2008-03-30

Dorie Greenspan's Perfect Party Cake

This month's Daring Bakers challenge is Dorie Greenspan's "Perfect Party Cake" from Baking from My Home to Yours. It was thoughtfully chosen by Morven of Food Art and Random Thoughts to allow for a great deal of personal expression in flavor and decoration. The flavors as written, lemon and raspberry, sounded so good, that they were the one thing I didn't change for my egg and milk free adaptation. Dorie Greenspan has many justifiably dedicated fans, but I've never attempted any of her recipes before.
The substitutions for the cake were very straightforward: lemon juice + soy milk for the buttermilk, Ener-G Egg Replacer for the egg whites, and Earth Balance Buttery Sticks for the butter. Unfortunately, the cake didn't rise very well at all, and I wasn't able to slice my two cakes into additional layers.
After some experimentation, I was able to come up with a good substitute for the eggs in the buttercream, which was luscious and not too sweet. (See my previous post.) Even better, I had some of my mom's homemade raspberry preserves to use in the filling for the center.
Although the lack of rise was disappointing, the crumb was amazing, softly melting in my mouth. The lemon flavor was a little overpowering, somewhat out of balance with the raspberry, but then again, I was missing two layers of it! I'm afraid I used up all my creativity on the buttercream, so you'll need to go see what everyone else did to decorate some truly beautiful cakes!

8 comments:

Gretchen Noelle said...

Too bad the cakes didn't rise much, but the final result does look lovely! Great job!

marias23 said...

Ooo! Soymilk! Now, why didn't I think of that? Yur cake's lover-ly!

Jerry said...

Great job trying to convert it! Lovely!

Anonymous said...

Your cake just looks so beautiful! It looks fluffy enough to me! great work!

MyKitchenInHalfCups said...

Wow, you had your mom's homemade raspberry preserves! That's a winner.
I just don't understand this cake not rising for some and did for others. I haven't been able to see what was causing this. Mine rose, sort of. I expected more but managed.
Still your cake looks good and sounds like it was enjoyed!
Now what's it about next month.

Unknown said...

Did you add any acid to your soymilk? If you're up for trying it again, I would add some lemon to your soymilk, let it sit 5 minutes, and then use it in the recipe. That should help the chemical reaction with the baking soda, and help the cake to rise.

I enjoyed reading about the adaptations of the buttercream too, and would love to see a caloric comparison between your cake and the original!

Gabi said...

Great adaptation!
It's a beautiful perfect cake!
xoxo
Gabi

Kristen said...

I love that picture of the slice of cake, it looks so delicious! I am amazed with your frosting, way to go!