Summertime Dessert Series: Lemon-Lime Sponge Cake with Lime Seven Minute Frosting

Ah, summer.  I just love summertime desserts.  They are cool and refreshing and a great way to forget about the heat.  At least for a little while.  And here in the California Bay Area, have we ever got some summer heat!  After a cold and rainy Spring, Summer has come on and brought us temperatures in the 90s and 100s. Perfect weather for a nice, cool dessert.  I'm going to try to post a cool summertime dessert every week and this week I'm starting with this Lemon-Lime Sponge cake with cool lime Seven Minute Frosting.

I started with a recipe for a daffodil cake from the now out of print Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook. It's a hand me down from my mom, and one of my favorites.  There is a color picture index with a picture for EVERY recipe.  Some of the recipes are a little outdated (Eggs En Gelee or Fish Mousse, anyone?)  But there are some great classic recipes and it's one of the first places I usually look.

So, the Daffodil cake recipe is an orange lemon flavored cake, topped with an orange lemon icing.  I decided to go a different way with the cake and made a lemon lime sponge cake and topped it with seven minute frosting, one of my favorites, a fluffy cooked frosting.

Lemon-Lime Sponge Cake

1 1/4 cup egg whites

1 1/2 tsp cream of tartar

1 tsp vanilla extract (instead of extract here, I scraped one vanilla bean)

1/4 tsp salt

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 cup cake flour

4 egg yolks

2 tsp lemon zest

2 tsp lime zest

If you look REALLY closely here, you can see the vanilla bean flecks

Preheat oven to 375F.  In a large bowl with an electric mixer, beat egg whites, cream of tartar, vanilla and salt on high speed until soft peaks form.   Sprinkle in sugar, two tablespoons at a time, while continuing to beat at high speed, until sugar dissolves and stiff glossy peaks form.  Reduce the mixer speed to low and add flour gradually, beating until just blended.  

In a separate bowl, beat yolks at high speed until thick and lemon colored.  Fold in half of the egg white mixture, along with the lemon and lime zest.  Drop alternating spoonfuls into a 10 inch tube pan.  Bake 35-40 minutes.

After removing fro the oven, invert cake and cool in pan for 1 hour. Placing it upside down on a wine or beer bottle works well for this.  While the cake cools, it's time to move on to the frosting.

I've seen several recipes for seven minute frosting, but this is the one that I used for this cake.  It is from The Fannie Farmer Baking Book, another of my favorite cookbooks.  "Seven Minute" is a misnomer, though, as it takes a bit longer to make.

Lime Seven Minute Frosting

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 tsp cream of tartar

pinch of salt

2 egg whites

1/4 cup cold water

2 tsp vanilla extract

zest and juice of 1 small lime

Combine all ingredients except vanilla in either a large, heat resistant mixing bowl, or the top of a large double boiler.  Set over simmering, but not boiling, water on low heat, making sure that  the bowl does not touch the water.

Beat with an electric beater until the frosting stands in peaks. This should take 5-7 minutes.  Remove from heat and continue to beat for a few more minutes, until frosting stiffens and stands in smooth, fluffy peaks.  Beat in vanilla, along with lime juice.  After frosting cake, sprinkle zest on top of cake.

I took this to a dinner at a friend's house and it got great reviews.  The hint of lemon and lime was perfect.


This post is linked at Sweets for a Saturday

Independence Day Cake

Happy Fourth of July!

This is one of my favorite holidays.  I'm wildly patriotic and love to celebrate.  I love the cookouts, the fireworks, spending time with friends and family.  And I greatly enjoy coming up with creative desserts to share with a red, white and blue theme!

Someone recently pointed me in the direction of a blue velvet cake.  The blue hue was striking and I thought, "that would be awesome for a July 4th cake!"  And so this is what I came up with.  The blue didn't come out exactly as bright as I had hoped, but it is still a pretty blue.  I didn't have the royal blue food coloring, so I used Cars Blue, left over from someone's birthday cake last year.  But like I said, it was still pretty blue, and the taste was great.  Like red velvet, only blue.  I paired it with a classic white cake, white buttercream frosting and strawberries.

I found the original recipe for the blue velvet cake here.

Blue Velvet Cake

2 cups sugar (I used 1 cup Splenda for baking)

1 cups (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

2 eggs

1 1/2 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

1 Tbsp royal blue food coloring

1 small dab violet food coloring
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 cup buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 Tbsp white vinegar

Preheat oven to 350F.  Grease 2 round 8" or 9" cake pans, cut parchment paper to fit, and then grease parchment (I always use Baker's Joy and get great results.)
Using a mixer on medium-high speed, cream butter and sugar until fluffy.  Add eggs one at a time and mix well after each.  Mix cocoa powder and food coloring in a small bowl and add to the sugar mixture.
In a separate bowl, mix flour and salt together.  Add flour mixture and buttermilk to the sugar mixture, alternately.  Mix in vanilla.  In another small bowl, mix baking soda and vinegar. Add to cake batter.
Divide batter between the prepared pans and bake for 20-30 minutes.  Remove from oven when a cake tester comes out clean. Cool in pans 15 minutes, then remove to wire racks to cool completely.

