Birthday Cake

I made a separate cake for the adults at our son's birthday party last week. I searched around for a simple, delicious cake recipe and kept coming back to Dorie's Perfect Party Cake. Dorie Greenspan is well known for her amazing baking.



My next feat, was to find a frosting that would compliment the cake, and not include raw eggs since I'm allergic to them. I found a blog where she made Dorie's cake with a raspberry buttercream and was sold.




I don't have a great picture of it because it was gone so fast, but let me tell you it was delicious. I am still not a great decorator, so it wasn't much to look at, but the taste made up for it. The only change I made to the recipe below is I was out of lemon extract, so I added an extra tsp of lemon zest.


Dorie's Perfect Party Cake
From: Apple a Day


Ingredients:
Cake:
2¼ c. (9 oz.) cake flour
1 TBSP baking powder
½ tsp. salt
1¼ c. whole milk or buttermilk
4 large egg whites
1½ c. (10½ oz.) sugar
2 tsp. grated lemon zest
1 stick (8 TBSP or 4 oz.) unsalted butter, at room temperature
½ tsp. pure lemon extract


Buttercream:
20 TBSP (2 ½ sticks) unsalted butter, softened
2 ½ c. confectioners’ sugar, sifted
1/8 tsp. salt
1 TBSP raspberry liquor or 1 1/2 tsp. raspberry extract
2 TBSP heavy cream gel food coloring, if desired

Filling:
Raspberry preserves

Directions:
Cake:
Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter two 9 x 2 inch round cake pans and line the bottom of each pan with a round of buttered parchment or wax paper. Put the pans on a baking sheet.

Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt.

Whisk together the milk and egg whites in a medium bowl.

Put the sugar and lemon zest in a mixer bowl or another large bowl and rub them together with your fingers until the sugar is moist and fragrant. Add the butter and working with the paddle or whisk attachment, or with a hand mixer, beat at medium speed for a full 3 minutes, until the butter and sugar are very light.

Beat in the extract, then add one third of the flour mixture, still beating on medium speed. Beat in half of the milk-egg mixture, then beat in half of the remaining dry ingredients until incorporated. Add the rest of the milk and eggs beating until the batter is homogeneous, then add the last of the dry ingredients. Finally, give the batter a good 2- minute beating to ensure that it is thoroughly mixed and well aerated.

Divide the batter between the two pans and smooth the tops with a rubber spatula. Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until the cakes are well risen and springy to the touch – a thin knife inserted into the centers should come out clean.

Transfer the cakes to cooling racks and cool for about 5 minutes. Run a knife around the sides of the cakes, unfold them and peel off the paper liners. Invert and cool to room temperature, right side up (the cooled cake layers can be wrapped airtight and stored at room temperature overnight or frozen for up to two months).

Buttercream:
In a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the butter at medium-high speed until smooth, about 20 seconds.

Add confectioners' sugar and salt. Beat at medium-low speed until most of the sugar is moistened, about 45 seconds. Scrape down the bowl and beat at medium speed until the mixture is fully combined, about 15 seconds.

Scrape bowl, add liquor or extract, and beat at medium speed until incorporated, about ten seconds. If using gel food color, add at this time.

Increase the speed to medium-high and beat until light and fluffy, about four minutes, scraping down bowl once or twice.

Assembly:
Place strips of wax paper on a cake stand forming a square the size of the round cake. Place bottom cake on way papers. With a serrated knife, shave off top layer of cake so that it is flat. Spread about 2/3 of a cup of preserves on top. Place second layer of cake on top of the preserves. Frost with room temperature butter cream. Remove wax paper before serving.