August 31, 2009

birthday cake love

My birthday was the perfect excuse to do some serious baking! I decided to try a recipe from the cakelove cookbook. It has lot’s of fascinating and delicious-looking recipes and I finally decided on my ideal birthday cake: Warren Brown’s “Citron Bundt” with my own little twists. As the title suggests, the cake is comprised of cooked grapefruit, orange and lemon segments, and orange and lemon zest, among other things. I baked the cake in two layers, sliced each layer in half and filled it with alternating layers of orange-scented chocolate ganache and Warren’s Italian Meringue Buttercream, flavored with vanilla.
It was the work of a Saturday afternoon and a long Sunday morning, but I can’t imagine a better way to spend part of my birthday weekend than baking!
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“supreming” the fruit
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I don’t have a good paring knife, so I had to do this rather intricate task with a 9 1/2” chef’s knife. Yikes.
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creaming the butter, sugar and citrus zest
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one egg at a time
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incorporating the liquid and dry ingredients
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parchment paper works wonders on cakes that like to stick to the pan and fall apart when you try to take them out
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into the oven…
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…the cakes are done and, once cooled, will chill in the fridge until tomorrow morning when I’ll make the frosting!
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egg whites + simple syrup = meringue
+ lots of butter = Italian Meringue Buttercream!
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Tada!
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And eating it was just as much fun as making it!IMG_7117IMG_7113

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