Classic White Cake (recipe from Better Homes and Gardens)
4 egg whites
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder

Crumb coating

1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup white shortening
1 3/4 cups sugar (I used 1 cup of Splenda for baking)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/3 cups buttermilk (or soured milk-add vinegar to sour the milk)

It's worth noting here, and I only just realized this, that I only used ONE cup of sour milk because I was reading the WRONG recipe.  *smacking head on the keyboard*

Preheat oven to 350F.  Grease 2 round 8" or 9" cake pans, cut parchment paper to fit, and then grease parchment.  Sift together dry ingredients in a medium bowl and set aside.  Beat shortening with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for about 30 seconds.  Add in sugar and vanilla and beat until creamy.  Add egg whites, one at a time, and beat well after each addition.  
Add four and milk to butter mixture, alternately, beating on low speed until just combined after each addition.  Divide batter into prepared pans.  Bake 20-25 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean.  Cool in pans 10 minutes, then remove to wire racks to cool completely.

Freshly frosted

Buttercream Frosting (recipe adapted from Better Homes and Gardens)
I needed 1 1/2 of this recipe to frost this cake, this is a single recipe

1 cup shortening
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 lb powdered sugar (about 4 cups-although, I actually weighed it this time)
4-5 Tbsp milk

WIth an electric mixer on medium speed, beat shortening and vanilla for 30 seconds.  Add about half of the powdered sugar and beat well.  Beat in 2 tablespoons of milk.  Add in remaining powdered sugar and beat well.  Add in as much of the remaining milk to reach the desired consistency (I ended up using 5)

Assembling the Cake


Wash and pat dry 1 pint of similar sized strawberries, along with one large strawberry.  Berries should be ripe and firm, not mushy at all.  Set aside.

Place two wide strips of wax paper on your cake stand or cake taker. Removing these later will give the bottom of the cake a very clean finish.  I chose to layer the cakes white, blue, white blue.  On each layer,
spread a generous amount of frosting and place next layer.  When all layers are in place, frost entire cake with a thin crumb coating.  Allow cake to set for about ten minutes and then continue frosting the cake with the rest of the frosting.  There should be enough for a nice thick layer.

Once the cake is frosted, gently remove the wax paper strips from beneath the cake.  You should have a nice clean finish.  Now it's time to add the strawberries.  Hull and slice the similar sized berries in half and arrange all along the bottom edge of the cake.  Take the large strawberry and using either a knife or an egg slicer, slice it almost down to the hull, fan out the slices and place it on top of the cake.  And you're done!

I hope you all have a fabulous July 4th weekend, wherever you are.  And take a moment to appreciate that, despite not being perfect, America is still a pretty great place to be!

Summertime Butterfly Cookies with Royal Icing

It's been a rainy, nasty spring here in Northern California.  Last weekend was no exception, so my munchkin and I decided to make some cutout cookies.

I've recently read a bit about decorating cookies with royal icing for that super smooth finish.  I am a buttercream girl and I've never tried the royal route.  But part of the reason for this blog is to encourage myself to try new things.  So I came upon this blog where the blogger does all kinds of great, beautiful cutout cookies with royal icing.  I mean, they are gorgeous! Here is the link.

So we went out and picked up the few supplies we needed (namely, meringue powder and squeeze bottles.)

I ended up making an orange flavored sugar cookie dough and an orange flavored royal icing.  The orange sugar cookies I adapted a little bit from this recipe for lemon cut out cookies.  I changed the lemon zest and juice to orange, and increased the amount slightly.  I also used Splenda for baking, as I do for most recipes.  And we decided to make butterflies, since we needed a boost of summery-ness.

Orange Cut-Out Sugar Cookies
3 cups unbleached flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup Splenda blend for baking
2 sticks unsalted butter
1 egg
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 Tbsp orange zest
1 tsp orange juice

Preheat oven to 350.   In one bowl, mix together flour and baking powder and set aside.  In another bowl, beat together butter and sugar until fluffy.  With a stand mixer, use the paddle attachment.  Add is eggs, vanilla, orange zest and juice.  Beat until well combined.

On low speed, add the flour a little at a time and beat until well blended.  Turn the dough out onto a flat surface to knead by hand.

(At this point, I wrapped up the dough in plastic wrap and put in the fridge for 2 days-I took it out for a half hour to warm up a little and it was perfect)

I use this large Tupperware mat for rolling out dough.  It was my mom's and she gave it to me at some point.  It make clean up a snap.  And I love my French rolling pin.

