Martha Stewart Got Nothing On Me...Except for Butter Cream.

I have always wanted to make a birthday cake.  A two-tiered birthday cake with frosting and filling....just like all the baking shows that I watch.  My Mom always got me a birthday cake.  I never really liked to eat them.  I just like the look of them.  I just needed someone to have birthday and some time to make the cake.  Besides, Martha Stewart has an awesome collection of cupcakes waiting to be transformed into a birthday cake.  I chose the Meyer Lemon Raspberry Cupake recipe.  Hers looked like his:

I refused to add the layer of sand sugar and the raspberry.  The raspberry wouldn't of held up to the condition I was going to make it go through.  Decorating the cake will be on my next mission.  This time...I just needed to learn how to make a two-tiered cake.  How was it?  I under estimated the surgical skills that comes with making a cake.  

Just a few fun facts before we start!

1.  Meyer lemon is not your typical lemon.  Meyer lemon is a cross between a regular lemon and an orange or mandarin.  They should be sweeter.  Did I use it?  No, I did not.  I break rules when I cook.  

2.  I made the cake and froze it on Sunday but really I needed it on Wednesday.  Have you had a child come to you and ask, I need 3 dozen cupcakes tomorrow morning?  I never did it, my Mother would just look at my funny and take me to the store.  But, if you make a cake, bake it, you may FREEZE it directly immediately.  What will happen is that the WATER content in the cake will freeze and lock in the moisture!  How fantastic!  You can prep AND you have a moist cake.  I'm down!  You do not have to defrost the cake before you ice it too.  In fact! If you ice without defrosting, the moisture of the cake will be locked in by the layer of butter cream frosting.  Food nerdiness at it's max!  

So what are some lessons I learned from this cake that really kicked my butt?  

Sugar & Egg Yolks.  The color is so magnificent.

1.  I tried to find lemon curd so I didn't have to make my own.  But making lemon curd is much easier and an interesting science project.   I LOVED that the stores didn't have lemon curd.  Now I can say I know how to make lemon curd.  It's an empowering task!

Stir till it thickens.

Finished Product!

Vanilla Bean Pod

2.  My new interest is to use new flavors such as spices and vanilla is a new one.  I have never used a vanilla bean pod but the black specks that is distributed throughout my batter makes it happy.  There is so much flavor and a sense of authenticity.  There was nothing special to the cake batter recipe.  I have never used sour cream in my cake batters before but  the purpose is to increase moisture and density.  It has since been included in pound cake as well. 

After mixing the batter, I divided the batter into two cake pans, glistened with butter.  I did not want a hot mess of cake since it needed to be frozen and frosted after being baked.  

3.  When it was ready to be frosted, I feared that the cake would be too difficult to carve into a flat surface so I defrosted the cake over night in the fridge.  I am curious if I can carve a cake  when it was frozen though.  I did not have a serrated knife but it something worth learning for next time when a birthday girl is not in need of a birthday cake. :)

I can certainly eat the cake as is.  Just imagine warm vanilla pound-like cake with tangy/sweet lemon custard.  mmmmm!

4.  My biggest battle of them all?  Frosting the cake.  It was not an easy feat.  I made a mistake of making this in advance as well.  Letting that warm up took wayyyyy too long.  I was desperate enough to nuke it in the microwave 20 second increments to ensure I did not have a fatty, melty mess on my hands.  It would have been much better if I just make the frosting the day of. 

Finished product.

It would have also been better if I have better surgical skills in carving the cake to smoother surfaces.  It took me equal amount of time to make the batter as it did to ice the cake.  I definitely need to invest in a cake pedestal if I choose to make more birthday cakes. 

End Result?  It thought the frosting was wayyyy too sweet for my taste buds.  It was too fatty for my liking as well.  Some cakes are just meant to be cupcakes.  After all, it is easier to frost a cupcake than a two tiered cake.  I would have a happy girl just eating the cake and using the custard in a jam-like manner.  But a birthday is not like a birthday unless you have candles and frosted cake.  

Happy Birthday Diamond!

Don't Text and Bake

In a new town, a new home and a new stretch of my 20-something, I felt the desire to create a new tradition.  The Christmas Eve Cookie tradition where I try something spectacular and challenging to test my skills of a baker.  In the past few months, I have found baking to be my comfort zone.  I bake better than I cook.  But I still have a lot to learn about baking and Ms. Martha Stewart brought her "A" game to play today!


There were two cookies on deck today, both from Martha and while one will be revealed its fate tomorrow as the dough is still setting, the 2nd challenger was a doozy.  Candy-Stripe Cookie Sticks were challenging and I wish Ms. Martha would give me a few pointers out or any baker for that matter on how to perfect this cookie. 


I was supposed to reproduce this....

Perfect, beautifully piped and rolled to perfection.  Only I got this....

Well, it really looked like this...

They were neither light or crispy, not perfectly rolled and piping...I forgot to pipe a batch while talking on the phone with my Sister and my Brother-In-Law.  Never talk and bake. 

Batch #2

So what happened? 


The batch on the left were my 2nd batch and they came out more like the first picture.  The only thing missing is the red piping that could have definitely be done better shown on the right.  Moreover, because there were two cups of sugar and baked to bubbliness, cleaning the cooking sheet reminded me of my childhood days when I had to scrape the ice off the car windows.  Worse off, they were more difficult to clean as time passed.  Solution?  Run your baking sheets under water and scrap with a butter knife CAREFULLY!  I am lucky my baking sheets survived another day. 

Lesson learned:  Parchment Paper is  a MUST!

My third batch looked more like this:

Batch #3

What I have learned is instead of making them into pirouettes, I should just bake them into wafer cookies.  Notice the uneven coloring? If I decide to make this again AND use baking spray, I would consider baking them until a Crisp Golden Brown color.  I realized that while baking is an exact science, measuring out cookies to its dimensions and thickness are not my forte.  This brings nervousness to my cookie for tomorrow but I am sure, they will turn out better than these little guys! 

Lessons learned:

1.  Use parchment paper.
2.  Piped lines can be closer together.
3.  Use a spatula to even out the batter to a thin, even layer.
4.  While it asks for piping gel, I don't see why I can't just use food coloring.
5.  These are just as good as a wafer cookie than being pirouettes. 

Ms. Martha Stewart, awesome bakers out there?   What can I do to make this a thin, rolled to perfection cookie for next time?!