After all that searching for the Raspberry-Limeade Cake, there was just no way that I could not make it, especially since I had a great deal of time on my hands. So while my parents painted the outside of their house, I slaved away over every kitchen appliance known to man.
This cake will definitely not be going into the regular rotation, as it took the better part of five hours to make. I certainly performed functions that I had never and don't normally when baking and I've come to realize that while I do enjoy baking, I enjoy baking things that are relatively easy to make. For example: I love the carrot cake recipe that I have and if I ask anyone who's ever tasted it what kind of cake I should make, that's generally the first thing out of their mouth. The problem is that it takes a really long time due to the chopping of carrots, the mixing of ingredients themselves, the bake and cooling time, and then (the best part) icing it. I usually make it over three days because it's almost too much work for one day.
So back to the reason for this post… I looked over the recipe a few times and tried to come up with the best plan of attack. I made sure to read the most applicable portions of my Cuisinart manual so that I didn’t chop my fingers off. I wish that I had gone with my gut and put my frozen raspberries in the refrigerator instead of back in the freezer after getting them home. The manual says that you can puree frozen fruits and vegetables, but it doesn’t tell you that it’ll leave them in a big frozen clump. That was my first hard lesson. The second, still regarding the raspberries, was that the directions “strain mixture and discard solids” are a lot easier said than done. Those seeds are teeny-tiny and they don’t separate easily. Needless to say, my filling could’ve been a lot smoother.
Once the actual mixing of the filling got going, it was pretty smooth sailing. I’m going to go ahead and attribute some of the soreness in my right arm to having to whisk the mixture while it heated on the stove for eight minutes and then having to whisk the butter while it melted into the mixture. The rest of the soreness is most certainly from the Wii, but that’s a whole other story altogether. So once the filling was being refrigerated for at least two hours, I moved on to the actual cake.
The cake itself was pretty straight-forward. The only “new” skill that I learned here was how to use a zester. Yes, it is a very simple task. But it takes a long time to produce just a little bit of zest and I was quite nervous that I was going to end up zesting my fingertips and/or knuckles, so I was concentrating really hard. I am pretty sweet, but the cake didn’t call for a tablespoon of Jac.
I have to say that I did a pretty good job of separating out my batter into the three separate pans. If you know me at all, you know that I’m completely OCD and you won’t be surprised to know that I thought, more than once, about pouring the batter into a measuring cup to see how much I had total so that I could divide it evenly for all three pans. I resisted this urge and eyeballed it. Thankfully, I had my hearing aid in was right on the money. (Sorry. No one but The Boyfriend will get that, but I couldn't resist.)
With the cakes in the oven, all I had to worry about was making sure that they got done and weren’t over-cooked. It really freaked me out to find that the tops of all three cakes were exactly the same color as the batter when they were completely cooked. I’m so used to off-white batters turning a golden brown that I was quite perplexed when I tested them. I’m still a little confused by it, but it must be because of the limeade or something. It’s really not worth worrying about now because I know they were cooked. And I’ll certainly know for next time.
They cooled surprisingly quickly, so I figured there was no sense in putting off making the icing. By this point, I was ready to be done with this thing. The icing was pretty easy, too, but as I was measuring out the confectioner’s sugar, I remembered that Paula Deen’s icing recipes make about twice as much icing as what is actually needed. I thought about cutting it in half, but I couldn’t find the common denominator for all of the different measurements, so I just made what she said to. (Again with the OCD.) When I expressed this concern to my mom, she shrugged her shoulders and told me to use all of it. This is how much the recipe yielded:
I am glad that I made all of it, however, because this is what was left over:
This is likely due to the three layers of icing that I put on it, but who’s counting? And by the way, if you ever want a fun variation on a cream cheese icing, find the recipe for Cream Cheese-Limeade Icing. It’s fantastic. My mom kept the leftovers to use on sugar cookies. My dad is obsesses with sugar cookies with icing on them.
I did not have to do any cutting of the cakes to even them out for layering, thank goodness. They actually cooked pretty evenly, so I was relieved about that. Here’s what it looked like once the filling was complete:
And I’m a big fan of the show “Amazing Wedding Cakes” and I’ve started crumb-coating my cakes that I ice so that they look prettier. (Relax. I just like covet their talents. I’m not in the market for a baker, much less a wedding cake.) It adds a little bit of time to the process, but I love looking at a cake that doesn’t look like it’s covered in fuzz. This one wouldn’t have mattered much, though, because of the lime zest in the icing. Here’s a picture of the crumb-coat:
This is a picture of the cake after layer number three of icing. I’m assuming that this is what it would’ve looked like had I not been as ambitious as I was.
And this is a picture of the finished product:
I might have gone overboard with the garnish, but I thought it turned out really nicely. So nicely that I just had to take a picture of the inside once it had been cut.
And a picture of a piece of it on a plate.
I probably shouldn’t do this, but here is a link to site that I did NOT take the recipe from. I was hoping and praying that my cake would look at least moderately better than theirs. I can’t say what the issue might have been and their cake may very well have tasted twice as good as mine did. But we’ll never know and, quite frankly, I doubt it.
