Strawberries and Cream Angel Food Cake Roll

My mom had a pretty significant birthday this week, so I wanted to make sure I made her a really special dessert.  She had immediately asked for angel food cake (since it's the healthiest kind of cake you can eat - no butter!) and I had thought of making one from scratch.  I began to look at recipes and found them to be a little more complicated than I was anticipating.  12 egg whites?  My mom didn't want me to use up all of those eggs anyway, so I decided to use a box mix.  However, when I was searching through angel food cake recipes, I came across a recipe for an angel food cake roll by Brown Eyed Baker.  My mom had wanted homemade whipped cream and strawberries with her angel food cake, so I thought this recipe would be perfect!

The most intimidating part of this recipe for me was rolling up the angel food cake.  Here's how I did it and found success: after dusting my tea cloth with powdered sugar (sift the sugar over the cloth for best results), I inverted the pan over it at an angle and used my other hand to run a spatula along the sides and the bottom of the cake to coax it out of the pan.  Then, I rolled it up the long way, and left it in the tea towel to cool completely.  You want to do this step while the cake is still warm (I had to hold the pan with a pot holder) so that it rolls easily.  When it cools in the tea towel, it will mold into this shape and be easier to roll back up once you spread your filling on the inside.  Wait too long, and you'll risk the chance of your cake being too cool and breaking!  However, the spongy angel food cake really lends itself to being rolled like a jelly roll, which makes this process easier than it initially looks.

Don't go crazy with spreading the filling either; a thin layer is best (about twice as much as what's shown in the picture on the left).  This way, you can roll the cake up tightly without all of your filling coming out of the sides.  The tighter you can roll your cake, the more beautiful it will look when cut.  You'll have some filling leftover, so be sure to save it to serve with your slices of cake!

Also, want to see a neat trick for hulling strawberries?  Take a straw and stick it through the bottom of the strawberry so it comes out right underneath the hull!  Quick and easy, especially when you're hulling a lot of strawberries.

I could not have asked for a better cake.  The presentation was very pretty, and my family was raving over how delicious it was.  I couldn't take all of the credit since the cake came from a Duncan Hines box, but if you're serving this cake at a party your guests don't need to know that ;)  And much to my surprise, the whipped cream didn't make the cake soggy even 2 days after I had made it.  I would absolutely recommend making this cake simply because of how beautifully it comes out with minimal effort.  This is sure to be a crowd pleaser!


Strawberries and Cream Angel Food Cake Roll
Yield: 2 rolls, serves about 12
Prep Time: 30 minutes
Bake Time: 15 - 20 minutes

Ingredients
- 1 box Angel Food Cake Mix (with ingredients called for on box)
- 1 pint whipping cream
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 tbsp powdered sugar, plus extra for dusting
- 1 dozen strawberries, hulled and sliced

Directions
Preheat the oven according to the directions on the cake mix.  Instead of using a roll pan, grab 2 9x13 in pans.  Do not grease unless told to do so on box.

Prepare the cake mix according to the directions on the back of the box.  Pour the batter into the prepared pan until the batter is about 1 in. thick (no more than 1/3 of the way up the side of the pan).  The thinner the cake, the easier it will be to roll later.  Repeat with the second pan.  Bake for 15 - 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.  Let cool in pan for about 5 minutes.

Dust a clean cloth kitchen or tea towel with powdered sugar.  Turn the cake out onto the cloth and roll up the cake in the towel starting with the short side.  Repeat for the second cake and let cool completely in the towel on a wire rack.

To make the filling, whip the whipping cream on medium - high speed until soft peaks form.  Beat in the vanilla extract and powdered sugar.  Gently fold in the strawberries and place in fridge.

To assemble the cake, unroll the cake completely and spread the filling on the inside of the cake to within about 1/2 inch from the edge.  Roll the cake back up and store in the fridge, covered in plastic wrap, until ready to serve.  Repeat with the second cake.

Right before serving, dust the cake with powdered sugar (if desired).  Cut the cake using a back and forth motion with a serrated knife.  Serve with any leftover strawberries and cream.  Will last up to 3 days in the refrigerator.

Adapted from Brown Eyed Baker

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Posted by Ali B at 3:16 PM

Cherry Lime Margarita Whoopie Pies

Here's something I learned for 2012 - if you need to bake, leave yourself plenty of time to do it.  Because you do not want to be rushing.  And that could be a good life lesson for me as well, because I never leave enough time to do things and therefore am always rushing.  

