Monday, May 21, 2012

Brown Butter Pink Ombre Daisy Cake with Strawberry Jam

Brown Butter Pink Ombre Daisy Cake with Strawberry Jam
That title is a bit of a mouthful, I know. But I needed you to know that this is a delicious brown butter cake. Filled with strawberry jam. And it's covered in cream cheese icing piped to look like white daisies. And it's pink on the outside. And ombré! I guess I couldn't help packing lots of my favourite things into one cake. The wordy post title was unavoidable. This cake needed to happen as soon as I thought of it. Dreamt of it actually. I woke up at 4 in the morning with the image of this cake in my mind. I had to make it!
Brown Butter Pink Ombre Daisy Cake with Strawberry Jam
I was in no small way inspired by the mind-blowingly stunning flower cakes that I saw on i am baker (see her hydrangea cake, rose cake, and daffodil cake). I am the first to admit that I completely suck at piping. My attempt at white daisies is not even in the same league. But it will have to do. This weekend was A's sister's birthday and it was the perfect excuse to attempt this cake. She loves cheesecakes so I thought a cream cheese icing would be perfect for this cake. I've been dying to do an ombré icing on the outside of a cake ever since seeing this cake from Apt. 2B Baking Co., followed by Lisa's awesome purple & chocolate version. Originally I was going to use strawberry jam to tint the icing pink, but it made the icing really runny with hardly any colour or added flavour so I gave up and used natural food colouring instead. For the record, I think it's 100 times easier doing ombré icing on a cake than it is to do ombré cake layers and I will definitely be doing it again.
Brown Butter Pink Ombre Daisy Cake with Strawberry Jam
I tried to keep the icing layer really thin so it wasn't too rich or sweet. I really didn't want the icing to overwhelm the flavour of the three layers of beautiful brown butter cake. The smell of brown butter being whipped up with sugar and vanilla bean is unbelievably mouth-watering. The cake batter tasted so divine that I knew this cake would be a winner before I even baked it. The combination of the nutty-flavoured brown butter with the strawberry jam and creamy icing is out of this world.
Brown Butter Pink Ombre Daisy Cake with Strawberry Jam
I know the daisies don't look exactly right, but they're close enough for me. I know you could easily shape flowers using gum paste but I liked the challenge of attempting it with icing. I was just happy to get something that even remotely resembled flowers. I was praying not to end up with a cake that looked like the icing had been flung on to the top of it by a crazed monkey. So...I think, mission accomplished? The easiest way for me to make a petal shape was to piped a blob of icing and then smear the middle of it in a line using a small spatula. I definitely made my petals a bit too indented for daisy petals, but I've never been very coordinated so I didn't have much control over that. And I cheated and used yellow skittles for the centres of the daisies. I really love white daisies, I may have mentioned that before. So I hope you can understand why I didn't have the heart to cut into the top of the cake to give you an innards shot. I just couldn't bring myself to mess up the top of the cake before I got to present it to the birthday girl. Hopefully it will be okay!

Edit: If you realllllyyy want to see the inside you can check out the dodgy Instagram shot I got of the cake while we were demolishing it. It disappeared fast!
Brown Butter Pink Ombre Daisy Cake with Strawberry Jam
Brown Butter Layer Cake with Strawberry Jam & Pink Ombré Daisy Cream Cheese Icing
(makes a three-layer 17cm cake, brown butter cake recipe from Food & Wine)
For the cake:
340g (12oz/3 sticks) unsalted butter, plus more for greasing the pans
285g (2 1/4 cups) plain/all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
2 1/4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
370g (1 2/3 cups) sugar
1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped, or 1 tsp vanilla bean paste or pure vanilla extract
3 large egg yolks
2 large eggs
1 1/4 cups milk, at room temperature
About 1/2 cup strawberry jam for spreading

For the cream cheese icing:
500g (about 17.6 oz) cream cheese, chopped
250g (about 8.8 oz) unsalted butter, chopped
3 cups icing sugar, sifted
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
Optional: natural pink food colour
Yellow skittles, to decorate

In a medium saucepan, melt butter for cake. Cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, until foamy, about 5 minutes. Continue to cook, stirring frequently, until the milk solids turn brown and the butter smells nutty, about 4 minutes longer. Scrape the melted butter and browned bits into a large heatproof bowl. Set the bowl in an ice water bath until the butter hardens. Alternatively do what I did and prep the butter ahead of time and chill in the fridge.

