It’s back!  And this time it sucks a whole lot less.

First, now that they’ve made it Facebook-Official (these things are important), a hooray for Adam and Emily on their upcoming wedding!

As planned last Tuesday, I remade two cakes this week: the Strawberries & Cream and the Peaches & Cream with Bourbon.  I made a few changes to each, and those small changes really did make the difference in “okay” versus “good” cakes.  I was pleased.

As usual, let’s start with the Strawberries & Cream cake.

Last time the frosting, other than being slightly under-beaten, didn’t need any improvements; it was really the cake that needed to be tinkered with.  It’s here that I’m embarrassed and pleased to say that I figured out how to make the recipe better…but realized that the only reason it didn’t taste as good in the first place was because I fail and reading recipes. >.>

See, when I converted it many moons ago from Bake Me Away’s recipe, I replaced the cake flour with all-purpose thinking it wouldn’t make that big of a difference (wrong).  Also, I typo’d my salt conversion, giving the cake an extra entire teaspoon.  Durp.

So I made the strawberry cake yet again, this time with cake flour and the correct amount of salt (1/4 tsp instead of 1 1/4 tsp – yikes) and yeah…it definitely made a difference (go figure).  At first I balked; the batter was significantly soupier than it was previously.  It took me a few minutes to realize this was because I was using the much finer cake flour as opposed to all purpose.  I was really happy with how the cake turned out: just as moist, but slightly lighter and definitely sweeter (or maybe I should say “less salty”).

Second, we had the Peaches & Cream with Bourbon cake.

The big hitch with this cake, you may recall, was the frosting.  It was kind of soupy and gross and never finally came together; I ended up kind of plopping it onto the cake where it reluctantly held…sort of.  The goal this time around was to add less peach, both to make it not as peachy-flavored, as well as to actually make sure it stayed together.  Again – another success!

I added significantly less peaches stopping at approximately 1-2 tablespoons.  It gives the frosting a faint peachy hint (though truthfully it still tastes mostly of vanilla) but it held together very well.  And its taste?  Oh MAN.  It was honestly tough not to eat the entire batch with a spoon right there on the spot.  Luckily I did not, and thusly have not developed diabetes.  Yet.

As a side-note I felt like the cake itself actually turned out better, too.  I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I actually haven’t been taking much care to cream my butter and sugar correctly when baking.  My butter is invariably always too cold so it never gets very fluffy.  After baking cakes consistently for the last few weeks, I’m getting finally getting into the habit of letting the butter sit out long enough, meaning the creamed butter and sugar actually gets light and fluffy instead of just packed together in the bottom of my mixer. /slacker

Verdicts?

The consensus was that both cakes were definitely better than last week, but the strawberry won overall.  It was sweeter, as they’d requested, and while Emily felt the biscuit-like quality of the previous cake was appealing, both of them felt the strawberry was still very good.  The peach still absolutely has its merits, but I think I’d have to tinker with it more.  There was talk of possibly a peach-flavored cake and vanilla frosting, but we may just shelve that and move ahead with the strawberry (anybody have a good peach cake recipe they want to share with me?).  There’s still one more fancier flavor I’m going to toss their way next week, but for now the Strawberries and Cream cake is the front runner.  Which is progress, hooray!

I’m not sure if I could personally pick a favorite between the two, though there were definitely aspects of each I liked.  As usual the strawberry cake was very tasty, and I felt it was only tastier once I made it “correctly.”  The vanilla cake was also really good; I’m not typically a yellow cake person, so for me to like it at all is a pretty big deal.  I thought it was sweet and moist without an overbearing almond-flavor (which, when I think about it, is often what turned me off of yellow cake).  The peach frosting was tasty, but I felt almost a little too buttery; next time I’ll add more vanilla (reflected in the below recipe).  Overall I think I agree with Adam and Emily, though, that the strawberry cake was overall the best of the two.

My opinion is that what’s missing from both of these recipes, especially the Strawberries & Cream, is a touch of “flair”.  Both are very good, but there’s nothing about either of them that makes me go “WOW!”.  Anybody have suggestions for a wow-factor?

Strawberries & Cream Recipe

Cake recipe found here.

• For a lighter sweeter cake, replace the all-purpose flour with cake flour and use only 1/4 tsp salt.
• For a more biscuit-like cake (denser, slightly saltier) follow the exact directions.

Vanilla frosting recipe from Whisk Kid.

Assembly:

1. Level off the top of the cake with a long knife.  Eat the leftover cake top (nom).
2. Slice the cake in half, yielding 2 layers.
3. Frost the cake with your preferred amount of frosting between the layers, and on the top and sides.

Peaches & Cream with Bourbon Recipe

Adapted from AllRecipes.com.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/2 (1 stick) cup butter
• 2 eggs
• 1 3/4 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp almond extract
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 3/4 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 cup milk

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).  Prepare a 6×3″ pan.
2. In a medium bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.
3. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then stir in the vanilla.
4. Combine flour and baking powder, add to the creamed mixture and mix well.
5. Finally stir in the milk until batter is smooth. Pour or spoon batter into the prepared pan.
6. Bake for 40-60 minutes in the preheated oven.

Use Vanilla Frosting recipe from Whisk Kid.

• Add in 1-2 tbsp peach preserves 1/2 tbsp at a time, whipping thoroughly, watching carefully to make sure the frosting will stay together.

Assembly:

1. Level off the top of the cake with a long knife.  Eat the leftover cake top (nom nom).
2. Slice the cake in half, yielding 2 layers.
3. If adding bourbon, brush as much as you like on the top of the bottom layer of the cake (probably no more than 1/4 cup for a 6″ cake).
4. Put 1/2 cup of the peach frosting into a piping bag.  Pipe a ring around the top edge of the bottom layer.  This will act as a lip to “hold in” the peach preserves.
5. Spoon and spread out 1/4 –  1/2 cup of peach preserves on the bottom layer.  The piped lip should keep any from squishing out the sides when you put the final layer on top.
6. Place the top of the cake over the bottom.  Frost the rest of the cake as desired!