Here's what happened.

There were only a few hours left in 2011 and I was making these whoopie pies for a New Year's party.  We'll come back to where I got the idea for these whoopie pies in a bit.  So, the first batch of whoopie pie chips came out a little flat.  I realized my recipe did not have nearly enough baking powder, so I threw about another teaspoon in and remixed my batter.  I say "about" because what I actually did was take the baking powder container and sprinkle some in to the batter.  Why would I do such a careless thing?  Because I was rushing.  Oh, did I mention the bottom rack in my oven was actually on the bottom and not the middle, burning all of my little chips?  Yeah, I could have moved it, but I wasn't thinking about it because I was rushing.  


I have no idea how long my second batch was in the oven because I was rushing and forgot to set the timer.  Luckily I remembered them when I went over to eat one of the thin chips and was able to pull them out of the oven before I had to discard another batch of whoopie pie chips.  After pulling the second batch out of the oven I decided they still weren't fluffy enough so in went another maybe 1/2 tsp of baking powder.  I could have learned from my previous mistake and stopped to measure it but I didn't because I was rushing.  I also threw in some flour, just for good measure.

The third batch came out better.  After that I was ready to fill.  Which brings me to where I got the idea for these whoopie pies in the first place...

My friend had some leftover frosting from the cookie swap and asked if I could do anything with it.  I couldn't turn down free frosting, so I happily agreed to take it off her hands.  The idea of making whoopie pies was suggested at the party and I immediately began thinking of margarita flavors (the frosting was tequila-lime buttercream).  I thought of cherries and lime and decided to incorporate those flavors into the cake.

I wasn't sure if I was going to post these until I brought them to the party and people seemed to really like them.  I tried one myself and they were pretty good, even though they didn't puff up like my other whoopie pies.  They're sweet and tangy and the acidity in the buttercream is balanced out by the fruit in the chips.  You can omit the tequila completely if you'd like these to be kid friendly.  Also, refer to my other whoopie pie post about making evenly sized chips.

In the end, I wanted to include this recipe because both the cake and the frosting were delicious independently as well as together as a whoopie pie.  Next time, I may actually use cherry filling instead of fresh cherries to get a richer flavor.  And make I leave enough time to prepare my batter so I'm not rushing...

Also, I just entered this dessert in Sweet As Sugar Cookie's Sweets for a Saturday!  If you enjoyed reading this recipe, please click on my submission!  I'm # 224.

Cherry Lime Margarita Whoopie Pies

Yield: 24 whoopie pies

Prep Time: 25 min

Bake Time: 8 min

Ingredients

For the whoopie pies:

- 3 c cherries, pitted

- 2 c + 2 tbsp flour

- ½ tsp baking soda

- 1 ½ tsp baking powder

- ½ tsp salt

- 1/2 c unsalted butter, room temperature

- 2/3 c sugar

- 1 lg egg

- 1 tsp vanilla extract

- 1/4 c milk

- zest of 1 lime

For the filling:

- ½ c unsalted butter, room temperature

- ¼ c vegetable shortening

- 3 c confectioner's sugar

- ½ tsp vanilla extract

- ¾ tbsp merengue powder

- 1/4 tsp salt

-  juice from 1 lime

- 1 tbsp tequila

Directions

Preheat oven to 350F and line a baking sheet with a silicone mat.

Pour cherries into a blender and puree.  Pour puree into a fine mesh sieve set over a bowl.  Set aside to allow the liquid to drain out.

To make the whoopie pies, sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.  Set aside.

In a large bowl cream together the butter and sugar.  Add in the egg and vanilla extract and combine.  Alternate adding the dry ingredients about 1 c at a time and the milk, combining completely after each addition.  Fold in the lime zest and the cherry puree. 

Affix a pastry bag with a round, open tip and fill with batter.  Pipe the batter onto the silicone baking mats, making circles about the size of a quarter.  Be sure to space the circles about 3 inches apart.  Place baking sheets in the oven and bake for 8 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool on pans for about 5 minutes before transferring them to wire racks.

To make the filling, cream together the butter and the shortening.  Add in the confectioner’s sugar about 1 c at a time and combine completely after each addition.  Beat in the vanilla extract, merengue powder, salt, lime juice, and tequila.  Beat for about 10 minutes.

Match the whoopie pie chips up by size and fill with frosting by either spreading it on one side with a spatula or using a pastry bag.  