Preheat the oven to 165°C (325°F). Butter two or three 17cm cake pans and line the bottoms of the pans with baking paper. (I only had one so I had to bake each cake separately, which did cause the later cakes to be less high but it still turned out okay) Butter the paper and dust the pans with flour, tapping out the excess. Whisk the 2  1/4 cups of all-purpose flour with the baking powder and salt in a medium bowl and set aside. Scrape set brown butter in a large mixing bowl and beat with an electric mixer on high until creamy. Add the sugar and vanilla seeds and beat at medium-high speed until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Beat in the egg yolks followed by the whole eggs. Beat in the dry ingredients and milk in 3 alternating additions, scraping down the side and bottom of the bowl as necessary. Pour the cake batter into the prepared pans and bake in the center of the oven for about 30mins if doing three layers, closer to 40 minutes if only making two, rotating the pans halfway through baking, until the cakes are golden and a toothpick inserted in the centers comes out clean. Cool the cakes in the pans for 10 minutes, then invert them onto a rack to let them cool completely. Peel off the parchment paper.
Brown Butter Pink Ombre Daisy Cake with Strawberry Jam
Remove butter and cream cheese from the fridge 30 mins before starting icing. Place butter in a large mixing bowl and beat butter with an electric mixer on high until smooth and fluffy. Add cream cheese and beat until combined and smooth. With the mixer on low, gradually add icing sugar, add vanilla and increase to high. Beat until light and fluffy. If doing ombré icing, take about 1/3 of the icing, split that icing into two separate bowls and tint one bowl light pink and one bowl a darker pink. Trim any uneven tops off the cake layers. If filling cake with strawberry jam, whisk jam to remove lumps and sandwich between cake layers. Using the white cream cheese icing, crumb coat outside of cake. Chill in fridge for at least 15 mins.

Starting at the bottom, spread the dark pink icing over the bottom third of the cake using an offset spatula. Do the same for the middle third of the cake using the lighter pink icing, blending the two colours where they meet. Spread white icing over the top third of the cake and smooth with spatula. If piping daisies, place leftover white icing in a piping bag with a 0.5cm round tip. Pipe 5cm rings of 1cm dots of icing and then use the tip of a mini spatula or a chopstick to smear each dot of icing to make the petals. Place a yellow skittle in the centre of each piped flower. Chill in the fridge for at least an hour. Remove from the fridge 30 mins before serving. Can be stored in the fridge for a couple of days.
Brown Butter Pink Ombre Daisy Cake with Strawberry Jam
Print Friendly and PDF Pin It

41 comments:

  1. omg i totally would not have known they were skittles haha awesome! loving the idea of brown butter mmm why must you torture me so early in the morning

    ReplyDelete
  2. So pretty! Love the ombre effect on this cake

    ReplyDelete
  3. Love the ombre icing and I think the daisies look great!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Gorgeous ombre effect. Im obsessed with ombre on Pinterest at the moment.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Brown butter sounds so good for a cake! Love the ombre icing. It looks so perfect! And the flowers are so adorable! I like the idea of it being frosting as opposed to fondant. so purdyyyy

    ReplyDelete
  6. i dont think your piping skills suck, simply cos this is gorgeous! and brown butter, yum! been wanting to try a brown butter cake and this looks the one!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Rofl nothing worse than monkey-flung poo blobs of icing on a cake! Oh Steph, the prettiness here is blinding and seriously, is there anything better than brown butter anything?

    ReplyDelete
  8. WOW that looks so beautiful!!! I'm ashamed to say i've never tried brown butter but it sounds amazing!

