Friday, December 07, 2007

Birthday Cake for a Friend

Happy Birthday, Cindy!

This birthday cake was so good. I mean REALLY good. Probably the best (if not, one of the best) cakes I have made. My boyfriend doesn't really do sweets (blasphemy) but he had 2 pieces!

It is a lemon cake, filled with raspberry jam and frosted with lemon cream cheese icing. The contrast is lovely.







I must give credit where credit is due- my recipes are the slightest tinkering of Kittee's Vanilla Double Layer Cake and VCTOTW's Cream Cheese Icing.





Cake:

In a large bowl, sift* the following:
3 1/2 cups unbleached white flour
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking soda

In a separate bowl, mix the following:
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 teaspoons lemon extract
2 cups water
3/4 cups vegetable oil

Also: you will need a jar of good raspberry jam. I used Polaner Seedless Raspberry.

*If you do not have a sifter, use a mesh colander or something else. You want air in and lumps out.

Pour the liquids into the sifted dry ingredients and mix. Don't overmix, though. I mixed enough where I couldn't see lumps, and it came out fine.

Pour into 2 round cake pans (even amount in each). I use a nonstick 9" Wilton round cakepan. I sprayed it with nonstick spray and also cut a parchment round and placed it in the bottom to ensure easy non-sticking.

Cook in a 350 degree oven, roughly 30 min. When you insert a toothpick in the middle, it should be clean. Let rest 10 minutes out of the ofen then carefully place on a cooling rack to cool.


Next, cut in half lengthwise. The easiest way I have found to do this is cut about 2 inches in all around the cake, then take a piece of floss, wrap it around inside the 2' cut and pull it through the cake. Then again, I am no cake decorator and my cake is uneven, so take it or leave it! Keep cake (you will now have 4 flat cakes) on cooling rack until ready to assemble. Remember to remove parchment if you are using.

To assemble:
Use about a cup or more of jam. Heat in microwave a few seconds until it's very spreadable.

Put flat bottom of one cake on surface. Slather with jam. Top with (round) (top) cake. Slather with jam. Invert the other (round) cake and place it on top. Slather with jam again. Place final (flat) piece on top and let sit So basically you put one whole cake upside down on the other, except it makes 4 layers and has jam in each layer. I hope that made sense!

Frosting (Makes enough to frost the cake and decorate with some left over. You may want to do 3/4 of this recipe)

1/2 c vegan Cream Cheese (Better Than Cream Cheese), room temperature
1/2 c vegan margarine (Earth Balance), room temperature
4 c powdered sugar, sifted
dash lemon extract (I probably used 1-1 1/2 teaspoons total, do it to taste)

Cream cream cheese and margarine until combined (don't overmix). Add sugar in 1/2 cup increments until all sugar is added. Add extract at the end.

Decorate your heart out.

7 comments:

leosatter said...

Maybe you can help me out with something…? I want to order all of my food online from now on because of various reasons, but I don’t know where to go for quality food. I have tried 2 companies so far, Fresh Dining, and and Celebrity Foods, but I wanna get others I can try out. Do you know of any? The main thing I’ve ordered so far is steak. I guess you can say, I’m a steak junkie. LOL!!! From what I have found out (from what I have ordered so far) I think I am able to regulate the quality of beef I buy. I hate going to a store and getting that crappy slab of beef that I have to cut down until there is like nothing left. Hahaha!!!! (its so true though) Anyhow, sorry that I made this comment so long. If you can help me out or point me in a direction where I might find more quality foods online, I would greatly appreciate it. Have a good day or night! (depending on when you read this) LOL!!!!

Rose said...

Mmmm....cake! I want it to be somebody's b-day so that I'll have an excuse to bake a cake that looks as good as yours!

PamelaCooks said...

Thanks, Paulina!

Leosatter-
I try my best to not delete any comments on my blog, but
It's not lost on me that you are obviously promoting 2 brands.

However, I'd like to point out that this is a vegan blog. You certainly don't have to be vegan to use my recipes or enjoy my photos (hopefully you have!) but I will never have any sort of suggestion for meat other than to not eat it. I will never endorse eating animals while there is a plethora of delicious and healthy plant food available.

There are over 10 billion animals cruelly slaughtered for food in the united states alone. I usually stick to food in this blog, but your post begs for links. So, please learn more about vegetarianism, veganism, and compassionate eating:

GoVeg.Com

TryVeg.com

I am glad you stopped by. Feel free to try any recipes!

-Pamela

LizNoVeggieGirl said...

wow, what a lovely cake to bake for your friend's birthday!! kittee's recipe IS fabulous :0)

Cody said...

Looks awesome. I don't know if I've ever had raspberry and lemon together, but they are two of my favorite flavors... so, I can't imagine any bad can come of putting them together.

B.A.D. said...

That looks amazing! Great work Pam, mmm layer lemon cake.

Melisser; the Urban Housewife said...

What a lucky friend!