Perfect (insert anything here) cake: Daring Baker’s March Challenge

My first Daring Baker’s challenge, completed!!! March’s challenge, chosen by Morven from Food Art and Random Thoughts, was Dorie Greenspan’s Perfect Party Cake. It is from Dorie’s book: Baking From My Home to Yours, which I don’t have but will probably get soon now that I’ve made this cake. (Also because everyone seems to be raving about it!)

Styled shot: the cake at it’s sexiest

The cake has four layers of moist, lemon scented layers that are dense enough to satisfy a serious cake eater but light enough to be appropriate in a layer cake (only one stick of butter is used in the cake recipe). Dorie suggests using raspberry jam and lemon curd between the layers, which I think would be delicious, but I strayed a little and used grapefruit curd and strawberry jam instead. I also made kind of a mousse out of ricotta and fresh whipped cream and put that between the layers as well to give the cake a bit more height and deliciousness.

cooling

The result was interesting (in a wonderful way). Because of the ricotta, the cake tasted subtly Italian, although no one could really figure out why until I told them about the ricotta. The grapefruit curd had a similar effect. Although no one could identify grapefruit as one of the ingredients, the cake was a bit softer in flavor than I think it would have been had I used lemon. I was really happy with the result and would definitely make this cake again. I’m also looking forward to trying different flavor combinations. Check out what all the other Daring Bakers did with this challenge here!

On the Easter table

Tags: cake, Daring Bakers, dorie greenspan