7 comment(s)

Posted by Ali B at 8:56 PM

Blueberry Streusel Cake

I had a bounty of blueberries left over from the red, white, and blue fruit salad I had made for the 4th and needed something to do with them.  I've been reading the Pioneer Woman's blog for a couple of weeks now and I absolutely fell in love with it.  Her pictures are beautiful, her stories are charming, and her Bassett Hounds are hilarious.  I decided to search her site for a blueberry recipe and found one for a blueberry crumb (streusel) cake.  Think of it as a blueberry coffee cake.  I love coffee cake and anything with streusel topping, plus this recipe called for 2 cups of blueberries which was pretty much the rest of my store.

The cake come together nicely, but for the streusel topping I needed a pastry cutter.  There's a shopping center near me that seems to have everything I could ever possibly need: a Dick's, Michael's, and a Chef Central.  I've never been in Chef Central before but I fell in love with it the same way I did with Fairway Market when I found the vanilla beans.  I was dragging my brother and his friend along so I had no time to gawk, but I do look forward on trips there in the future.  I love Jersey and it's shopping centers, nothing else compares. 

So anyways, I'm back home with my brand new pastry cutter.  I had all of the ingredients for the streusel in a bowl and just began mashing it as if I was mashing potatoes, rotating the bowl while pulling the pastry cutter towards me and scraping butter off of the pastry cutter every once in a while.  The streusel went from a powder to a crumbly brown topping after about 5 minutes of hacking at it.  I sprinkled it over my cake and it only covered half of it.  More streusel!!  I doubled the recipe and that seemed to cover it well.  Also, when I made the first batch of streusel the butter was at room temperature and it did not have that nice crumbly texture.  The second batch I made with butter right out of the fridge and although more difficult at first it made a nicer streusel.  I stuck it in the oven and came back exactly 40 minutes later to find this:

Cake entering the oven

Cake leaving the oven

The cake devoured my streusel topping!  The second I pulled the cake out of the oven I wanted to cut into it but I knew I had to let it set and cool down a little first.  What happened to my streusel topping?  Did it get mixed in with the cake batter or was it its own layer?  Why did the cake rise above the streusel layer?  The streusel actually ended up sinking to the middle of the cake.  You could still taste the streusel, though, and it was delicious!! I had two servings.  I have no idea why this happened; my dad suggested that I add the streusel topping halfway through baking while another site suggested that I didn't use enough flour.  So, the streusel was moist, but the cake cooked perfectly to give it a slight crunch.  There's also something wonderful about cooked blueberries.  Regular blueberries are kind of "eh" to me, but when they're baked, and all of the water leaves the fruit and you're left with the sweet sugars of the berry oh wow it's just so good.

I'll be making this recipe again and again.  Except what I should have done was use my own recipe for a white cake, I just didn't really think about it when reading this recipe.  Oh well, for next time...

See that gooey layer above the blueberries?
That's the streusel topping.

Blueberry Streusel Cake

After about 2 minutes of cutting with a
pastry cutter - not quite ready yet!

Yield: 1 9x13 in cake

Prep Time: 25 minutes        
Bake Time: 40 minutes

Ingredients

For the cake

- 2 c flour

- 2 ¼ tsp baking powder

- ½ tsp salt

- 5 tbsp butter, room temperature

- ¾ c sugar

- 1 egg

- ½ tsp vanilla extract

- ¾ c milk

- 2 c fresh blueberries

Finished streusel topping.

For the streusel topping

- ¾ c butter, slightly chilled

- ½ c sugar

- 1 tsp cinnamon

- ½ c flour

- ½ tsp salt

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350.  Grease the bottom and sides of a 9x13 in pan with butter.

Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl.  Set aside.

Cream the butter and sugar together in a separate mixing bowl.  Add the egg and vanilla extract.  Add half of the milk and combine, followed by half of the flour mixture.  Repeat. 

Fold in the blueberries until evenly distributed.  Do not over-mix or else the blueberries will break.  Pour into prepared pan and place in oven.

To make the streusel topping, combine butter, sugar, cinnamon, flour, and salt in a bowl and cut with a pastry blender until the butter is completely combined.  The mixture will be crumbly but soft and will become a light brown color. 

After about 35 minutes, pull the cake out of the oven and sprinkle the streusel topping on top.  Place cake back in the oven and continue to bake for 5 – 10 more minutes, removing once the streusel topping is a golden brown.  Sprinkle with sugar if desired.  

