Cake

It won’t be long until the cake time is here. I’ve practiced twice with the two cakes I’ll enter in the state fair August 11th. I made the big white cake and the pineapple upside down cake for the cake booth at the St. Agnes Carnival two weeks ago. Then the week after I made both cakes and gave them away. Reports were good so I’m hopeful again this year.

During a re-run of Martha’s Show this week, a man made an astounding coconut cake. He didn’t separate the eggs. He put the whole eggs in the batter. He used 2-10” cake pans. He also split his 2 baked layers into 6 layers. His filling was different from his frosting. He used European butter that cost $6 a pound! Consider the cost of this spectacular coconut cake; 6 eggs, 6 ½ cups cream, 2 ½ pounds of butter, 6 cups white sugar and 5 cups confectioner’s sugar. The completed cake weighs 15 pounds, and a single slice weighs one pound! He sells 20 a month and ships them overnight anywhere. The cake cost $100. I’m not going to check out the shipping.

The white cake recipe I’ve been using the past four years is a variation of another “Martha” cake. To keep it a white cake I separate the eggs, saving the yokes for something else and whipping the whites. Then for the final assemble I gently fold the whites into the batter. This adds height. I use 3-9” pans and split each baked layer into two. I make the frosting from a traditional 7-Minute Icing recipe but split it into two bowls. To one I add either raspberry or apricot preserves, using this mixture between the layers. I finally cover the outside of the cake with the pure white frosting.

One thing he does is as he assembles the layers is drizzle simple syrup over the layers to make them moist. I may do that myself with a variation.

I’m going to cut down the coconut cake recipe and make a 1 layer version as a test. If it tastes better than my recipe, I may make the investment and bake the coconut cake without the coconut!