Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Tuesdays with Dorie: Berry Surprise Cake



Mary Ann of Meet Me in the Kitchen selected this week’s Tuesday with Dorie selection: Berry Surprise Cake. This is quite an interesting cake, and a challenging one on several levels. It requires that you make a genoise, which is an eggy, very delicate cake. You then slice off the top of the cake and hollow it out, so you can fill it with a cream/cream cheese mixture and fresh raspberries. You reassemble the whole thing and then top it with sweetened whipped cream. It sounds wonderful!

Well, I had my share of struggles making this, but I was in good company with many of the other Tuesdays with Dorie bloggers. The least of my problems was finding fresh raspberries at the store (at a price that I was willing to pay). I used strawberries instead of raspberries and they worked great. You were also supposed to make simple syrup flavored with liquor to brush on the inside of the cake. I skipped this step and simply brushed the cake with orange liquor.

The genoise did not cooperate all that much, but I tried my best! You heat the eggs and sugar over simmering water, then beat with a mixer until super light and fluffy, then fold in some butter and flour. I’m not so skilled in folding in items. I think I did a fairly good job getting the eggs to the right stage, although maybe I didn’t beat them enough. I thought I folded the butter and flour in successfully, and they eggs were still really fluffy! But when I poured the batter into the pan to bake I realized that I hadn’t fully incorporated some of the flour which was hiding at the bottom of the mixing bowl. Oh well.

It baked ok, although it sunk in the middle somewhat. I figured that was ok, although I figured I would just fill the cake as is rather than hollowing it out. I didn’t think that my cake was tall enough to hollow out anyway. I made the cream cheese filling and it tasted pretty good. I did add more sugar than the recipe called for, since it seemed to need some more sweetness. I had also sprinkled the strawberries with a little sweetener, so that added a bit, too. I whipped the cream for the topping and that was good, too.

I assembled the cake and it came together fairly well. I think it was a little easier to assemble since I wasn’t filling it as the recipe called for. I filled the center of the cake with the strawberries and the cream cheese mixture and then topped the entire cake with the whipped cream. It was a little strange topping what basically looked like whipped cream with more whipped cream. This wouldn’t have been a problem if I had hollowed out the cake.

When it was all said and done, the cake looked nice. I didn’t think that it had very much flavor, which was disappointing. The strawberries had a good flavor, but all the other flavors were so subtle. It did taste a little bit like strawberry shortcake, but there was too much whipped cream altogether. I think I could try this recipe again, using a different cake recipe, and it would taste a lot different. I liked the idea of hollowing out the cake and filling it, but this one just wasn’t a big success for me.

Recipe from Baking from My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, page 273

8 comments:

Sihan said...

kudos to you for at least trying it out. I'm sure you enjoyed the cake despite of the state it was in yes? Next week!!!

chocolatechic said...

Mine didn't do anything that I wanted it to either.

Anonymous said...

Too bad the taste didn't work out for you. I like the way you arranged the strawberries on top of the cake.

Unknown said...

Your cake looks lovely. The taste was different. The topping was sweet, but everything else not as sweet as it looked. If I make this again, I would make some changes.

Cooking for Comfort by Jennifer said...

Beautiful job! We're all going to have better luck next week!

Kimberly Johnson said...

Your cake looks wonderful - too bad that it didn't taste as good as you hoped!

Anonymous said...

My genoise didn't cooperate either. I ended up adding extra sugar to the cream cheese filling.

Bungalow Barbara said...

I had trouble with the cake too. Loved the filling & fruit, though. Too much whipped cream? Is that even possible? ;)