Adapted from The Pioneer Woman

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Posted by Ali B at 12:05 PM

Red, White, and Blue Funfetti Cake (Part 2)

It was 10:30 Saturday night and I was standing in my kitchen with my cake that was rapidly defrosting.  I had free-handed a stencil of the United States, cut it out, and had it placed over my cake.  I cut into it with a small paring knife and the knife got stuck.  I kept hacking away at it, following the stencil, and after about 2 minutes it got much easier.  I got a rough shape of the US but something looked quite not right.  I had attached Maine and the tips of Texas and Florida with the left over royal icing from the cookies because anyone who has ever worked with royal icing knows it doubles as a fantastic cement.  I called my mom in and looked at my stencil and realized the region of the Great Lakes was what was throwing me off.  So I cut out both parts of Michigan and cemented those on too.  That looked better.  I covered up the cake and let it defrost until the next morning.

This was the stencil I made, some adjusting
was needed

While I was carving my cake, I absentmindedly was snacking on the pieces I had carved off.  And all of a sudden it hit me - it was actually good!  A recipe that I had made up myself was actually good!  A little dense, but I don't know if that was because I used too much butter or if the butter was too warm or if I used too many eggs or not enough baking soda.  Well, at least now I have my own original cake recipe to work off of...and the one I had come up with still tasted delicious.

The next step was decorating the cake.  I had bought the perfect tips for making the giant stripes and stars (I actually didn't end up using this star tip, but it'll be great for icing cupcakes.  I used this one instead).  I made my buttercream icing using the recipe I had created and dyed them and let them sit in the fridge so the colors could deepen.  I unwrapped the cake, placed it on my turntable, and filled my piping bags.  I know disposable bags are wasteful but I really didn't want the red and blue icing to ruin my featherweight bags; plus you need a disposable bag for the Wilton 789 tip since it is huge!  I made the stripes, stars, and piped a blue border around the outside because the bottom of the cake is always so messy.

The finished product!

Everyone at the party loved the cake and I made sure to get the perfect picture of it to submit to the contest.  I'm happy with the way the cake turned out and I kept telling myself I couldn't be too critical since I did carve the thing by hand and not from a mold.  I'm excited to use this recipe again and adapt it to create other flavors of cake.  There are a lot of birthdays this summer...

The contest?  It looks like I missed the deadline.  The main page on the website said the deadline to submit the application was 7/6/2011 at 12:00pm.  The official rules (which I read) said the deadline was at 7/6/2011 at 11:59pm.  I had the window open all morning with my application and finally submitted it at around 9:30 last night, at which point the Facebook page went kind of screwy and my submission didn't show up in the "view entries" page.  I tried to email someone from Epicurious about the conflicting details, but I highly doubt someone will actually read it.  I waited so long to submit my project because I was being super paranoid and didn't want anyone to see my submission and then adapt it and submit a slightly better version of mine.  It's a huge bummer because after looking at everyone's entries, I think mine definitely stood a chance.  But, it's my own fault, I had the entry ready for 3 days, I should have submitted it yesterday morning when I had the window open.  The prizes weren't to die for, but it would have been pretty awesome to win a contest for something I had created.  Maybe next year...

Now that I have created my own recipe, I understand why other food bloggers constantly credit each other and the original source.  Please remember that if you choose to use the recipes listed on my site to always credit back to this site or, where applicable, the original site from where the recipe may have been adapted from.  Feel free to share the recipes found here and adapt them to your heart's content!

Red, White, and Blue Funfetti Cake
Ali B original
Makes 1 13x9 in. pan

Ingredients
For the cake:

- 2 1/3 c flour

- 2 tsp baking powder

- 1 tsp salt

- 1 c unsalted butter (room temperature)

- 1 1/3 c sugar

- 3 lg egg whites

- 1 2/3 c milk

- 1/3 c red, white, and blue sprinkles (not sugar crystals)

- 1 tsp vanilla extract

The buttercream icing should look fluffy

For the buttercream icing
- 1 c unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1/2 c vegetable shortening
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 6 c confectioner's sugar
- 1 1/2 tbsp merengue powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 c milk
- 1/2 tbsp water (may use more or less depending on consistency)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350.  Butter a 13x9 pan and coat lightly with granulated sugar.  Shake out any excess sugar.

To make the cake, combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl.  Set aside

Put egg whites in a bowl and whip until fluffy, about 3 minutes on high.  Set aside.

