Josh is Still 11!: One-Bowl Vanilla Sheet Cake

I was happy to make a second birthday cake for my cousin's son Josh for a second birthday celebration. He requested a vanilla cake with a basketball theme. But of course in pandemic times, all of the birthday cakes I've been making have been small. So I decided to use Edd Kimber's recipe for "One Bowl Vanilla Sheet Cake" -- which, like all of the recipes in One Tin Bakes is written to be baked in a 9-inch by 13-inch pan -- and instead bake it into a two smaller cakes, a 9-inch square and a 6.25-inch hemisphere pan.
 
The cake is an oil-based cake that you make by putting all of the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar) into a bowl; adding the liquid ingredients (eggs, oil, buttermilk, and vanilla); whisking until combined; and mixing in boiling water. I divided the batter between my two pans to bake. 
 
The frosting for the cake is a swiss meringue buttercream. Since the recipe is designed to make a sheet cake that has frosting only on top, I multiplied the recipe by 1.5 because I wanted to split my square cake into two layers and have buttercream in between the layers as well. You heat egg whites, cream of tartar, sugar, and vanilla seeds (I used vanilla paste instead) in a mixing bowl set over a pan of simmering water; remove the bowl from the heat and whisk the mixture until cool; and gradually beat in room temperature butter. The bright white buttercream was smooth and silky and absolutely delicious.
After the the cakes were cool, I split the square cake, filled and frosted it, and covered it in homemade rolled fondant. I kept the cake design pretty simple, and it was easy enough to cover the hemisphere cake in orange fondant to resemble a basketball. Because I know that Josh loves fruit, I also made a batch of Rose Levy Beranbaum's raspberry sauce as an accompaniment. It's made with frozen berries -- you collect all of the juice from the defrosted fruit and reduce the juice on the stove, and then combine the reduced juice with the pureed and strained fruit, lemon juice, and sugar. 
 
I didn't take a picture of the inside of the cake, but it sliced beautifully and I'm glad that I split the square cake and filled it with buttercream. I liked the flavor of the cake, but I thought it was a little oily. I definitely prefer Rose Levy Beranbaum's white butter cake, which has a superfine crumb. However, the buttercream was outstanding. And oddly enough, what made the cake for me was the raspberry sauce. Usually I only make Bernabum's raspberry or strawberry sauce when I want to incorporate them into mousseline buttercream, but I had forgotten how bright and intensely flavored the sauce is when eaten at full strength. 
 
While I love vanilla and don't have a problem eating vanilla cake with vanilla frosting, the addition of the raspberry sauce to this cake made it positively divine.

Recipe: "One Bowl Vanilla Sheet Cake" from One Tin Bakes by Edd Kimber, and "Raspberry Puree and Sauce" from The Cake Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum. 

Previous Birthday Cakes for Josh:

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