NO-SPITE PRINCESS CAKE

“I always want a cookie or a piece of cake to accompany my adventures.” – Gesine Bullock-Prado

So, I got a bad review on my performance in Flora The Red Menace. And not just a bad review. A scathing review. One that went beyond the general rudeness a critique can display, and jumped right into actual meanness. I was really hurt. Devastated actually. And for the first time in my life I didn’t ever want to sing again. I didn’t even want to open my mouth to speak. It really scared me, the idea that someone who I didn’t know could write these few words and suddenly my major passion in life had suddenly come into question.

My boyfriend must have noticed that my grief was taking the form of carbs and sugar when I didn’t even touch the awesomely gourmet bison burger I had ordered, and instead opted to inhale the greasy fries and peanut butter-chocolate milkshake (16 ounces, mind you) that were meant for the table, because the next day he suggested we go to Amy’s Bread, a carbohydrate institution in Hell’s Kitchen.

We stood on the line that curved outside of the door and onto the street, me craning my neck to see past the doorway and into the glass cases, home to everything from classy and flaky Pain Au Chocolat to gooey sticky buns! I was expecting to go with something totally out of the ordinary realm of my dessert experience, like Almond Brioche Toast, however, once inside my eyes landed on a perfectly simple yellow cake with pink buttercream frosting. The little girl in me, the one who was also nursing the horrible-review wound, instantly felt a little better knowing that there was a possibility that she would get to sample this cake.

And, boy did she ever!

It was such a great dessert! The cake wasn’t dense, but it definitely had a slight heaviness to it, which was balanced by the light buttercream that squished between the multiple layers. I couldn’t even wait to get back to the hotel where we were staying to try it. I ended up eating the entire thing while rushing along the New York City sidewalk (Thank God I grew up there, or I would’ve had a terrible time doing both at once)

As soon I finished I knew that I had to make this cake for the people I love. It brought back memories of childhood birthday parties and of frosting and ice cream covered fingers and faces, and I wanted to be able to bring that to as many people as I could…or at least the 10 servings the recipe allows for.

While I don’t have Amy’s exact recipe, I was able to put together my own 3-layer cake using a Yellow Cake recipe from Tastykitchen.com and a Vanilla Bean Buttercream Frosting recipe adapted from a recipe by my current obsession: Joy Wilson, of Joy The Baker.

Make this when you want to impress your inner ballerina, astronaut, cowboy, or princess.

YELLOW CAKE

Ingredients:

2 ¼ cups All-Purpose Flour

1 ½ cups Sugar

3 ½ teaspoons Baking Powder

1 teaspoon Salt

1 ¼ cup Milk (I used Whole Milk)

1/3 cup Vegetable Oil

½ cup Butter, softened

1Tablespoon Vanilla

3 Whole Large Eggs

Directions

1.     Preheat oven to 350 degrees

2.     Prepare 3 9x1 ½ inch round pans (either using baking spray with flour, or buttering and flouring each pan)

3.     Sift flour, sugar, baking powder and salt into a large bowl. Whisk together.

Doesn't it look like snow?

4.     Using a hand mixer, beat the butter and vanilla together for about 2 minutes, until it’s light and fluffy. (It will look almost like frosting, but resist the urge to eat any, because it’s still butter and vanilla extract)

5.     Add the milk and vegetable oil to the butter/vanilla mixture and gently combine.

6.     Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and use the hand mixer to beat the ingredients together, scraping the sides of the bowl as needed. 

7.     Add the eggs one at a time, making sure to beat the ingredients together between egg additions. (It’s kind of funny to beat the ingredients here, because you’re almost chasing after the yolk as it bubbles around bowl)

8.     Pour batter into the prepared pans.

9.     Bake for a total of 25 minutes, rotating the pans once halfway through.

1.  Allow cakes to cool for 10 minutes in the pans, then invert onto cooling racks and allow them to cool completely (about an hour)

Just a humorous side note: My kitten is obviously really into Paula Deen because in this shot she was actually licking the excess butter off of the wrapper after I had put it into the trash. Butter and oil, y'all!

WHILE THE CAKES ARE COOLING, MAKE THE FROSTING J

Vanilla Bean Buttercream Frosting

Ingredients:

1 cup of unsalted butter, softened

4 cups of powdered sugar

2 tablespoons milk

1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

Pinch of salt

Red food coloring

Directions:

1.     Use a hand mixer to beat the butter for around 2 minutes until the butter becomes light and fluffy, and once again, looks like frosting.

2.     Scrape the sides of the bowl and add 3 cups of powdered sugar.

3.     Beat the mixture on low, increasing to medium speed as the mixture begins to combine.

4.     Add the milk, salt, and vanilla extract. Beat together ingredients at a high speed for 1 minute.

5.     Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add the final cup of powdered sugar. Beat together ingredients on medium speed until a soft and feathery frosting forms.

6.     Scrape down the bowl once more and add in a teaspoon of red food coloring.

7.     Beat the ingredients together once more, allowing the frosting to turn pink! Add more food coloring to create a deeper shade, or just forgo the color in general!

Assembling the cake!

Okay, this can take a little bit of finessing because it involves leveling out the layer cake.

Basically, you want to make sure that each layer is flat, because otherwise your cake will be oddly lopsided.

You level the cake out by using a serrated knife (or a really sharp, long one) and gently running it over the top of the cake, slicing off the excess, to make the cake one, smooth, layer. Unfortunately, this takes away the “skin” of the cake, so to speak, leaving you with some uncovered crumbs. This means that when it comes time to frost the cake, you have to be extra gentle when going over these spaces, to make sure you don’t just pull extra cake bits off, and just create a pile of crumbly nothing on your cake.

So, once the layers are leveled, take your bottom layer, place a dollop of frosting on the center of the platter where the cake will be frosted (this keeps the cake from sliding around while you’re frosting it) and place the layer directly on top of the frosting. Then, put about ¼ cup of frosting onto the layer and gently smooth it out. Repeat with remaining layers. However, once you put on the top layer, I find it’s easier to frost the sides first, and use the excess that creeps up to frost the top layer.

Now, when frosting the sides of the cake, sometimes the frosting will spread too much and the cake will show through, or it’ll get a little crumbly. You have to be really tender while frosting the sides of the cake. Try to gently sweep the frosting over the sides, and then pat it down a little, rather than try to make it smooth by continually running the spatula or knife over it.

Once the cake is beautifully frosted (the more whimsical, the better!) Allow it to sit in the fridge for about an hour and then serve it with a smile! Or just dig your hands in and get it all over your face…but make sure you’re wearing your cowboy hat or rhinestone tiara!

CUT TO POST EATING!

So my cake ended up balanced in the exact opposite way of Amy’s! The cake was lighter and less sweet, balancing out the star of the dessert: The Frosting! The frosting was so sweet and decadent and amazing, and so having a cake that was lighter and not as sweet made the perfect combination!

According to those who ate it, it was awesome, and I whole-heartedly agree! I also want to let you in on a little secret: this cake can be made into cupcakes instead, and this frosting should basically be put on everything…seriously…even pizza…or pancakes…actually, on pancakes it would be amazing…

Til next time,

D