An Offering of Cake
Okay one thing about me is I truly love to bake but NOT for myself. I need to share it with people, with loved ones. So if it’s your birthday and I’m invited to the party BET I’m going to make something delicious for you. I talked a little bit about how sharing food connects us together in this piece and especially when it comes to a birthday and everyone having different levels of connection and knowing each other this feels particularly magical and decadent.
Anyway, I made this beautiful cake and it blew up on my instagram and I wanted to share the recipe because it truly was as good to eat as it was to look at.
FLAVOUR VIBES: it was giving orange creamsicle but not too sweet
TEXTURE VIBES: dense, moist, but still light and fluffy
ASSEMBLY VIBES: honestly from front to back this cake took 2 hours to make including decorating and cooling times
INVOLVEMENT VIBES: the way I made it does have quite a few steps, but you can take or leave or adjust any of them as you need!
HOW I MADE IT: I followed a recipe for the cake and then the rest was 100 vibes and making shit up as I went along soooooo have fun and customize it and enjoy!
What You’re Making:
vanilla cake
rum oranges
whipped orange vanilla icing
lemon curd (optional, I already had some made but it’s super easy to make)
Things You’ll Need:
Cake
1 cup granulated sugar
1 vanilla bean
3/4 cups cake flour, not self-rising
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup unsalted butter room temperature
2 large large eggs room temperature
1/3 cup full-fat sour cream
1/4 cup canola oil you can also use vegetable oil
1 tablespoon vanilla extract use pure, not imitation
2/3 cup whole milk
Rum Oranges
3 medium sized oranges
1/4 ish cup of sugar
1/2 ish cup of rum
Whipped Orange Vanilla Icing
1/4 unsalted butter
1 full small container of whipping cream
1/2 cup of icing sugar
1/2 tbsp pure vanilla extract
1 whole orange peel grated
Lemon Curd
6 egg yolks
1 cup of sugar
zest from 1-2 lemons
1/2 cup lemon juice
1/2 cup butter
Decoration
rum oranges
edible flowers
herbs (I used dill)
orange zest
What To Do:
The Cake
For the cake I followed this recipe for “The Best Vanilla Cake Recipe” but I’ll put the instructions here for you anyway!
Preheat oven to 350 F (175 C).
In a small bowl, combine sugar and seeds from the vanilla bean. (For those of you who are new to using vanilla beans, check out this video to learn how to get the seeds out of the bean.)
Using the back of a spoon, move around the bowl and apply pressure to break up any clumps of seeds and to better infuse the vanilla flavor into the sugar. Set aside.
In a medium-sized mixing bowl or bowl of a stand mixer, mix together cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
Add the vanilla bean sugar and mix until well combined.
Add butter and mix on medium-low speed for three minutes. Because there is so little butter, you’ll end up with a very fine crumb texture.
In a small mixing bowl, whisk together eggs, sour cream, oil, and vanilla extract until smooth.
Add the egg mixture to the flour mixture and beat on medium speed until just combined. Be sure to scrape down the sides of the mixture as needed to make sure that everything is incorporated into the batter.
Slowly add milk and mix on low speed until just combined. The batter will be liquid. (Don’t worry, you didn’t do anything wrong. It’s supposed to be that way.)
Divide the batter evenly between two 8″ round cake pans.
Bake for 18 minutes and then test to see if they are done. They are done when a toothpick comes out without wet batter stuck to it. The cakes should appear white with specks of vanilla bean. They should not turn a golden brown. If they are not done, test again in two minutes. If they are still not done, test again in another two minutes.
When the cakes are done, place them on a cooling rack (or just on your counter if you don’t own a cooling rack) to cool to room temperature. Then, refrigerate before frosting.
The Rum Oranges
slice the ends off your oranges, and then with a sharp knife cut off all the skin and white parts of the orange
slice the flesh of the orange into thin pieces - try to keep the whole shape intact, I aimed for each of them to be about 3mm in size
put all the slices in a bowl and sprinkle them with sugar
cover with rum, mix sugar into it and let it sit
The Whipped Icing
get your room temperature butter and icing sugar and put them into a medium sized bowl, mixing them together with a hand mixer on low
add in half of your whipped cream to the butter and sugar mixture, beating on low until all mixed together
add in the second half of your whipped cream & the vanilla
mix on medium speed until you have a fully fluffy and dense whipped cream texture - the butter will make this sturdier and thicker than normal whipped cream
fold in your orange zest with a spatula
The Lemon Curd
In a saucepan whisk together the egg yolks, sugar, lemon juice and lemon zest.
Then on low-medium heat, cook the lemon mixture until it lightly boils then thickens. Please make sure to stir it constantly. This step should only take about 5 – 8 minutes.
Remove the lemon mixture from the heat and whisk in the butter until it is melted and thoroughly mixed in.
Set aside to cool.
Assembly:
take both of your cakes and the rum oranges, with a spoon or brush take the excess sugar rum and spread or drizzle a layer of it onto each of the cakes to soak in (I like to do this when they’re still warm and before I put them in the fridge to be cool for icing)
place your first cake layer on the vessel you’ll be keeping it on (plate, cake stand, etc.)
put on a thin layer of the whipped icing
in the centre put a generous spoon of lemon curd and swirl it around
layer the first of the rum oranges on top of this, fitting them together but NOT overlapping them
put another layer of the whipped icing
add your next cake layer
repeat steps 3-6
with your left over icing cover the rest of the cake and its sides, filling in the gaps between layers. going for sort of a “naked cake” look here so it doesn’t need to be totally coated - I kept most of the excess icing on top of the cake but do whatever feels good in your heart
smooth it all out and then we decorate! I just put the leftover rum oranges, edible flowers, dill and little confetti/sparkle bloops of orange zest all over but you can truly do whatever you want! I recommend trying to keep the cake chilled until eating it but it will be good out for several hours (we had ours out in a park for like 3/4 hours before eating and it was great still!)
cut with good intentions and share with people you love!
