Here are the recipes I used:
Favorite Vanilla Bean Cake
Favorite Vanilla Buttercream
Fresh Fruit Glaze
Here is the final product:
I've spent a long time planning this cake, it has been something to look forward to during quarantine days. I haven't been baking much (minus the chocolate chip cookies my husband devoured [insert annoyed grunt here]), so I went slightly overboard on this one. It was fun, though!
The image in my head was a naked cake topped with fruit. As I sat and dreamed of baking, I decided to expand that idea to include some fruit buttercream in addition to the vanilla, and then decided I wanted to add a drip, because why not? She loves berries, so all the fruits used here are berries. In the end, I made a vanilla bean cake topped with vanilla bean buttercream. I made a raspberry glaze, and dripped it down the sides. I also added the raspberry glaze to a small amount of vanilla buttercream, and used that for the center frosting. Finally, I finished the cake off with a decoration of blackberries, blueberries, and strawberries.
I should start by saying I am not a talented decorator. Maybe I could be with practice, but I've had very little of it. I focus on taste, mostly, not appearance (though I generally hope things look presentable). This one was heavily decorative, so my one complaint with my work is that it's a bit wonky and lumpy, but I'll forgive myself, because... the taste was GREAT. The cake was excellent, as was the buttercream. Husband called the fruit drip "divine," and if you've read his past comments, that's pretty high praise from someone who usually says "it's good!" to everything. Honestly, I don't like fruity desserts, so I wasn't a fan of either the raspberry buttercream or the glaze, but I'll take husbands word for it. I had extra batter, so I made cupcakes, and made a few with just the vanilla, and YUM.
Baby appeared to enjoy it. It was more sugar than she ever had available in one sitting. After a night in the fridge, the cake was a little hard (still moist and delicious, though), so there wasn't so much smashing. She picked off all the berries first and ate them, then had a couple fistfuls of frosting. We cut the cake for her so she could get into the center, and she ate some of the vanilla cake, but at that point, she was pretty done. She didn't say "oh my gosh this is so good," but she also didn't scream, spit it out, or throw it on the floor, so that's usually a success for a 1 year old!
Happy Birthday baby!
On to the process pictures.
I started with the cake, since it would need to cool before being frosted.
Favorite Vanilla Bean Cake
Favorite Vanilla Buttercream
Fresh Fruit Glaze
Here is the final product:
I've spent a long time planning this cake, it has been something to look forward to during quarantine days. I haven't been baking much (minus the chocolate chip cookies my husband devoured [insert annoyed grunt here]), so I went slightly overboard on this one. It was fun, though!
The image in my head was a naked cake topped with fruit. As I sat and dreamed of baking, I decided to expand that idea to include some fruit buttercream in addition to the vanilla, and then decided I wanted to add a drip, because why not? She loves berries, so all the fruits used here are berries. In the end, I made a vanilla bean cake topped with vanilla bean buttercream. I made a raspberry glaze, and dripped it down the sides. I also added the raspberry glaze to a small amount of vanilla buttercream, and used that for the center frosting. Finally, I finished the cake off with a decoration of blackberries, blueberries, and strawberries.
I should start by saying I am not a talented decorator. Maybe I could be with practice, but I've had very little of it. I focus on taste, mostly, not appearance (though I generally hope things look presentable). This one was heavily decorative, so my one complaint with my work is that it's a bit wonky and lumpy, but I'll forgive myself, because... the taste was GREAT. The cake was excellent, as was the buttercream. Husband called the fruit drip "divine," and if you've read his past comments, that's pretty high praise from someone who usually says "it's good!" to everything. Honestly, I don't like fruity desserts, so I wasn't a fan of either the raspberry buttercream or the glaze, but I'll take husbands word for it. I had extra batter, so I made cupcakes, and made a few with just the vanilla, and YUM.
Baby appeared to enjoy it. It was more sugar than she ever had available in one sitting. After a night in the fridge, the cake was a little hard (still moist and delicious, though), so there wasn't so much smashing. She picked off all the berries first and ate them, then had a couple fistfuls of frosting. We cut the cake for her so she could get into the center, and she ate some of the vanilla cake, but at that point, she was pretty done. She didn't say "oh my gosh this is so good," but she also didn't scream, spit it out, or throw it on the floor, so that's usually a success for a 1 year old!
Happy Birthday baby!
On to the process pictures.
I started with the cake, since it would need to cool before being frosted.
Dry ingredients. We didn't have cake flour, so I used all purpose, took out two tablespoons, and added two tablespoons of cornstarch sifted in.
Wet ingredients. We didn't have vanilla bean paste, so I used vanilla extract and a vanilla bean for the little black seeds. We also didn't have almond emulsion, so I used almond extract.
Chopping the butter into blocks to add into the dry ingredients.
After blending in the butter chunks.
Finished batter after adding wet ingredients
cake pans and cupcake pan ready to go in the oven
Cupcakes out and cooled. Took about 25 minutes.
Cake out and cooled. I had to wing this one, since the cake pans were so much smaller than the recipe called for. It took about 40 minutes total, adding 10 minutes after the initial 25, and doing toothpick tests.
After the cake, I made the buttercream:
Whipped butter
We had to use whipping cream instead of heavy cream because that's all they had, but it seemed to work ok. It also has vanilla extract, and I used the rest of the vanilla bean seeds, so it would have the black specks unique to vanilla bean stuff.
This is how much powdered sugar goes into it 😅 4.5 cups
All ingredients combined, finished icing
Next I moved on the the raspberry glaze--I'd need that to make the raspberry buttercream.
Melting raspberries and sugar
then you MASH it
Straining out the pulp and seeds
Raspberry juices after reducing them to 1/3 cup
adding powdered sugar
adding cream to finish the glaze
Final step pre-decorating, making the raspberry buttercream.
mixing glaze and buttercream to make raspberry buttercream
On to decorating!
Blank canvas
Raspberry buttercream filling
the cake is assembled!
"naked" frosting the sides...after this is where the cake gets a bit slippy slidey, tilted, and bulgey.
adding the raspberry glaze drip (my personal irritation is the raspberry buttercream that started to ooze out the sides...if I had more time I could have chilled it to make it colder and a little less...oozey)
adding the vanilla buttercream to the top (at this point, the oozing raspberry buttercream made the drips go a little off and the cake started to tilt a little...again, this probably could have been fixed with chilling and more time, but alas)
Final touches, the berry pattern
finished cake, and cut cake the next day (you can see all the berries have been removed on the cut pieces by our little berryfiend)
Finished cupcakes for the parents!
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