Wednesday 4 May 2011

Weddings weddings weddings and a lemon raspberry & yoghurt roses cake with cream cheese frosting


Goin' to the chapel and we're 
Gonna married,
Goin' to the chapel and we're
Gonna get married
Gee, I really love you and we're
Gonna get married
Goin' to the chapel of love
   
~ Dixie Cups

Wedding fever is in the air.

Now go on, admit it, you watched The Wedding too didn't you?

I swear I wasn't going to.  I was going to resist the hype.   But then, like millions of others all around the world, I got totally sucked in.  The outfits! The hats! That dress!  It's the water-cooler topic of the year.  Everyone has an opinion, from the Pippa vs Kate debate to that hat worn by a certain princess.  It is everyone's fairy tale and a bright happy moment in these tumultuous times.

For me, I have a double dose of wedding fever.  Not only was there the Royal wedding to obsess about but my own wedding is in *eek!* two and a half weeks so I most definitely have wedding on the brain.  I'm sleeping, eating and breathing wedding.  There is just so much to do!  So many decisions to make!  It's like the proverbial eight headed monster - you tick one job off the list and two more sprout in its wake.


So seeing as getting married is what all the cool kids are doing these days, it made sense to have a wedding-ey theme of Love & Marriage for the last round of Baking for Hospice.  For Round 15, I made Lemon Raspberry & Yoghurt Roses Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting - it's an incredibly moist tangy lemon cake dotted with bright bursts of raspberries and covered in cream cheese frosting roses.  The rosettes idea is so gorgeous and so easy to do, had I not already baked my own wedding cake (sneak peek to come), I would have been happy to have one just like this on the big day. 



I was first blown away by this gorgeous decorating idea on the D*lish blog.  What a genius idea!

I've always been a humongous fan of using frosting roses/rosettes on cupcakes (as evidenced by my constant use of them: here, here and here) but had never ever even considered using this technique on a cake.  


The roses are so easy to do, take no time at all and the result is simply spectacular.  You just need a piping bag and an open star icing nozzle.

The cake itself is not too shabby either.  It's adapted from a trusty Annabel Langbein recipe - a blitz, mix and bake number - super simple and can make one massive cake, two medium cakes or a bunch of smaller ramekin sized cakes.  It's moist but still light with the tangy lemons and raspberries cutting through the creamy richness of the cream cheese icing.  Divine.  

And it keeps moist for days.

I could marry this cake.



Mum took one of the cakes to work and I got super lovely thank you notes from her colleagues - thanks so much ladies and gents, stoked you enjoyed it!



Lemon Raspberry and Yoghurt Roses Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Cake recipe tweaked from Annabel Langbein recipe in The Best of Annabel Langbein

Makes one 30 cm diameter cake (or 30cm x 20cm sheet cake), two 21 cm diameter cakes, and ~ 8 ramekin sized cakes.

3 cups sugar
4 eggs
juice and zest from 4 lemons
2 cups canola oil (or other flavourless oil)
1 3/4 cup unsweetened plain yoghurt
4 cups flour
6 tsp baking powder
1 1/4 tsp salt
3 cups frozen raspberries

1.  Preheat the oven to 160oC.  Line the cake tins with baking paper.

2. Sift flour, baking powder and salt and set aside.

3. In a food processor whiz together the sugar, eggs, lemon juice and zest, oil and yoghurt until combined.  Add flour mixture and blitz until just combined.

4. Transfer cake mixture into a large bowl and fold through the frozen raspberries.

5.  Pour into the cake tins and bake for 1 hour - 1.5 hours (depending on the size of the cake you are making) until springy to touch and a skewer comes out clean.

6.  Cool in the tin before turning out.  The cake will stay beautifully moist for 3-4 days.  Frost with cream cheese icing.

My Go-To Cream Cheese Frosting

800 g cream cheese ***make sure you use full fat cream cheese and not spreadable or low fat. I recommend using Philadelphia brand, have had some bad batches with other brands!***
250 g unsalted butter, softened
3 tsp vanilla
7-8 cups icing sugar, sifted

1.  Cream butter till fluffy.  Add cream cheese and vanilla and beat until just mixed in.

2. Add icing sugar 1/2 cup at a time beating after each addition until fluffy.  Be careful not to overbeat as this will cause the icing to go oozy.

