Have your cake recipe and bake it, too?

February 20, 2009 3:35 PM

Calling all bakers! On the look-out for fabulous, creative and complicated cake recipes.

Baking has been a long-time passion of mine, since a very young age, and I have since become the resident cake-baker for my immediate family and friends. Simply put, I love a challenging, unusual recipe, or a cake I haven't made before, or incorporate interesting ingredients or flavors. I also love the opportunity to showcase or try out new techniques--meringues, mousses, syrups, curds--and I really go *all out* for a cake I'm baking (always special occasion, as an everyday cake should be simpler, IMO).

That said, I am exhausting my resources. While there are some great search engines out there (and I did indeed comb through over 100 pages on epicurious to find recipes that "called" to me), my eyes glaze over after montonous clicking. So here's what I'm looking for:

Anything delicious, anything "special", anything you wouldn't normally make or easily get in a bakery. I like to bake cakes that have a lot of components--an interesting filling and frosting, and of course a delicious cake recipe itself--so any suggestions for recipes that will in one way or another be involved in a completed cake are welcome.

I am most interested in layer cakes, as I make layer cakes for birthdays exclusively. It's traditional, and expected. I'm also less interested in recipes for chocolate cake, unless they are absolutely divine. The cake I'm currently scouting will be for my mother, and should be both rich and light and involve fresh ingredients, but that's the only "requirement". Since I can't really search for an ingredient, browsing recipe engines is a daunting tasks.

So, faithful MeFites, please shower me with delicious cake recipes! Anything goes, truly, and I'd especially appreciate anything "foreign" or otherwise unusual. I know this is a broad question, but may it become a treasure of useful delights.

posted by nonmerci to food & drink (31 comments total)

A recent post on the blue got me thinking about Sans Rival, which is hella complex even if you have a Kitchenaid, and kind of scares me.
posted by Juliet Banana at 3:40 PM on February 20

Some recipes from the always excellent Smitten Kitchen:

Caramel Walnut Upside Down Cake: involves candy-making, which is tricky

Pistachio Petit-Four Cake: fancy layers!

Strawberry Chiffon Shortcake: this gorgeous cake is anything but short
posted by Juliet Banana at 3:51 PM on February 20

If you are badass enough of a baker to deal with metric weight measures, I've always wanted to try this Nutella Cake.


Tres Leches is my favorite cake of all time; exotic, foreign,* and can be layered with whatever fresh fruit is in season.

Last post, I swear.
posted by Juliet Banana at 3:55 PM on February 20

Have you really mastered the Red Velvet Cake? Recipes are plentiful and range from the basic to the cryptic, and in my experience even a casual tasting will reveal the difference between an excellent cake and mediocre attempt, ignoring the common red dyed cake mix recipes.
posted by Science! at 3:56 PM on February 20

How about Princess Cake, a Swedish cake. It is delicious, and "foreign" :) Swedish friends of mine complain that the versions of Princess Cake served here (in the US) are not quite right, since the cream on top shouldn't be so sweet. Anyway, it involves lots of pre-prep and a somewhat complicated assembly. And the end result is yummy!
posted by Joh at 3:56 PM on February 20

Like something interesting and "classic"? How about Dobos torte?
posted by gimonca at 4:17 PM on February 20

I had Princess Cake for *my* birthday! And it is simply divine...I would have liked to bake it myself but my mother shooed me out of the kitchen each time I tried to hover and dispense advice...

Thanks for the suggestions, everyone! Please keep 'em coming.
posted by nonmerci at 4:53 PM on February 20

Lots of great cakes in Carole Walter's Great Cakes, probably my favorite cake book.

I love the challenge of baking a cake from scratch. Tastes so much better than a mix. Nice to know I'm not alone!

