Spring Birthday Cake Request: Thanks Gesine!

"David has requested a white or yellow cake with fresh fruit. Would you be able to make one for his Birthday BBQ?"Now, as much as I love it when I provide a successful dessert to a group of friends, there is nothing better than being requested to bake a friend's Birthday cake.

The request check-list was: Fresh fruit, white/yellow cake.... the rest was up to me. First I poked around Gesine Bullock-Prado's baking blog G Bakes, a blog I have been following for the past three years. Gesine's recipes provide successful results that have provided me with an excellent blend of enticing options with just the right about of challenge for my baking level. Just know that these recipes usually require a larger amount of ingredients and can be pricey if you are not buying in bulk. 

Prepping the kitchen on day 1: Pastry Cream!

As much as I would like to spend all my time baking, I do have a working life outside of a kitchen and with the Birthday party on Saturday I actually started preparing for the cake on Wednesday. One of my favorite recipes of Genine's is her pastry cream. I've used the pastry cream in a few different desserts and I thought that it would be perfect to put inside the cake with some fresh fruit. Delish! You can find Gesine's recipe for pastry cream in her cookbook Sugar Baby. The pastry cream took about an hour and when I was finished I popped the warm cream in the fridge to cool and the rest of the night was mine. To do with as I pleased. 

Thursday night I made the cake. I only had one 8" cake pan so this took a little while as each took about 40 min. to bake. For the cake I used Gesine's Vanilla Cake recipe but switched the vanilla extract with lemon. I also added some blueberries to the recipe and it turned out great!                               

Once the three cakes were cool, I wrapped them up in some cling wrap and placed them in the fridge so that they would stay fresh for Saturday. 

Friday was filling and stacking. I started by making some simple syrup, which is 1 cup sugar and 1 cup of water warmed over medium heat until the sugar has melted. I added some lemon extract to it. While the syrup cooled I brought out the cakes from the fridge and placed the first round on my cake stand. 

With three layers I noticed that my pastry cream might not be enough to fill both, or at least, I thought it would be lacking for center gooey-goodness. I still had some cream left over so I whipped that up with 1 tbs of powdered sugar for some whipped cream. Yep, perfect with fresh fruit. 

Whirring away at some heavy cream.

 So this cake is taking its sweet time and a lot of mine. Still, dividing the process up over a few days makes it more enjoyable when you only have a task or two at a time. At this point I had my cool cakes at the ready, pastry cream and whipped cream and room temperature. Next step, the fresh fruit. I decided on strawberries for the inside and blueberries for the outside.

Fresh fruit is the best

I topped bottom layer of lemon/blueberry cake with some of the simple syrup (keeps things moist), added some pastry cream, and topped that with about half a cup of chopped fresh strawberries.

Cake+simple syrup+pastry cream+strawberries= an excellent start

Before I added on the second layer I dolloped on some of the fresh whipped cream. I was getting pretty excited about this new addition to the cake.

Whipped cream fills the cake out nicely. 

I repeated the same filling rout for the second layer: cake, simple syrup, pastry cream, strawberries, whipped cream, top layer. I finished the layers off with a final brush of the simple syrup before wrapping the entire thing in plastic wrap. Before placing this baby in the fridge I slid on a cake round and then put a heavy cutting board on top. My hope was to flatten the top of the cake while keeping it all together with cake round and I am happy to report that it worked!

Ready for decoration. 

 Cool and moist cake with a beautifully flat top!

 For the frosting I returned to Sugar Baby for the Swiss buttercream recipe. This was my first time using it and I will most definitely be using it in the future.

4 sticks of butter... you might not want to knowthat

My Sugar baby got hit by a few errant splatters from a minor buttercream explosion.

For the decorations I found this beautiful idea off of Lisa Hubbard's photography site. No recipe but the image speaks for itself!

The final cake

You might not find the perfect recipe in its own, but you can combine many of your favorites to create a great dessert to remember. The cake was a success and I am happy that I could sweeten David's 47th Birthday!