3.  Spread a layer of cream cheese icing all over the cake (top and sides).  It doesn't have to be very thick or very neat but what it does is give you a base to do the roses on so you won't be able to see the cake underneath.

4.  To make the frosting roses: you will need a piping bag and an open star frosting nozzle (I use the 1M wilton tip).  Make the roses along the side of the cake first before working around the outside of the cake in towards the centre.  Start with your nozzle about 1cm above where you want the centre of rose to go. Squeeze a little frosting out to start off and anchor the frosting and then using your wrist move the nozzle in a spiral starting from the centre and spiralling outwards for ~ two whole circles.  Then lessen your pressure on the piping bag to let the frosting taper off.  For pictures check out the Sweet & Salty Cupcakes post for step by step photos).  Try and taper off around the bottom of the cake to hid the tail bit.  You can always scrap the rose off and start again if you don't like it! If you want, you can fill in any gaps with a comet shaped swish of icing going in the same direction as the rose.

*Ok it takes a lot of words to describe so it makes it sound hard but do check out the Sweet & Salty Cupcakes post and give it a go.  It's basically doing a spiral from the inside out and once you get the hang of it you be surprised at how easy it is!*

5.  Keep the frosted cake in the fridge to set the cream cheese frosting.  It will keep for around 3-4 days in the fridge.

Variations
*For mini muffins: Bake at 160oC for 15 minutes.
*For cupcakes: Bake at 160oC for 20-25 minutes.
*For loaf: Bake at 160oC for 45 minutes.
*Split batch: One lot of mixture makes 48 mini cupcakes + 12 cupcakes + 1 loaf. For this I used this brown sugar cream cheese frosting but didn't have quite enough to frost the loaf so I made a lemon glaze with juice and zest of 1 lemon + 1 1/2 cup icing sugar and drizzled it over while still warm.

23 comments:

  1. Gorgeous! I saw that post too and have been waiting for an excuse to decorate a cake like this. It's absolutely stunning!

    Hope the planning all goes to, um, plan, and I'm looking forward to the pictures :D

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  2. I love this frosting design...beautiful job. Excellent mix of flavors in the cake as well...all over lovely.

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  3. This is gorgeous! Plus it looks delicious! I really want to try making a rose cake sometime... it's just so pretty!

    P.S. I totally got into The Wedding hype. My friends and I got rings... tiaras... the whole nine yards. I'll take any excuse to celebrate! And have a mimosa. ;)

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  4. This is just gorgeous. Light and lovely. Love it.

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  5. Nessie! This is the most amazing looking cake I've ever seen! I want to learn! xo

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  6. Love it. And all the best for your big day!

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  7. Too pretty to eat! Perfect wedding cake. I'm not a fan of marzipan at all so we had frosting for our wedding.

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  8. i want to marry this cake as well, so pretty, i'm sure to do bake this cake pretty soon and will ack you for sure.....thanks for the link frosting idea, i'm was so much in search of it today :D

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  9. this is GORGEOUSSSSS. I just bought a ton of cream cheese.. so excited to make it!

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  10. Wow! I can't believe how pretty AND delicious it looks. I wish my mum lived in the same city as me as this would be a great treat for Mother's Day.

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  11. this cake is delicious! it just finished baking in the oven and i couldn't help but dig in. it's probably the moistest cake I've ever made! thanks for sharing :)

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  12. teresa: Good old tastespotting huh! I had been waiting for an excuse too! Really we should just bake to our little hearts content, excuse or no excuse!

    briarrose: Thanks for the lovely compliment! I love lemon and raspberries in baking so it just made sense to put them together. And the raspberries give those pretty splashes of pink too - bonus!

    Ali Grace: Sounds like you girls had an awesome Royal Wedding night!! Mmmmmm mimosa....yum!

    Lora: Thanks Lora! AND the cake has no butter. Ok so there's definitely butter in the icing but the cake itself is really light and not terribly terrible for you.

