Petal Cake
We’ve had this recipe pending for a few days now, but since in the meantime we published our Whole Kitchen challenges, it had to be pushed back to this week. And well, what better week for a birthday cake… :-D I made the recipe following exactly the one @SandeeA did at La Receta de la Felicidad. So all credit for the explanation this time goes to her. My personal touch was just the little sugar bear.
What do we need?
For the sponge cake (to make a tall cake, we’ll need to bake two sponges like this one, so double the quantities):
250 g (about 1 cup + 2 tbsp) butter, room temperature
250 g (1 ¼ cups) sugar
4 eggs
225 g (1 ¾ cups) all-purpose flour
25 g (about 3 tbsp) cornstarch
half a packet of Royal-style baking powder (8 g, about 2 tsp)
For the chocolate buttercream:
750 g (about 1 ⅔ lb) melting chocolate
375 g (about 1 ⅔ cups) butter, room temperature
100 g (about ¾ cup) powdered sugar
How do we make it?
Preheat the oven to 180 ºC (355 ºF).
Prepare a cake pan by greasing it with butter and dusting it lightly with flour.
In a large bowl, using a whisk or a spoon, mix the butter and sugar well until you get a smooth, creamy mixture.
Add the eggs one at a time, not adding the next one until the previous one is fully incorporated.
Add the flour, cornstarch, and baking powder and mix with a spatula or spoon until everything is well combined.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan, spreading it evenly.
Bake for 25-30 minutes at 180 ºC (355 ºF).
Take it out of the oven and wait a few minutes before unmolding.
Repeat these steps to make a second sponge cake just like the first one. (If you have two identical pans, you can make all the batter at once and divide it between both pans.)
Slice each sponge into two layers, trying to make them as even as possible.
Next, we start preparing the chocolate buttercream. First, we’ll melt the chocolate.
Chop it up and place it in a microwave-safe bowl. Heat it in 30-second intervals, stirring each time, until the chocolate is fully liquid. Let it cool for a few minutes.
Meanwhile, in another large bowl, beat the butter and sugar at top speed with a whisk until you get a fluffy, pale, smooth mixture (about 5 minutes).
Check that the chocolate you melted earlier has cooled down, and add it to the butter mixture. Beat a bit more until fully combined, and then move on to filling and decorating the cake.
Place the first sponge layer — the least perfect of the ones you made — on the plate you’ll be serving on, covered with some strips of parchment paper or printer paper, so it doesn’t get stained and you can pull them out easily afterwards.
Place a couple of spoonfuls of filling on this sponge layer and spread it evenly — it’s fine if some spills over the sides.
Place another sponge layer on top, pressing down gently and making sure it’s well aligned with the layer below. Add another two spoonfuls of filling and proceed as before.
Continue the same way with the rest of the layers. On top, place the most perfect sponge, with the bottom side facing up (it’s always the prettiest). If you don’t want the sponge layers to shift, since we’re about to cover and decorate the cake, you can stick a skewer down through the center of the cake, which you’ll remove once you’re done decorating.
Cover the cake with a first, very thin layer of chocolate buttercream — this is just to set things in place and hide any imperfections in the sponge layers.
Leave the chocolate cake in the fridge for 15 minutes so this layer firms up.
Using a piping bag fitted with a medium-sized round tip, pipe dots of buttercream onto the cake, forming a vertical line (4 dots, in my case).
Place a spatula on top of each dot and slide it to the right in a single motion (or to the left if you’re left-handed). Wipe the spatula clean and continue doing the same with the rest of the dots, remembering to always wipe the spatula between strokes.
Each time you finish a row of dots, grab the piping bag, create a new line of dots, and repeat the pattern across the whole cake. The spot where you finish the last row of petals will have some imperfections, and that should be the “back” of your cake.
If you’re not going to eat it the same day, store the chocolate cake preferably outside the fridge so the chocolate buttercream stays creamy, since the fridge tends to harden it.
Tips:
To decorate it, you can make a stencil out of a sheet of paper, cutting out the number of years the birthday person is turning, and dust it with powdered sugar.
I made this sugar bear out of modeling paste to crown the cake. I’ll do a tutorial soon so you can see how easy it is.
[English version] PETALS CAKE* *Ingredients:
*250 g butter, room temperature *
*250 g sugar *
4 eggs
*225 g all purpose flour *
*25 g corstarch *
*8 g baking powder *
For the chocolate buttercream:
750 g dark chocolate, melted
*375 g butter, room temperature *
*100 g confectioners’ sugar *
Preheat oven to 180ºC
Prepare a cake pan (butter and flour the bottom and the sides of the pan).
In a large bowl, place butter and sugar, and mix well.
Add eggs one by one.
Add flour, cornstarch and baking powder, and beat until combined.
Pour batter into pan and bake for 25 minutes.
Leave the cake in its pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes and then turn out to cool.
Repeat the whole process to make another similar cake.
Now we are going to prepare the chocolate buttercream.
Using and electric mixer, cream butter and sugar, until light and fluffy (about 5 minutes). Add melted chocolate, that shall be cool, and mix well. Now the buttercream is ready to use.
Fill the cake layers with chocolate buttercream, and then frost it with a thin layer of buttercream.
Place the cake in the fridge for 15 minutes to set.
Place the remaining chocolate buttercream on a piping bag fitted with a medium sized round tip.
Create a row of dots (vertical), as shown on the pictures.
Using a spatula, spread every dot to the right, in one motion (or to the left if you are left-handed). Clean the spatula between every swipe.
Once you have spread one row of dots, add another row of dots and repeat the pattern until the whole cake is covered with “petals”.
If you are not going to eat the cake on the same day, please avoid keeping it in the fridge if possible, so that the chocolate buttercream remains creamy.
Tips:
You can create a template showing the number of the age that the special person is turning and then sprinkle with confectioners’ sugar.
On the top, I placed this sugar bear made by myself. Soon I will post a tutorial about how to make it with gum paste.