Yellow Cake with Raspberry Buttercream Filling and Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

My niece Kate turned 4 not so long ago.  This year, she had a family party and a kid party.  Clearly two birthday cakes were required.  The children’s party had a butterfly theme, and hence a butterfly cake.  And it had to be chocolate.  But more about that later.

For the family cake, we went with flowers.  Chocolate frosting was still an absolute necessity, but Kate decided to try something different for the cake itself.  We went with yellow cake, raspberry buttercream filling. chocolate buttercream frosting, and yummy vanilla flavored frosting roses.  Don’t worry, the buttercream can be made in one batch, then split up and flavored with raspberry and chocolate.  The roses can also be made a couple of days ahead of time. The raspberry and chocolate buttercreams are light and creamy and go together extremely well.  The yellow cake is very moist.

I was so worried about keeping the buttercream from melting during the 3 hour drive to New York City, that I totally forgot what a roller coaster the Taconic highway with its potholes and bumpy ridged roads can be.  Luckily, I had the cake in a bakery box, packed tightly into a soft cooler bag, placed snugly into a larger cooler, wedged between a suitcase and other assorted packages in the trunk of my car.  I was thrilled to arrive on the upper west side, cake unscathed.  Phew!

And most importantly, the birthday girl loved her cake!

Healthy Berry Cake

The food I tend to cook is definitely on the healthy side.  I love vegetables, avoid processed foods, don’t eat any meat, use only whole grain bread and pasta, avoid recipes with cream. My own personal definition of healthy definitely excludes all things labeled “low-fat”, “low-calorie”, and “reduced-sugar.” If you could somehow trick me into drinking a diet coke, you’d be treated to all sorts of strange facial contortions if not a big soda shower as I rid my mouth of  the offensive liquid.

Does that philosophy seem strange given the abundance of decadent treats on this blog?  I hope not.  I’d trade a small piece of Triple Chocolate Mousse Cake for plate full of sugar free cookies any day.  So it’s no surprise that I haven’t really baked with Splenda, and most of my recipes don’t call for applesauce or yogurt to replace the butter. 

This recipe, however, is a little different.  There’s applesauce and yogurt, and whole wheat flour (still no Splenda or anything else of that ilk).  And lots of berries.  But I promise, it won’t taste “healthy.”  Sure, it’s not as decadent as this Chocolate Cake with Brown Butter & Frangelico Frosting, but it’s perfect as a humble mid-week 9x13 pan cake that you sneak a square of  for your daily sweet tooth fix.  Or you can even dress it up a little in a 9” round cake pan and serve it at your next dinner party.  I've served it to lots of college students with fancier and more outrageous desserts at dessert parties, and it holds its own.

There are a lot of bowls to clean with this recipe, but it's very easy - you don't even need a mixer!
Also, I'm not quite sure where the recipe originally came from, my mom has been making it for a few years now.

Blogiversary: Almond Cake with Chocolate Raspberry Ganache Filling & Raspberry Buttercream

Happy Birthday to my blog!

It's been a great year!  I started my blog, my home bakery, I taught a 4-week baking course at Williams, and most importantly, I've done a lot of baking!  This weekend, I'm participating in the Northern Berkshire Food Festival in North Adams, so if you're in the area, stop by!

If you've been following my blog at all, you'll recognize the almond cake in this recipe.  I used it for my birthday cake this year with brown butter frosting, and with chocolate raspberry ganache and chocolate frosting for a client.  It's extremely versatile, and a great addition to your repertoire!  And this frosting may be my new favorite. It's not as heavy as some buttercreams can be. It's light and fluffy, with a beautiful pink hue and raspberry taste.  You may not want to make it without a stand mixer; there's probably a good 20-25 minutes of beating with the stand mixer.  But if you need any more reasons to get a stand mixer, swiss meringue buttercream is it.  No heavy, dense, sugary mouthfuls here, this frosting is more reminiscent of a smooth, high quality ice cream with a more subtle sense of sweetness.  You'll see this frosting again soon, I'm sure of it.

And now, to celebrate my blog's birthday, I'm off to make a cake of course!  A chocolate butterfly cake for my niece's 4th birthday tomorrow.  Happy baking!

p.s. Stop by my Zucchero Dolce facebook page for more pictures, or to become a fan. 

Almond Cake (adapted from Rose Levy Beranbaum)

4 eggs
1 1/3 cups sour cream, separated
2 teaspoons almond extract
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 1/3 cups cake flour, sifted
2/3 cups finely ground almonds, toasted and preferably unblanched
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
3 sticks butter (12 ounces), room temperature

Preheat oven to 350F.  Spray 3 9" round cake pans with baking spray, line with parchment paper, and spray again.