    Lara: Thanks heapd Lara! I swear once you get a hang of doing the roses you won't believe how easy it is to do the cake! I'm dying to pull this decorating out again!

    jacksta: Thanks heaps!!! Can't believe it's only 11 days away - so exciting!!! :)

    bunnyeatsdesign: I'm in the marzipan is yuck club too...our wedding cake will have ganache and fondant only. Say no to marzipan I say :)

    Ananda: Hehe definitely a marriage worthy cake :) I still can't get over how easy it was for the wow factor in return...you should definitely try it. Let me know how it goes! :)

    Linno: My momma lives in another town too and I wish I got to bake for her on Mother's Day. Would have definitely pulled this out for Mum's day if I was in Auckland - any excuse really :P

    Donna: So stoked you liked the cake!!! It's yummy no? It stays moist for aaaaages too. Yay :)

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  13. i love this so much, I'm definitely going to give it a go for my sister's birthday cake this month! I've been looking for an excuse to finally buy a piping bag, & this is it, it's so pretty!

    Katie x
    {glass of fashion}

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  14. This is unbelievably gorgeous and sounds like it will taste amazing too! I am totally making this for our at-home reception cake (we got married in another state). I've never decorated a cake like this but I am going to try! Any suggestions for modifying for a three tier?

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  15. Katie: Thanks Katie!! I love my piping bag to bits - makes everything look so purty. Good luck with your sister's birthday cake. What an awesome sister you are :)

    Sherri: Congratulations on your wedding!! An at-home reception...what a great idea! This would make a stunning tiered cake. You'll def need to get some dowels/wooden skewers and cake boards to stablise the tiers and frost the layers before putting all the layers on top of each other. This cake stays moist for yonks so you can bake it days in advance. All the best and hope you have the most awesome day :)

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  16. Nessie; Thanks so much! I will be making it at a friend's house and she is hosting the reception so it won't have to move anywhere. Can't wait!

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  17. Hi again, I was reading the instructions again and I have a question:

    Re: "Add flour mixture and blitz until just combined."

    Can you explain "blitz"? :) Also, do you know if it is possible to make the icing less sweet without messing up the consistency needed for making the roses? If that's not possible I understand. I was just curious as I prefer icing that isn't too sweet.

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  18. Hiya Sherri, hehe sorry for the lingo, by "blitz" I mean turn the food processor on and give it a whizz. Re sweetness: try adding the icing sugar 1/3 cup at a time, this way you actually end up using less icing sugar than adding it all together. Just keep tasting it (speshly around the 2 cup mark) and when you think it's sweet enough, test out the consistency by doing a practice rose on a piece of baking paper to see if it's too oozy. Remember to try and not overbeat as that will break down the proteins in the cream cheese and make the icing runny. Hope that helps? Would love to know how you go! :)

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  19. Thanks again! The event is set for July 23 so I will report back after to let you know, hopefully with a photo! :)

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  20. Hey i was reading the recipe and saw 2 cups if canola oil. Just wondering if it wont be too oily a cake. Also loved the photos above. I havent got 1M nozzle so will try to find if anyone is selling in shops here. Great pics

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    1. Hey there, there really is 2 cups of oil in there but it really isn't oily at all! The 4 cups of flour seem to soak it up and leave a cake that is lovely and moist. Recipe does make a humungous cake though! My 1M nozzle is my best baking purchase - you won't regret it! I bought it from an online store. If you're in NZ check out kiwicakes.co.nz :) Hope that helps! Thanks for your comment :)

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  21. Hi i made this cake. Cooked it for 1hr 20mins. After decorating with the above cream cheese frosting which was indeed very nice, i cut into the cake and found the bottom still abit raw. I halfed the recipe so decided to half the time as well. What did i do wrong here. The top was cooked an bottom was slightly raw. Cooked it on fan bake. The taste was really yummy but what can i do so the next time it comes out better please

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    1. Hiya!

      The baking time would depend on how big your tin was, in particular how deep the mixture ended up in it...so even with half the recipe, if the baking tin size meant the mixture was quite deep it might take the full 1h 30mins to cook. If that makes sense?! I usually use a 30cm x 20cm tray or 2 x 21cm spring form round pans and haven't had trouble.

      Check it at the time you think it is done with a skewer poked in the middle all the way down and it should come out clean (with no clinging wet mixture). If it isn't clean, set the timer for another 2-5 minutes (depending on how close to done you think it is) then recheck and so on.

      Also are you using a metal baking tin or ceramic? Ceramic ones may also take longer?

      Hope that helps!

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