Roll out on a flat surface to about a 1/4" thickness and cut shapes.  Place on baking sheets lined with parchment or silicon sheets.  I personally use Pampered Chef baking stone that I have had for years.  They are very well seasoned and I don't need to use anything on them.  Food slides right off.

Bake cookies for 9-12 minutes.  Remove to cooling racks and let them cool completely.

Now for the icing:
Orange Royal Icing
4 Tbsp meringue powder
scant 1/2 cup water
4 cups sifted powdered sugar
1/2 tsp light corn syrup
1/2 tsp orange extract

Combine meringue powder and water and beat until foamy (I used my Kitchenaid stand mixer, as I always do for icing.  SO much easier.)

Add the sifted powdered sugar and beat on low until combined.  Add in corn syrup and orange extract.

At med-high speed, beat for 5-10 minutes, until glossy and stiff.  It will be very stiff, but be careful not to overbeat.

Now comes the decorating!  This part was much more time consuming than I had really thought it would be.  I've done lots of decorating with buttercream before, but this was a lot different.

First, I separated the icing into the different colors I wanted.  We decided to make our butterflies yellow and pink, with green bodies and outlines.  So, since I would be doing outlining with the green, I left that nice and thick.  For the pink and the yellow, since I would be using them to "flood" the cookies, I thinned out using a little water at a time, until it was about the consistency of maple syrup (the real stuff!)

I was surprised at how light royal icing is.  Buttercream is very thick from the butter, but the royal icing is thick, but very light.

Once I had the icings separated and colored, I put them into a piping bag and squeeze bottles and set to work.  First, I did the outlining on the butterflies.

I let that dry for a little while (about 20 minutes) and then added the flood icing.  I neglected to take pictures of that part, but here is a good youtube video tutorial.  I added some dots and did some swirls and the munchkin helped a bit with it all.

They aren't perfect, but for my first time trying royal icing, I was pretty happy with how they turned out.  They took a long time, but on a rainy weekend, we had plenty of that.  I still like the taste of buttercream better, but these were interesting and the icing was neat to work with.  The flavor of the icing is pretty bland, but that let the orange flavor in the cookies really shine through.

St Patrick's Day Meringues

Sunday's lemon curd left me with six orphaned egg whites.  I thought about making an angel food cake, but then a friend suggested making meringues.  I haven't made them in ages,  but thought that it sounded like a good idea.  Meringues are so light and airy and they practically melt in your mouth.  If made correctly, the outsides are crisp and the insides are soft.  The recipe I used comes from The Joy Of Baking but they are all pretty similar.  And since St. Patrick's Day is right around the corner, I tinted them green.

Yum!

The recipe is pretty straightforward.  And I used double the amounts of everything because I had 6 egg whites to use and they were all in a bowl together.  So I now have a LOT of meringues.

Meringue Cookies:

3 large eggwhites 

1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

3/4 cup superfine or caster sugar (if you don't have superfine sugar simply take granulated white sugar and process it for about 30 seconds in a food processor)

1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 200 degrees F and place the rack in the center of the oven. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. You can form the cookies with a pastry bag fitted with a 1/2 inch (1.25 cm) plain tip, or just use two spoons to make the cookies.  To get the textured look on mine, I used a zip type storage bag, snipped a hole and added a large star tip.

A stand mixer is easiest for this, since it takes a while to whip the egg whites.  In the bowl of the electric mixer, with the whisk attachment, beat the egg whites on low-medium speed until foamy. Add the cream of tartar and continue to beat the whites until they hold soft peaks. Add the sugar, a little at a time, and continue to beat until the meringue holds very stiff peaks. Beat in the vanilla extract.  

Note: The meringue is done when it holds stiff peaks and when you rub a little between your thumb and index finger it does not feel gritty. If it feels gritty the sugar has not fully dissolved so keep beating until it feels smooth between your fingers.

Notice how it's standing up all on it's own?  That's a stiff peak.

Before placing the cookies on the cookie sheet, place a little of the meringue on the underside of each corner of the parchment paper. This will prevent the paper from sliding.  Transfer the meringue to a pastry bag fitted with a 1/2 inch tip. Pipe 2 1/2 inch rounds of meringue in rows on the prepared baking sheet.

My little helper

Bake the meringues for approximately 1 1/2 to1 3/4 hours, rotating the baking sheet from front to back (about half way through) to ensure even baking.  If the weather is damp, they may need a little longer in the oven.  The meringues are done when they are pale in color and fairly crisp. Turn off the oven, open the door a crack, and leave the meringues in the oven to finish drying overnight.

Ideally, they should be on one rack only, but I made a double batch and needed to get them all in the oven.

My almost 4 year old kept asking, all evening, can I have a cookie? Can I have a cookie?  He did manage to get his fair share of tastes of the meringue from the bowl, though.  These came out great and got the "kid stamp of approval" from him and the neighborhood kids.

I used the vanilla extract called for in the recipe, but I was thinking while I was making these how they would taste with other flavored extracts, like mint or almond.