed the cake out of the ring and removed the acetate, and let the cake defrost in the fridge. I loved the tall proportions of the cake and the individual slices. The cake was decadently delicious. To be honest, I don't remember much about the flavor of the actual cake. But the cold, creamy, tart lime curd and the crunchy, buttery graham crumbs were amazing. I loved all of the different flavors and textures in every bite. Making this cake required quite a bit of effort, but the results made it entirely worthwhile.
Recipe: "Key Lime Pie Layer Cake" from All About Cake by Christina Tosi.
Previous Post: "McKenna Turns Ten!: S'mores Cake," March 18, 2019.
Previous Birthday Cakes for Dorothy: Caramel Cake with Salted Caramel Frosting (2018); White Génoise with Raspberry Cloud Cream (2017); Bananas Cake 2.0 with Cream Cheese Frosting (2016); Whipped Brown Butter and Vanilla Birthday Cake (2015); Lemon Mousse Cake with Fresh Raspberries (2014); Antique Caramel Cake (2013); Grasshopper Cake (2012); Restaurant Eve Cake (2010).
It so happens that I had made two of the five components before. A few weeks prior when I was improvising a s'mores birthday cake for my friend Jim's daughter McKenna, I made the graham crumbs and graham buttercream and added them to a devil's food cake with toasted marshmallow buttercream. The previous time I made the buttercream I had a difficult time getting it to emulsify into a thick consistency. This time I decided to see what would happen if I tried mixing it with an immersion blender. It worked out beautifully.
I made the key lime curd before baking the cake so that it would have time to chill before I assembled the cake. I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've made citrus curd where the recipe requires a blender. You start out by mixing sugar and key lime juice in a blender until the sugar has dissolved. Then you add eggs and blend until the mixture is bright yellow. You transfer the lime mixture to a pot and cook it over low heat until it starts to boil and thicken. Then you transfer it back to the (cleaned) blender; add bloomed gelatin, butter, and salt; and blend until the mixture is thick and shiny. After putting the curd through a sieve I put it in the fridge until I was ready to assemble the cake.
I am getting better at making Christina Tosi's cakes as I get more practice, and I didn't have any problems with the graham cracker sheet cake. I actually pulled out my digital timer to make sure that I mixed the batter for the amount of time specified in the recipe; a total of more than fifteen minutes of mixing is required. You cream softened butter with sugar until and fluffy; add eggs one at a time beating after each addition; slowely drizzle in a mixture of buttermilk, key lime juice, and oil; beat until the mixture has doubled in size and is very light in color; and incorporate the dry ingredients (cake flour, ground graham crackers, baking powder, and salt). You pour the mixture into a parchment-lined 9-inch by 13-inch pan and bake.
The final component, the sour cream frosting, was the easiest to make. You cream softened butter with powdered sugar and salt until fluffy, and slowly add a mixture of sour cream and lemon juice. You whip the frosting until it's silky and holds medium peaks.
I put one of the cake rounds inside the ring and brushed it with key lime juice. Then I spread on sour cream frosting, followed by graham crumbs and a layer of lime curd. I added the second layer of cake, brushed it with lime juice, and repeated the layers of frosting, crumbs, and curd. After adding the final cake layer, I covered it in graham buttercream and topped the cake with more graham crumbs before popping the cake in the freezer.
Recipe: "Key Lime Pie Layer Cake" from All About Cake by Christina Tosi.
Previous Post: "McKenna Turns Ten!: S'mores Cake," March 18, 2019.
Previous Birthday Cakes for Dorothy: Caramel Cake with Salted Caramel Frosting (2018); White Génoise with Raspberry Cloud Cream (2017); Bananas Cake 2.0 with Cream Cheese Frosting (2016); Whipped Brown Butter and Vanilla Birthday Cake (2015); Lemon Mousse Cake with Fresh Raspberries (2014); Antique Caramel Cake (2013); Grasshopper Cake (2012); Restaurant Eve Cake (2010).
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