This cake will definitely not be going into the regular rotation, as it took the better part of five hours to make. I certainly performed functions that I had never and don't normally when baking and I've come to realize that while I do enjoy baking, I enjoy baking things that are relatively easy to make. For example: I love the carrot cake recipe that I have and if I ask anyone who's ever tasted it what kind of cake I should make, that's generally the first thing out of their mouth. The problem is that it takes a really long time due to the chopping of carrots, the mixing of ingredients themselves, the bake and cooling time, and then (the best part) icing it. I usually make it over three days because it's almost too much work for one day.
So back to the reason for this post… I looked over the recipe a few times and tried to come up with the best plan of attack. I made sure to read the most applicable portions of my Cuisinart manual so that I didn’t chop my fingers off. I wish that I had gone with my gut and put my frozen raspberries in the refrigerator instead of back in the freezer after getting them home. The manual says that you can puree frozen fruits and vegetables, but it doesn’t tell you that it’ll leave them in a big frozen clump. That was my first hard lesson. The second, still regarding the raspberries, was that the directions “strain mixture and discard solids” are a lot easier said than done. Those seeds are teeny-tiny and they don’t separate easily. Needless to say, my filling could’ve been a lot smoother.
Once the actual mixing of the filling got going, it was pretty smooth sailing. I’m going to go ahead and attribute some of the soreness in my right arm to having to whisk the mixture while it heated on the stove for eight minutes and then having to whisk the butter while it melted into the mixture. The rest of the soreness is most certainly from the Wii, but that’s a whole other story altogether. So once the filling was being refrigerated for at least two hours, I moved on to the actual cake.
The cake itself was pretty straight-forward. The only “new” skill that I learned here was how to use a zester. Yes, it is a very simple task. But it takes a long time to produce just a little bit of zest and I was quite nervous that I was going to end up zesting my fingertips and/or knuckles, so I was concentrating really hard. I am pretty sweet, but the cake didn’t call for a tablespoon of Jac.
I have to say that I did a pretty good job of separating out my batter into the three separate pans. If you know me at all, you know that I’m completely OCD and you won’t be surprised to know that I thought, more than once, about pouring the batter into a measuring cup to see how much I had total so that I could divide it evenly for all three pans. I resisted this urge and eyeballed it. Thankfully, I had my hearing aid in was right on the money. (Sorry. No one but The Boyfriend will get that, but I couldn't resist.)
With the cakes in the oven, all I had to worry about was making sure that they got done and weren’t over-cooked. It really freaked me out to find that the tops of all three cakes were exactly the same color as the batter when they were completely cooked. I’m so used to off-white batters turning a golden brown that I was quite perplexed when I tested them. I’m still a little confused by it, but it must be because of the limeade or something. It’s really not worth worrying about now because I know they were cooked. And I’ll certainly know for next time.
They cooled surprisingly quickly, so I figured there was no sense in putting off making the icing. By this point, I was ready to be done with this thing. The icing was pretty easy, too, but as I was measuring out the confectioner’s sugar, I remembered that Paula Deen’s icing recipes make about twice as much icing as what is actually needed. I thought about cutting it in half, but I couldn’t find the common denominator for all of the different measurements, so I just made what she said to. (Again with the OCD.) When I expressed this concern to my mom, she shrugged her shoulders and told me to use all of it. This is how much the recipe yielded:
I am glad that I made all of it, however, because this is what was left over:
This is likely due to the three layers of icing that I put on it, but who’s counting? And by the way, if you ever want a fun variation on a cream cheese icing, find the recipe for Cream Cheese-Limeade Icing. It’s fantastic. My mom kept the leftovers to use on sugar cookies. My dad is obsesses with sugar cookies with icing on them.
I did not have to do any cutting of the cakes to even them out for layering, thank goodness. They actually cooked pretty evenly, so I was relieved about that. Here’s what it looked like once the filling was complete:
And I’m a big fan of the show “Amazing Wedding Cakes” and I’ve started crumb-coating my cakes that I ice so that they look prettier. (Relax. I just like covet their talents. I’m not in the market for a baker, much less a wedding cake.) It adds a little bit of time to the process, but I love looking at a cake that doesn’t look like it’s covered in fuzz. This one wouldn’t have mattered much, though, because of the lime zest in the icing. Here’s a picture of the crumb-coat:
This is a picture of the cake after layer number three of icing. I’m assuming that this is what it would’ve looked like had I not been as ambitious as I was.
And this is a picture of the finished product:
I might have gone overboard with the garnish, but I thought it turned out really nicely. So nicely that I just had to take a picture of the inside once it had been cut.
And a picture of a piece of it on a plate.
I probably shouldn’t do this, but here is a link to site that I did NOT take the recipe from. I was hoping and praying that my cake would look at least moderately better than theirs. I can’t say what the issue might have been and their cake may very well have tasted twice as good as mine did. But we’ll never know and, quite frankly, I doubt it.
I will never have my own cooking or cake decorating show, but no one has told me to find a new hobby… yet!
1 comment:
THUMBS WAY UP!!! I think the cake turned out beautifully. :) And I would have probably debated measuring out the batter for the layers, too.
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