With a beater, combine butter and sugar and beat until creamy.  Add half of the milk, combine, then add half of the flour mixture and combine.  Repeat.  Add in the vanilla.  With a rubber spatula, fold in the egg whites until they are just incorporated then do the same with the sprinkles.  Be careful not to over-mix. 

Pour cake batter into pan and cook for 30 – 35 minutes, checking often, and removing from the oven when a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.  Remove from pan and let cool on a wire rack.

To make the icing, combine butter and vegetable shortening in a large mixing bowl until creamy.  Add vanilla extract and salt.

Add the confectioner's sugar one cup at a time and incorporate completely after each addition.  The icing will appear dry after adding all of the sugar.  Add the merengue powder.

Red, white, and blue icing. I added a touch of
black in order to get a navy blue. 

Add milk and beat until light and fluffy, about 8 to 10 minutes.  Scoop into piping bag affixed with desired tip and add water as necessary to make the icing easy to pipe.  Dye icing and decorate as desired.

Note: Because of the milk in the icing, icing should be stored in the refrigerator if not using that day.

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Posted by Ali B at 8:48 AM

Red, White, and Blue Funfetti Cake (Part 1)

Well, I've gone over the deep end.

I was "stumbling" over vacation (my favorite way to find new recipes) when I came across the Epicurious site.  At the top of the site was a banner promoting a Fourth of July cake contest.  I had to enter.

The only snafu was I needed to submit an original recipe.  I have an original recipe for buttercream icing that I concocted during my cake decorating class days, but I don't have one for a cake.  I thought about this contest for a couple of days and finally came up with an idea: a Red, White, and Blue Funfetti cake.  Alright the concept of the cake would be simple enough to make, but now, what about the decoration?

I have no idea how I got this crazy notion in my head, but I decided to freeze the cake, then the next morning carve it into the shape of the United States of America and decorate an American flag over it.  I characteristically bite off more than I can chew, but I really wanted to go with this idea and take this contest by storm.  "I've gone over the deep end" seemed to be an understatement when I was standing in my kitchen Thursday night at 10:00, ice Saran-wrapped to my shins (I've been getting a lot of soreness there during and after my runs), with the daunting task of winging a funfetti cake recipe.

Alright, here goes nothing.

I decided to start off with whole numbers of measurements and began with this: 2 c of flour, 2 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp salt, 1 c of butter, 1 c sugar, 3 eggs, 1 c milk, 1/3 c of sprinkles.  I figured I'd just tweak those numbers as I went along, depending on how dry or wet the cake batter was, how much I needed to fill the pan, or (most importantly) how it tasted.  I was looking at my ingredients and realized that I wanted a really white cake to compliment the red and blue sprinkles, so I decided to take the yolks out of the eggs and whip them to make them really fluffy, something I was taught to do when making pancakes or waffles.  So I started by combining my dry ingredients, setting them in a separate bowl, and then combining the sugar and the butter.  I added the milk to the butter, to make it a little softer, and then added half of the flour mixture.  I continued adding milk about 1/2 of a cup at a time until I used up all of the flour mixture in the other bowl.  I had batter, now I just had to taste-test it.  I held my breath, tried it, and it actually tasted somewhat like cake.  The batter was a little thick, so I kept adding milk 1/3 of a cup at a time.  I did the same thing when I tweaked the sugar and the flour.  Finally, after shoving spoonfuls of the batter in my family's faces my dad finally said to throw the batter in the oven and see what happens.

So that's what I did.  I set my timer for 30 minutes and waited, and waited, and wrote this blog post, and waited and waited.  I thought more about the batter and tasted what was left in the bowl and realized I probably could have added another 1/3 c of sugar.  My brother said the batter also tasted somewhat like pancakes, so I guess a little vanilla extract wouldn't have hurt.  Again, I wanted a really white cake and my vanilla extract is brown, but I don't think a teaspoon would have hurt.  Also, I realized a little late that the butter was not in the fridge but in the freezer, so I tried heating it up in my preheated oven.  I heated it too much, and I think the melted butter might have given the batter an odd texture.

Thank goodness for oven lights.  I didn't want to keep opening the door because I read that it could make the cake collapse, so after 30 minutes went by I kept checking on it every minute.  At 32 minutes, the cake was finished and it took every nerve I have to hold my body back from tearing into the cake and tasting it.  That would have to happen in a couple of days, when I cut the cake into the United States.  I let it cool, then before bed I wrapped it in Saran wrap (not the same piece that was on my leg) and stuck it in the freezer for another day...

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Posted by Ali B at 6:46 PM