If it’s good, make it thrice.

The title of this post is probably the mentality my parents took towards having children, but it applied better to my recent cake ventures, as number three was as good as one and two. Unfair digs at my only mildly inferior younger sister aside, this cake is marvellous, simple and delicious. A rad beginning to a food blog, I think.

Cake #1 (or ‘Alysha’, in this sibling/cake metaphor) was a thank you gift to my co-director after the ROUSING SUCCESS of our Pantomime last week. After ‘destroying’ a wedding cake prop which he had spent hours perfecting for a previous show by transforming it into a chocolate (or in his words ‘shit brown’) cake more appropriate to our play, much to his anguish, I felt compelled to make amends with an edible scale model of his beloved prop cake.

I took it as an opportunity to attempt Swiss Buttercream for the first time, a task which my brand new birthday-gifted KitchenAid Mixer and I were chomping at the unfrosted bit to try. Add some inedible ribbon and flowers that happened to be hanging around the house, and all was forgiven.

The dearly departed during its moment of stardom:

Delicious replica:

Cake #2 (the Nicola) was demanded by my parents after they sampled the off-cuts from the top tier of #1 (now the sibling metaphor is getting weird). Due simply to running out of vanilla extract from making the first two layers of cake, I had used almond extract for the top tier, and it was received excellently by my discerning taste-testers, so #2 was all almond flavoured. This time I had no butter, so the filling just used cream instead of buttercream, and I dusted the cake with icing sugar. Also I’d used all the raspberries and strawberries from the packet of frozen Mixed Berries so this one used blueberries and blackberries. I am now sick of the word ‘berries’.

And here’s a slice of it hanging out with my new best friend:

(Please excuse the sad deflated blueberry atop)

Whilst the parents were enjoying a slice of #2 for morning tea yesterday (OKAY SERIOUSLY WEIRDED OUT BY THIS METAPHOR NOW) they ordered me to make yet another rendition of it to take to Nonna’s for Easter Sunday celebrations today.

#3 was a simpler, two-layered but single-tiered replica of #1, but with the almond flavour of #2. The buttercream was back, as were the strawberries and raspberries, and it was decorated with raspberries and raspberry coulis.

Needless to say, this cake is wonderful. Recipe adapted from various I’ve seen around:

Almond Butter Cake with Berry Buttercream

Cake-
-1 Cup white sugar
-125g butter
-2 eggs
-1 tsp vanilla extract
-1 tsp almond essence/extract
-1/2 Cup plain flour
-1 3/4 tsp baking powder
-1/2 Cup milk

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Prepare some cake tin blah blah.

2. Cream butter and sugar. Stare lovingly or longingly at your stand mixer or hand mixer, respectively.

3. Beat in eggs, one at a time.

4. Stir in vanilla and almond extracts.

5. Combine flour and baking powder (sifting’s for pussies). Mix into wet ingredients.

6. Stir in milk, mix until smooth.

7. Bake 30-40 minutes/until it’s done.

Buttercream-
-4 egg whites
-1 Cup sugar
-375g butter
-1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Whisk egg whites and sugar together in a bowl over a pot of simmering water until sugar has dissolved/your heart tells you to stop.

2. Transfer syrup into bowl of stand mixer/large bowl. Make sure no water from the bain marie action gets into the bowl.

3. Whip shit out of, until mixture has turned white and doubled-ish in size.

4. Add butter gradually, whilst whipping shit out of. Add vanilla somewhere hereish too.

5. Continue whippping. It is finished when it resembles buttercream, which is what it is. It will get to a stage that looks like you’ve overdone it and ruined everything. You have not. Keep whipping. Trust me.

Berry Buttercream-
-Some berries. Frozen or fresh if you can get ’em.

1. If using frozen berries, thaw and try to drain them of as much liquid as possible. I let mine hang out on paper towels for a while.

2. Mush ’em a bit. At this point I also transferred them to a seive to get more liquid out. Just use your brain. (for thinking, not for draining berries). You can even not mush ’em if you like chunks in your cream. (hot).

3. Fold carefully (or with reckless abandon, whichever floats thine boat) into about half of the buttercream.

Assembly: Is pretty obvious. Allow cake to cool/freeze it for a bit if you like, slice in half, spread berry buttercream on top of bottom half, replace top, spread with non-berry buttercream. Or with berry buttercream if that’s your bag. Whatever man, I’m not trying to rule your life. Do what you want. What are you even listening to me for.

~~Variations~~
For #1 I made three portions of the cake recipe. Two for the bottom tier and one (in a smaller pan, then trimmed to size) for the top tier. I also made two portions of buttercream. About 3/4 of one portion was made into the berry filling, the rest was used to cover (and it was too much. People collapsed of butter intake. It wasn’t pretty, but they seemed to be enjoying themselves.)

For #2 I used about a cup of whipped cream instead of buttercream, and folded the berries into that for the filling, dusting the whole cake with icing sugar. As you can see. By the photo. And by what I said before.

#3 was pretty standard by that recipe, except I also used coulis to decorate.
Coulis (A vague recipe)
-Some frozen raspberries
-Some icing sugar
Mush the raspberries in a pan over heat. Add icing sugar. Mix for a bit. Allow to get pretty hot until your heart says it’s ready. Sploodge through a sieve to get rid of the pesky seeds. Weep with joy that you managed to get proper red onto a cake instead of pink like you usually do when you try to make red icing and don’t have fancy colouring materials.

Ze End!