    ReplyDelete
  9. wow, awesome cake steph!!! i think the daisies look perfect =)

    ReplyDelete
  10. Your cake really looks awesome!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Such a cute cake! I love the ombre icing! x

    ReplyDelete
  12. Not only does this cake look a-mazing, it's made with brown butter! Once again you've pulled it out the bag in spectacular style :-)

    ReplyDelete
  13. oh, just looking at the pictures makes my mouth water! everything you bake is so beautiful :)

    ReplyDelete
  14. Your cake is breathtaking in my opinion. So lovely. I don't like the hyper realistic, over decorated cakes anyway. I will always choose something that looks like it was made with love and little imperfections add charm. If I were not dieting I would make this today! As it is, I'll have to see who's birthday is coming up!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  15. I think your daisies are adorable.

    ReplyDelete
  16. This cake is so stunning you could post it on a fashion blog. It could inspire a pink and white ombre dress with a trim of daisies. I took a peek at your inside shot and was so impressed with your even layers. Can't wait to try this brown butter cake!

    ReplyDelete
  17. Brown Butter cake OMG this recipe sounds fantastic. You icing is cool and your daisys beautiful.

    ReplyDelete
  18. This cake is gorgeous! What are you talking about 'bad piping skills'... it really looks amazing.

    And the flavors, oh my! This is an absolute must-try for me. Thank you so much for sharing! :D

    ReplyDelete
  19. Perfect for sweet sixteen party or a bridal shower...Shows the delicate femininity of girls. Creativity is of course exemplified in this lovely cake. Yummy too!

    ReplyDelete
  20. What an amazingly beautiful cake and so girly! Those daisies just look amazing!!

    ReplyDelete
  21. What a great idea!! I love the ombre frosting, and your daisies look great!!

    ReplyDelete
  22. Oh my goodness, this is amazing! The ombre technique is so versatile too! You could do it for any type of cake, just to dress it up a bit!

    ReplyDelete
  23. Anywhere it says 'brown butter' in a dessert recipe and you can count me in! I haven't seen the ombre effect before, how beautiful!! Thank you so much for sharing <3


    Now.....who can I bake for this weekend?????

    ReplyDelete
  24. Wow, what a beautiful, beautiful creation. I beg to differ about your piping skills - they are more than fine! This is a stunner.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Thanks for sharing on how to pipe the daisy, next time i can try for Birthday cake.

    ReplyDelete
  26. Adorable! I'm not sure my cake would turn out so beautiful. I'm jealous:-)

    ReplyDelete
  27. I love the idea of this cake so much that it may have usurped my other plans for my birthday cake next month! It sounds just delicious.

    I don't care much for cream cheese frosting, though. What would you recommend in lieu of that?

    ReplyDelete
  28. I can't even begin to describe how excited I am about that cake being covered in cream cheese frosting... And it had never occurred to me to pipe with it - so pretty! Will have to give it a try some time :)

    ReplyDelete
  29. Woah! I love the ombre on this, I really want to try a glitter ombre cake for my 21st. I think i'll be making many glitter ombre prototypes before then. Everyone has already said this but the piping skills are pretty darn good, I love when cake gets eaten so fast you can't take snaps, it's always a good sign.

    ReplyDelete
  30. I love the daisies and I think they look like daisies too! I'd have used a petal tip but your way seems much easier! A gorgeous gorgeous cake!

    ReplyDelete
  31. omgg!!! yumm!!kragslife.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  32. This Cake is Gorgeous~ I ♥ the Ombre Icing and the Daisies are Perfect~

    ReplyDelete
  33. I would like to use this recipe for a 3 layer cake, using 9" round pans. Do you think it will work out if I double the recipe? This recipe looks great.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes doubling should work! You may have to adjust the baking times obviously. Good luck!

      Delete
  34. I love all your cake ideas! Hello from the Philippines!

    ReplyDelete

Comments are moderated and will be published ASAP. If you are viewing this on your phone, you might have to click the Preview button before posting your comment for it to work. People who comment make my day! ♥