My cousin's daughter Stella -- the cutest, most snuggly, good-natured baby I know -- just turned one and her birthday party was one of the many celebrations that was canceled because of COVID-19. I was sad I couldn't celebrate the day with Stella in person, but at least I still got to bake her a birthday cake!
I decided to use Shauna Sever's Raspberry Poke Cake recipe -- which is meant to be a sheet cake baked in a 9-inch by 13-inch pan -- and I turned it into a small two-layer smash cake for Stella, a slighter larger two-layer cake for her parents, and a few single-layer slices of cake for me and Tom. I got out my calculator and figured that a 9-inch by 13-inch cake has the same volume as two 4-inch round cakes + two 6-inch round cakes + one 7-inch round cake. So I baked five small cakes instead of one quarter sheet.
The cake itself is a white butter cake. I noticed that it has more sugar than flour by weight and was tempted to make it using the high-ratio mixing method, but I decided to follow the creaming method written in the recipe. You cream room temperature butter and sugar, and then alternately add the dry ingredients (cake flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt) and liquid ingredients (egg whites, buttermilk, and vanilla). I had calculated the percentage of batter that needed to go into each of my multitude of different-sized pans and divided the batter accordingly.
While the cakes were in the oven, I made the raspberry filling. I cooked fresh raspberries with sugar, lime juice, and water until the mixture came to a boil, and I mashed the berries with a fork. I whisked in gelatin that had been softened in water and put the raspberry filling through a sieve. The recipe says that you should have a cup and a half of liquid, but I had two cups. Perhaps I should have cooked down the raspberries more, but the recipe doesn't mention the need reduce the liquid.
While the cakes were still warm from the oven, I used the round handle of a silicone spatula to poke holes in the top of each cake and poured over the hot raspberry filling. Then I put the cake layers in the fridge for a few hours.
The frosting is a mixture of cream cheese, whipped cream, powdered, sugar, and vanilla. I made a batch and a half of frosting because I knew that I would need some extra since I was going to be filling two layer cakes and also piping on garnishes.
After I had the frosting ready, I pulled the cakes out of the fridge and leveled them. I assembled a little smash cake for Stella with the two four-inch cake layers (which I covered with an excessive amount of frosting, as you can see above, because I thought that more frosting would make for better smashing), the bigger cake for her parents (which was also filled, completely covered in frosting, and decorated with piped borders and fresh fruit), and I had enough frosting to also cover the single 7-inch layer that I kept for me and Tom. I piped the frosting onto our single cake layer because the frosting was already in the piping bag.
I punched out the round piece of cake in the photo above from the 7-inch layer, using a cookie cutter. You can see how the raspberry filling created pink spots in various locations. The color of the filling is not nearly as vibrant as that in the cookbook photo. But this cake was really, really good. The cake itself was an excellent fine-crumbed white cake. Twelve ounces of raspberries went into the filling, so I was expecting the raspberry flavor to be fairly prominent, but it was surprisingly mild. The best part of this cake, and what really made it exceptional, was the frosting. It tasted primarily of sweetened whipped cream, but the cream cheese added more richness and depth. It was weightless and yet so lusciously rich. I could eat the frosting all day with a spoon.
Of course I didn't get to watch Stella smash her little cake; I just dropped of the cakes at the door. And her mom reported back that Stella didn't actually do any smashing after all. She picked off the fresh fruit from the cake and called it a day. But this cake was definitely a smash at our house. It's wonderful as a single-layer cake, but if you turn it into a two-layer cake and frost the whole thing, it's special enough for any occasion.
Recipe: "Raspberry Poke Cake" from Midwest Made by Shauna Sever.
Previous Post: "Cold Cake with Full Flavor: Chilled Chocolate Glazed Cake," February 19, 2017.
I decided to use Shauna Sever's Raspberry Poke Cake recipe -- which is meant to be a sheet cake baked in a 9-inch by 13-inch pan -- and I turned it into a small two-layer smash cake for Stella, a slighter larger two-layer cake for her parents, and a few single-layer slices of cake for me and Tom. I got out my calculator and figured that a 9-inch by 13-inch cake has the same volume as two 4-inch round cakes + two 6-inch round cakes + one 7-inch round cake. So I baked five small cakes instead of one quarter sheet.
The cake itself is a white butter cake. I noticed that it has more sugar than flour by weight and was tempted to make it using the high-ratio mixing method, but I decided to follow the creaming method written in the recipe. You cream room temperature butter and sugar, and then alternately add the dry ingredients (cake flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt) and liquid ingredients (egg whites, buttermilk, and vanilla). I had calculated the percentage of batter that needed to go into each of my multitude of different-sized pans and divided the batter accordingly.
While the cakes were in the oven, I made the raspberry filling. I cooked fresh raspberries with sugar, lime juice, and water until the mixture came to a boil, and I mashed the berries with a fork. I whisked in gelatin that had been softened in water and put the raspberry filling through a sieve. The recipe says that you should have a cup and a half of liquid, but I had two cups. Perhaps I should have cooked down the raspberries more, but the recipe doesn't mention the need reduce the liquid.
The frosting is a mixture of cream cheese, whipped cream, powdered, sugar, and vanilla. I made a batch and a half of frosting because I knew that I would need some extra since I was going to be filling two layer cakes and also piping on garnishes.
After I had the frosting ready, I pulled the cakes out of the fridge and leveled them. I assembled a little smash cake for Stella with the two four-inch cake layers (which I covered with an excessive amount of frosting, as you can see above, because I thought that more frosting would make for better smashing), the bigger cake for her parents (which was also filled, completely covered in frosting, and decorated with piped borders and fresh fruit), and I had enough frosting to also cover the single 7-inch layer that I kept for me and Tom. I piped the frosting onto our single cake layer because the frosting was already in the piping bag.
Of course I didn't get to watch Stella smash her little cake; I just dropped of the cakes at the door. And her mom reported back that Stella didn't actually do any smashing after all. She picked off the fresh fruit from the cake and called it a day. But this cake was definitely a smash at our house. It's wonderful as a single-layer cake, but if you turn it into a two-layer cake and frost the whole thing, it's special enough for any occasion.
Recipe: "Raspberry Poke Cake" from Midwest Made by Shauna Sever.
Previous Post: "Cold Cake with Full Flavor: Chilled Chocolate Glazed Cake," February 19, 2017.
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