There is a cake that I have made five times now that still thrills me to pieces. It is the Lemon Mascarpone Wedding Cake recipe from the On the Twenty cookbook. I have been working on it for the last two days and this morning I will be delivering the finished product to a woman who ordered it for a wedding shower. In fact, I always halve the recipe and use it for a shower or special occasion, never taking on an actual wedding cake.
The cake itself is a lemon cake that smells so delicious coming out of the oven, it takes a certain amount of restraint not to pick it to pieces! So, two cakes, cut in half to create four layers. Inside the cake, between the layers, are whole strawberries, pointing bottom tips up. When the lemon mascarpone mousse is piped into all the cracks and smoothed over, another layer of cake is placed on top. I used a thin layer of the mousse on top of that cake layer and then another cake layer and a repeat of the strawberries and mousse. The cake ends up being about 7-8 inches high (did I mention that it is 11 inches in diameter?!) Then the cake is iced with an Italian Meringue or Mousseline buttercream. The buttercream is a pale butter yellow colour and then I wrap a yellow ribbon around the base and garnish the top with pale yellow Gerber daisies. Stunning! I can't wait to see the woman's reaction this morning. And the thing about this cake is that it tastes better than it looks! The picture at the top of the blog is actually this cake, but done a couple of years ago.
There is a website where I love to go to browse cakes. The JollyBe Bakery is owned by a woman who is an artist as well as a baker and you won't believe the gorgeous cakes!
http://www.jollybebakery.com/painted.html
I'll let you know how my cake fares this weekend!
Moira
PS. Did I mention that I took the kids strawberry picking for the berries? I spent the entire time explaining/yelling, "only pick the red ones, no white ones, only pick the red ones, get back here!!!"