In a medium bowl, stir together the eggs, 1/3 cup of the sour cream, and the extracts.  Set aside. Don't worry, it won't be smooth or pretty.


In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine all the dry ingredients - mix for 30 seconds.  Add the butter and the remaining 1 cup of sour cream, and mix on low until combined.  Mix on medium for 2 minutes to aerate batter.  Add the egg and sour cream mixture in 3 additions, beating 20 seconds after each addition.

 Split the batter between the cake pans, and smooth with a rubber spatula.  Bake for 30-40 minutes until a toothpick just comes out clean.  


Let the cakes cook in their pans for about 10 minutes, then turn on to cooling rack.  Cool completely, then wrap in plastic wrap and chill until ready to frost.

Raspberry Ice Cream Cake with Homemade Ice Cream

Are you finding it much too hot out to turn on the oven?  Time for ice cream cake!


Chocolate and Raspberry is one of my new favorite flavor combinations - doesn't matter the form: cakes, brownies, cupcakes, or ice cream cake like this one... Plus, I love that it's pink!


Ice cream cakes are great for entertaining, because so much of the work can be done ahead of time.  And guests are always impressed with homemade ice cream, though feel free to use store-bought if you don't have an ice cream maker.  You can even stir in the raspberry puree into store-bought vanilla ice cream, if you want to go the semi-homemade route.

Best-Ever (Bakewise) Pound Cake & The Science of Baking

I taught a 4-week, 40-hour course in January called The Art & Science of Baking.  We used Shirley Corriher's book Bakewise for a textbook.  Shirley is a frequent guest on Alton Brown's show Good Eats.  She's a chemist, and explains the science behind the baking. If you want to develop your own recipes, this is a must-read book.  She explains how to check the math of a given recipe and the important differences between baking powder and baking soda, natural cocoa powder and Dutch-process cocoa powder, and so much more.  One of the most surprising things I learned - so many cake recipes are way over-leavened!!

Shirley examines pound cake early on in her book, and takes you through her process of developing the perfect recipe.  Make this cake immediately, and as you taste the moist buttery cake with just a slight hint of almond (perhaps unidentifiable to some, but you'll taste something a little different), with a dense (but not heavy) crumb, you'll see how successful she was.  The whipped cream is not a typical ingredient in pound cake, but after you make this cake, it might become a regular in all your cake recipes.  It adds moisture, and of course enriches the flavor of the cake; whipping air into the cream lightens the texture of the cake.  Replacing some of the fat (i.e. butter) with oil also adds moisture to the cake; oil is better at greasing the flour proteins than are butter or shortening, so less gluten forms.

Full-disclosure, I did adapt Shirley's recipe slightly.  Potato starch isn't readily available at my grocery store, so I stuck with flour; Shirley says the potato starch adds moisture to the cake, and that the large granules make the texture a little less tight than the average pound cake. I believe her, but my version of the cake is still extremely moist, and the texture is not as dense and tight as your everyday pound cake.  I also didn't add her optional cream glaze or pound cake icing. I didn't miss them. 

Other things to note:  don't make this cake in a loaf pan, it won't work.  The abundance of butter and sugar in this cake make the cake perfectly moist and sweet, but don't contribute enough protein structure for the cake to dome in a loaf pan.  Using a tube pan or Bundt pan insures that the cake remains fully in the pan; in a loaf pan, we would want the cake to dome nicely above the pan, but without the sides of the pan to climb, the cake needs sufficient protein structure to reach that high.  Also, if the cake sinks slightly on top, it's not noticeable with these pans, since you invert the cake before serving anyway.

Oh, and I'm not sure she mentions this, but this cake improves after baking, so try not to eat it all the first, or even second day.  It's still moist on day 3, and the butter flavor is even more pronounced (I haven't figured out why yet!).

Carrot Cake Cupcakes

I've never quite understood the world's fascination with carrot cake, but everyone seems to love it.  I do think these cupcakes are pretty cute with the pecan on top, and I love cream cheese frosting, but carrot cake will never be my cake flavor of choice. To each his own...

By the way, if you don't already use an ice cream scoop to fill cupcake liners, I highly recommend it. It makes the whole process go much more quickly and I also think it makes it easier to fill the wells uniformly. Remember, each one should be filled just over halfway (for most recipes).

Peanut Butter Cheesecake with a Brownie Crust

It's been months since I posted any chocolate and peanut butter treats, that's just not right!  So here's another.  I don't need to convince you how great the flavor combination is.  I made this as one of several desserts for a party for my Abstract Algebra students.  I never have students over without serving cheesecake, it's so easy and quick, it serves a lot, most people really like it, and there are endless flavor combinations!  And it can be made ahead of time, perfect for parties!  You could definitely serve this on an oreo crust if you prefer, but I really like the brownie texture.