Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Mini Cakes


I made a couple of mini cakes today because I wanted to try my 4-inch springform pans. I bought these little pans about a year ago (I think) and I had never made good use of them. I ended up making a Yellow and Pink Mini Cake.

The Yellow Cake is the Golden Butter Cake from the Cake Bible. I made it because I was planning on making buttercream and then I will be having some leftover egg yolks. The Golden Butter Cake uses egg yolks only and uses heavy cream instead of whole milk. I mixed up the batter and ended up with a thick one that I transferred on the springform pans. I baked the cakes for 20 minutes and once out of the oven, I left the cakes in the pan to cool for additional 10 minutes then took it out of the pan to cool completely. The cakes baked very even and flat. I made 4 layers of the mini cake out of the recipe.

The Pink Cake is the Cream Cheese Pound Cake by Sarah Philips. I baked the Cream Cheese Pound Cake for around 18 mins and I also cooled it in the pan for a few minutes. I took out one cake out of the pan to cool completely and the other I left on the pan. I had a leftover Cheesecake batter from a Cheesecake that I just made. What I did was pour the batter on the cake that is still in the pan, and baked it in a water bath for 20 minutes. After baking and cooling at room temperature, I refrigerated the cake to chill the cheesecake. I was able to make 2 layers of the mini cake, plus 1 layer of cheesecake.

While the cake was cooling, I made my buttercream. Once I had my buttercream, I divided it into half. I flavored one half with Raspberry and colored it Pink, while the other half I flavored with Lemon and colored it Yellow.

Lastly, I made a White Chocolate Frosting from Sarah Philips. I used Callebaut white chocolates. It was so good! I have learned never to scrimp on ingredients because it compromises the taste and whenever I need chocolates, I only use the finest, Ghirardelli or Callebaut.



I started to assemble the cakes as soon all are cool enough and the frostings were done. For the Yellow Cake, I stacked 3 layers of the cake with White Chocolate Frosting in between layers. I also coated the entire cake with the frosting and I let the frosting crust. I did not need to crumb coat it because the frosting was thick. I left it for a while to cool in the fridge. As for the Pink Cake, I stacked the layers and sandwhich the cheesecake in between. Then I used the White Chocolate Frosting the coat the cake, and then I left it together with the Yellow Cake to cool in the fridge. After around 20 minutes when both cakes are chilled, I frosted each with the Lemon and Raspberry Buttercream, smoothened it and decorated.

The Yellow cake slightly shrinked at the top, probably because of too much frosting. But it was still nicely upright. I piped a top and lower border for it and decorated it with some sugar flowers. I also left some buttercream to be colored green, but for some reason, I can't get a good green, therefore the dull color of the veins and the leaves. Hehe.

As for the Pink Cake, I tried it with some messy vertical lines on the sides. Not sure if it worked, but the whole cake looked cute anyway. Hehe. I decorated the top with some basketweave patterns and some sugar flowers.



Here are more pictures of the cake, I know it is overloaded with color but it looked very pretty! We had the pink cake for dessert already and it is so yummy!



No comments:

 
or