Tag: frosted

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Today’s Bake – Lemon Vanilla Bean Cake – 11-9-22

This cake has been my go-to cake for a triple layer 6″ cake with a lovely vanilla flavor, perfectly moist, and easily filled with all sorts of options. Today I followed the cake/filling recipe in Frosted (Bernice Baran), using lemon curd between the layers, but choosing an ABC frosting instead of the suggested American Meringue Buttercream.

Despite a dam of frosting, as well as trying the ‘seal it in technique’ (Georgia’s Cakes), the lemon curd oozed all over. It took several crumb coats and repairs before I could mask the lemon that insisted on blending with my ABC.

Speaking of ABC, I remain a fan of this frosting more so than any other I have tried, although I continue to work to make it not taste as sweet. Hard to do when it’s so full of sugar, but today’s experiment included: using Amish roll butter, adding in 2 TB super chilled heavy cream and 1 TB super chilled sour cream, 1 TB lemon juice, 1 tsp vanilla, 1 TB meringue powder, and beating for about 15 minutes. Still sweet but less so – I feel like I’m getting there. And the texture was good for spreading and piping. So much patience required in this cake decorating business – cannot do it when I’m tired.

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Today’s Bake – Pumpkin Marshmallow Cake – 11-6-22

Recipe from Bernice Baran’s Frosted – I’ve said it before, the recipes in here are just fantastic. Lots and lots of five star bakes IMHO.

First off, a three layer 6″ cake was the perfect opportunity to test out, side by side, the bake even strips mentioned in my previous post – they really do make a difference. Much less of a dome to the cake, but most importantly, a lovely finish to the sides – see for yourself (one on the left, no strip). If you are a baker, absolutely worth the $10. Note: I do think they bake a little slower, so you may need to add another 5 minutes to the bake time.

Now for the cake, LOL. Wonderful caramel chai taste on the drip – will use that in other recipes, just yummy, though not quite as thick as I would like. And the cake is very moist and has a great spiced pumpkin taste. The frosting – I took it upon myself to substitute giant orange pumpkin marshmallows instead of the regular marshmallows called for in the frosting. The taste is great (and I’m a fan of the color); I did run into an issue with the consistency of the frosting (a bit goopy and required several periods in the fridge) and the marshmallow left clumps of chewy toasty marshmallow in the frosting (not necessarily a bad thing, but you wouldn’t have been able to pipe this frosting). All in all, this is an amazing spiced cake, and I’m not even that much of a pumpkin fan! I may have to change my opinion!

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Chocolate Caramel Macchiato Cookies

Oh my. These are richly good. This recipe hails from Frosted by Bernice Baran. While it has several parts that need to be put together, the end result is well worth it. You start with two deeply chocolate sugar cookies that have just the right amount of chewiness and are a good size. These form the outside of the sandwich cookie. The inside is a Italian Meringue Buttercream mixed with a homemade caramel and some espresso powder and vanilla bean paste mixed in. They are good in the fridge for up to a week and you only need one to make a great dessert! This cookbook is a winner.

Chocolate Caramel Macchiato Cookies - SO good!
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Today’s Bake: Guinness Chocolate Sponge with French Buttercream

Today’s bake was a good one – and while somewhat involved, the end result is amazing. Recipe from Frosted by Bernice Baran. The cake is a chocolate sponge cake, so is very light and airy. I chose to do 10 individual small cakes rather than one large sheet cake, as I am giving these as holiday gifts. The sponge cake is then topped with a dark chocolate ganache which thanks to a few poke holes in the cake, drips down into the sponge. Using a dark chocolate makes this ganache more on the chocolate side than on the sweet side. On top of this is a French buttercream (my first attempt) which involves beating egg yolks until thick, then streaming in a very hot sugar syrup, beating that a long time, and then adding butter and again, beating another 7-10 minutes. The result is a very silky but not overly sweet buttercream frosting. I think this frosting may come in second to good old ABC frosting. Guinness in both the cake and the ganache. And yes I went totally overboard and paired it with homemade vanilla ice cream. High marks for this!

Sit ups here I come!