Tuesday, January 20, 2009

TWD - Berry Surprise Cake

If you're here looking for a Berry Surprise Cake, I'm afraid you've stopped at the wrong blog. Surprise! I have no berries and I have no cake. I do, however, have my own adulterated version of Dorie's recipe on pages 273-275 (that's not a typo - the recipe took an entire 3 pages without a photo) of Baking: From My Home to Yours. You can also find the recipe on Mary Ann's blog "Meet Me in the Kitchen".
Dorie explains that her inspiration for this cake comes from a treat from her childhood called charlotte russe. Specifically the charlotte russe served in New York City bakeries that consisted of sponge cake, fruit or jam, and whipped cream. The treat was served in a cardboard cylinder with a round of cardboard on the bottom that you pushed up as you ate. Here's a link to a photo.

I knew from the get go that I wouldn't be using berries in this recipe because they are out of season. Even the frozen ones taste tart to me. I quickly decided on frozen mangoes and swapped out the Chambord used in the soaking syrup for Peach Schnapps. I was also strangely intrigued by the concept of cake as "street food" and after a few days mulling over the situation, I thought that I could make cupcakes in my king size baking pan and use tulip muffin wrappers so they would be portable. One problem - I can't find tulip muffin wrappers locally and to have them shipped by Tuesday would cost a fortune. I decided to give it a go with the regular muffin liners but that didn't work out so well ...
My cupcakes collapsed and while I could still dig out the cake with spoon and eat my concoction "street food style", it just wasn't what I wanted. I wanted the smooth sided tulip cups and nothing else would do! Late Saturday night I decided to try and make my own tulip cups out of parchment paper. To my surprise and delight - it worked! Now they are not nearly as perfectly pretty as the ones you can buy, but I think they suited my purposes!
The second time around, I paid closer attention to my eggs and I used superfine baker's sugar instead of regular sugar. I'm not sure if either change made a difference but I ended up with five beautiful king size genoise cupcakes! Here are some photos of the assembly process.

I love how these turned out! They taste fabulous and my mind is spinning with possibilities. How great would these be filled with ice cream at a kid's birthday party? Have I mentioned they're portable? And adorable. Check it out ...

My son could not squeeze one of my creations into his regularly scheduled diet of chicken nuggets and ketchup, but my official taste tester took one for a test drive and gave it a thumbs up. The wrapper really stayed together even while digging around with a spoon. I wanted to tape the loose ends together but ... uh ... nothing sticks to parchment paper ... the ribbon's cuter anyway! Here are a couple more photos of the cake unwrapped and cut in half.

Please check out the rest of TWD group to see how they handled this weeks challenge.

25 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow! Good for you for giving it a go again when it didn't work out with the regular cupcake liners AND making your own tulip wrappers. They're very cute, by the way. Mangoes sound yummy.

Megan said...

Wow - talk about creative! I love it!

vibi said...

A very, very yummy creation, Kimberly!
...and the presentation is simply tooooooo cute! Very sweet!

Danielle said...

I love the cupcake idea! Great job

Anonymous said...

fabulous!! Simply...fabulous!

Flourchild said...

I love your idea..very creative. I can just vision how these must have tasted. They look so good.

Peggy said...

Wow - that's impressive. They are so cute!

Sabrina said...

I think you improvised beautifully! Nice job!

betty geek said...

Yay for cupcakes!

kimberly salem said...

i love that parchment wrapper! so creative, and it looks really beautiful with the ribbon. and that mango sounds delicious :)

Kimberly said...

Yummmmmm! Love your variation on the theme. It sounds delicious!

Thanks so much for dropping by and commenting!

Jessica said...

Wow! I love the way it looks with the parchment and the ribbon -- so sophisticated.

Unknown said...

How sweet and creative. I agree with pinkstripes I think it is awesome that you stuck with it. Good turn out.

chocolatechic said...

Looks wonderful.

I almost made cupcakes.

The Unrepentant Carbivore said...

love your interpretation, and the mangoes sound wonderful!

MacDuff said...

Oh my gosh, I am DYING over your little tulip wrappers! You should do a complete posting on how to make those (for those of us who do not cut and paste well with others...).

This is a great idea, and I'm so psyched that it worked out for you. You definitely make me want to give it another try. Thank you!

And your little boy and the chicken nuggets? So, so adorable. Have you tried those vegetarian hot dogs by Quorn? Those are also fabulous kid food.

Banjo said...

Great idea turning them into cupcakes! Love it.. Well done :)

margot said...

Lovely presentation!

NaTy said...

very cute and imaginative kimberly!
i love the "portable" feature :)
-Erin @ glutenfreewithapurpose

natalia said...

Ciao ! Thanks for visiting !! I love your portable tulips ! (I've never seen the real stuff but your certainly worked so well !!

dharmagirl said...

excellent! your presentation is clever and so inviting--i would love to eat one of these on the go:)

Cooking for Comfort by Jennifer said...

I absolutely LOVE your creation! You did an AMAZING job!!!!

The Food Librarian said...

So creative and cute!!!

Fit Chick said...

Cupcakes! Great idea and glad you liked them. I think a sunken center is just part of this kind of cake.

Unknown said...

Oh my...those look amazing. Your first attempt looks much like mine did - only you persevered and tried again. I can't believe your son wouldn't try one.