For months, our friend Phil has been joking about how he wanted Christina Tosi's Arnold Palmer Sheet Cake (from All About Cake) for his birthday. When his birthday finally rolled around, I still had the warm fuzzies from successfully making Tosi's Baller Birthday Sheet Cake and Corn and Blueberry Sheet Cake, so I figured, why the hell not? I decided to bake Phil an Arnold Palmer Sheet Cake for his birthday.
This cake has a lemon-Lipton tea cake soaked in bitter black tea, filled and topped with lemon frosting, and garnished with citrus milk crumbs. While Tosi's sheet cakes all have a lot of components and require a fair amount of work, you can make each of the components in advance and store the assembled cake in the freezer for a while. So I made the cake in my spare time over a few days.
The cake batter requires 60 grams of Lipton tea leaves, which is a lot. In the past, I've purchased Lipton tea bags and cut them open when I needed tea for baking (like for Irvin Lin's Arnold Palmer cookies). But this time I bought an 8-oz. package of Lipton loose black tea leaves, which saved me the hassle of having to cut open a ton of tea bags (and having to remove the staples before putting the empty bags in our compost). I put the leaves in an electric spice grinder to get a fine black powder. The list of cake ingredients includes softened butter, sugar, eggs, egg yolks, buttermilk, oil, Lipton tea powder, cake flour, salt, and lemon juice. The batter was filled with black specks of tea that looked like poppy seeds. I divided the batter between two parchment-lined 9-inch by 13-pans to bake.
To make the citrus milk crumbs, you bake a mixture of milk powder, flour, sugar, cornstarch, salt, and citric acid; cool the crumbs completely and break up any larger chunks; toss the crumbs with more milk powder; pour melted white chocolate over the crumbs; and toss the crumbs until the chocolate hardens and the crumbs are no longer sticky. The frosting is an American buttercream that is simply a mixture of softened butter, powdered sugar, salt, lemon zest, and lemon juice.
To assemble the cake, I brushed one of the cake layers with a bitter tea soak (extra-strength brewed Litpon tea, without any sugar added); spread on a layer of frosting, followed by some citrus milk crumbs, followed by more frosting; added the second cake layer and brushed it with the bitter tea soak; and topped the cake with the remaining frosting and crumbs. I put the cake in the freezer for a few days before trimming off the edges of the cake all the way around and then storing it in the fridge until serving it.
I thought the cake looked a bit odd, because the tea powder in the batter gave the cake a muddy, almost dirty appearance. But wow did it taste amazing. The black tea flavor in the cake came through clear as a bell, and the frosting was super lemon-y. Eating a bite of cake and frosting together precisely evoked the flavor of an Arnold Palmer. I also loved the texture, richness, and touch of tartness in the citrus milk crumbs. The level of sweetness in the cake as a whole was perfectly balanced.
I'm glad Phil's birthday gave me an excuse to make this cake -- I would definitely make it again, and so far all of the sheet cakes I've made from All About Cake are worthy of any celebration!
Recipe: "Arnold Palmer Sheet Cake" from All About Cake by Christina Tosi.
Previous Post: "A Cookie for the King: Jumbo Arnold Palmer Cookies," May 27, 2017.
This cake has a lemon-Lipton tea cake soaked in bitter black tea, filled and topped with lemon frosting, and garnished with citrus milk crumbs. While Tosi's sheet cakes all have a lot of components and require a fair amount of work, you can make each of the components in advance and store the assembled cake in the freezer for a while. So I made the cake in my spare time over a few days.
The cake batter requires 60 grams of Lipton tea leaves, which is a lot. In the past, I've purchased Lipton tea bags and cut them open when I needed tea for baking (like for Irvin Lin's Arnold Palmer cookies). But this time I bought an 8-oz. package of Lipton loose black tea leaves, which saved me the hassle of having to cut open a ton of tea bags (and having to remove the staples before putting the empty bags in our compost). I put the leaves in an electric spice grinder to get a fine black powder. The list of cake ingredients includes softened butter, sugar, eggs, egg yolks, buttermilk, oil, Lipton tea powder, cake flour, salt, and lemon juice. The batter was filled with black specks of tea that looked like poppy seeds. I divided the batter between two parchment-lined 9-inch by 13-pans to bake.
To assemble the cake, I brushed one of the cake layers with a bitter tea soak (extra-strength brewed Litpon tea, without any sugar added); spread on a layer of frosting, followed by some citrus milk crumbs, followed by more frosting; added the second cake layer and brushed it with the bitter tea soak; and topped the cake with the remaining frosting and crumbs. I put the cake in the freezer for a few days before trimming off the edges of the cake all the way around and then storing it in the fridge until serving it.
I thought the cake looked a bit odd, because the tea powder in the batter gave the cake a muddy, almost dirty appearance. But wow did it taste amazing. The black tea flavor in the cake came through clear as a bell, and the frosting was super lemon-y. Eating a bite of cake and frosting together precisely evoked the flavor of an Arnold Palmer. I also loved the texture, richness, and touch of tartness in the citrus milk crumbs. The level of sweetness in the cake as a whole was perfectly balanced.
I'm glad Phil's birthday gave me an excuse to make this cake -- I would definitely make it again, and so far all of the sheet cakes I've made from All About Cake are worthy of any celebration!
Recipe: "Arnold Palmer Sheet Cake" from All About Cake by Christina Tosi.
Previous Post: "A Cookie for the King: Jumbo Arnold Palmer Cookies," May 27, 2017.
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