George Brown's Sponge Cake and Martha Stewart's Buttercream

Yesterday I had a few hours to kill in the afternoon and attempted another cake. I needed something light and fluffy. I decided to make George Brown's Sponge Cake from my Art of Baking class and wanted to play with the Buttercream that I made earlier in the week (I wanted to know what would happen if I kept adding the full amount of butter called for in the recipe rather than stopping when it started curdling).

The sponge cake was delicious. Truth be told, I had a small cake baked at the same time and ate it all. So nice and fluffy and not super sweet. My concern is whether it will hold with icing and toppings on it. I'm going to taste test it with my mom (I hope) and we'll see how it holds up.

As for the buttercream, I found it easier to work with compared to the previous attempt but I also found that it didn't hold at room temperature as well. So I think I will revert to stop adding butter when it starts curdling and then just beating it until it is really really smooth.

So here was the process of putting the cake together.

Bake the cake (only about 20 mins of baking time - the beauty of a sponge cake).

The split it in half (which I did a bad job of! I need a better, longer serated knife), added a layer of buttercream, diced up strawberries and threw it on top (diced because my last attempt of small cross slices did not work well) and another layer of buttercream on top.

Then a crumb coat layer to keep the crumbs from going on the icing when I actually work the cake.

Then the frosting is added. Before making the cake today, I watched a 13 minute video of how to make straight, smoooth layers of frosting on the cake and so this was my first attempt at making it. The first layer is added and the goal is not to make it perfectly smooth as another layer will come. I think I did ok for my first attempt ever. :-)

Then came the second layer and this is the more important one. It was 8 p.m. by now and I was tired. This is the best I could do at 8 p.m. Also, you need a blow torch to make the icing perfectly flawless - because you need to heat up the levelling tool. Another thing for me to look into. Learning so much a long the way.

I had a very small amount of icing left over and piped my "S" on it. Can't wait to try it with my mom and see how it turns out as a package. I'm pleased with this attempt.

Martha Stewart's White Wedding Cake and Buttercream

Earlier this week I took a crack at making a White Wedding Cake with a Buttercream, minus the Raspberry part. For the cake, I didn't pay attention to how much time it had been in the oven and kept opening and closing it. This affects the way it rises and it ended up like below. Ideally, you don't open it until you're checking for when it's done so I need to be more aware of the time it's been in the oven.

As you can see from the middle of the cake in the picture above, I poked it many times. The cracks are not the biggest deal because the cake needed levelling off anyway - see below - but I think the fluffiness of the cake was really affected by my constant opening of the oven. It ended up being really dense, will need to try again.

The buttercream was much more of a success and very yummy. I loved whipping it and watching it come together. As a note to myself, I did not put all the butter in, I stopped when it started churdling and then whipped it smooth. The texture was more managable doing it this way (compared to the frosting I made the following day, which "melted" a bit more).

So, when I bake, I have a focus. I am trying to master the art of cake making with the limited time that I have. With each attempt, I focus on item/step in the process. The focus in this was project was two fold: (i) on the actual cake was to get it fluffly, which I failed at, and (ii) the focus on the cream was to get the right consistency, and I think I was sucessful there. I did put a cake together for the sake of it and learnt some stuff on the way, but the end goal was not to make a perfect cake. And so it did not end up being the most pretty thing. lol Here's how it looked like as I put it together.

Added strawberries, piped on more frosting and added the top layer. It looks awesome at this point, I think.

Then the part where skills matter comes and this was not my focus today so I played around. It eneded up looking decent, no?

In the end, my mom and I tried it and we give a solid thumbs up to the frosting but a sold thumbs down to the cake. One, the bottom of the cake was too thick and difficult to cut into. It was very dense and a bit dry. I think it was all due to human error and so I am tempted to try the recipe again. There's two recipes that I've done that I need to retry now - and I've only tried about three so my success factor is not the greatest! Clearly a practice until perfect job. It's fun. It's costing me a bit of money but I am thoroughly enjoying myself. I need to find people to give my cakes to. Feel free to volunteer!

Martha Stewart's Angel Food Cake

Over the past few days I tried making the Angel Food Cake twice. The first time I was not a huge fan. I found the cake to be very sticky and not soft enough, though it looked very pretty:

My mother really enjoyed the cake and she raved about it for a few days. I decided to try it again tonight, but whipped the egg whites a bit more to see how the texture changes. I found this time it was not as "sticky" for lack of a better word. It was a better texture but not a good texture for a wedding cake. It will not provide a clean cut.

I like how it's mainly egg whites and sugar without butter and without much flour. I think I would definitely make it again. I should buy an angel cake pan -- presumably it affects the texture. Maybe it won't feel as sticky. Anyway, point is to whip the eggs well and you get a better quality product.