Not exactly a cake, but maybe a croque-monsieur (sp?) would be a fun challenge? You know what I mean, one of those big French spun-caramel cream-puff monkey-bread-like monstrosities.
posted by Sublimity at 4:58 PM on February 20

seconding the cakes on Smitten Kitchen. she did a wedding cake a while ago that was VERY complicated but seemed like it would work for other occasions.
posted by bluesky43 at 4:59 PM on February 20

My husband swears by The Cake Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum.
posted by gudrun at 5:10 PM on February 20

Marcel Desaulniers' books (Death by Chocolate, etc.) are just awesome for bakers that need really challenging cakes. Every recipe works, but none are easy.
posted by elpiconeroalcognac at 5:17 PM on February 20

Oops, I missed the "not interested in chocolate cake" part (re: Marcel Desaulniers), so then I'd have to suggest Desserts by Pierre Hermé. Tons of really interesting cakes in this book and the entire first part of the book shows how to make the components of each (so you can come up with your very own).
posted by elpiconeroalcognac at 5:21 PM on February 20

I was just going to recommend Desserts by Pierre Hermé. Complicated, multi-component, time-consuming, elegant, and very impressive-looking.
posted by iona at 5:47 PM on February 20

Do you have Dorie Greenspan's Baking From My Home To Yours? Lots of good stuff in there!
posted by geeky at 5:53 PM on February 20

My husband recently came home from the Armenian market with a large jar of fig preserves and challenged me to make something of it. Googling revealed this ingredient is almost exclusively used in a buttermilk fruit and nut cake. I used this recipe and the results were truly stunning, moist, complex and delicious. It's not an especially complicated recipe, but an unusual one and worth the bother.
posted by Scram at 5:57 PM on February 20

The best cake I ever made was Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake.

It was moist and fluffy and chocolatey and thoroughly delicious. But do not do what, ahem, 'a friend' did and grab a jar of mayonnaise without looking at the label, because it does not taste quite as good if you use Garlic Mayo.
posted by essexjan at 6:18 PM on February 20

I don't have a recipe, but ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, his majesty, The King of Cakes.
posted by clockwork at 6:24 PM on February 20

You're not looking for much chocolate, but this Chocolate Pistachio Cake from Flo Braker is heavy on the pistachios, less so on the chocolate. It's delicious, elegant and a bit tricky and thus fits your bill. The pistachio bavarian cream is beyond heavenly.
posted by killy willy at 6:46 PM on February 20

Also, Flo Braker's The Simple Art of Perfect Baking has scads of recipes that you will love making, sharing and eating. Have fun!
posted by killy willy at 6:47 PM on February 20

My favorite childhood cake was one my mom called "Danish Layer Cake." A quick search led to these recipes, among others. It was at least 4 layers, with alternating filings of vanilla custard and seedless raspberry jam. I don't have Mom's recipe and can't vouch for your success with these ones. I'd start by trying the one that uses potato flour, as that detail rings a bell. At any rate, it's fab.
posted by Stewriffic at 6:50 PM on February 20

Sublimity, I think you're thinking of a croquembouche. A tower of shiny glazed cream puffs, wrapped in a cloud of spun sugar.
posted by killy willy at 6:53 PM on February 20

Recently I found a reference to an old 1930s Betty Crocker recipe for the unfortunately-named Gold-N-Sno Cake. It sounded so good I had to try to find the actual recipe for the cake. I posted about my search here (self-link, obviously). The cake turned out to be amazing. I highly recommend it. Disregard the picture I posted in the results post -- it looks bad because we ran out of frosting. It tasted great even though it looked funny!
posted by litlnemo at 7:40 PM on February 20

Pavlova. The recipe might not work at any given time you try it, because it might be too humid. Pavlova is a fickle beast, perhaps its namesake was too! Ignore the topping part of the recipe I posted ( the topping is the whipped cream and fruit at the bottom of the recipe) - my favourite is to macerate strawberries, raspberries and blackberries in sugar, then pour the juice from the berries over the hardened meringue, then layer the whipped cream on top, then layer the macerated fruit on top of the cream. If there is any holes in the top of the meringue (and there should be at least a couple) you get the sweet berry juice dripping through the meringue in stripes and then the cream and berries on top and, well, YUM.
posted by goo at 7:48 PM on February 20

Try making a Puzzle Cake. I don't have a recipe, but here is a link with a book reference and there's a pretty good description of the process. It's straight forward and looks impressive.

Another variation that I've done which is easy is to make two layers, chocolate and white. Split the layers and alternate them, gluing together with frosting. Then make a concentric circular cut all the way through and remove the center core. Flip the center core upside down, then cut out another center core, this time halfway in. Pull the small core out, flip it and put it back. Then put the large core back into the original.

When you cut the cake, you will have a checkerboard.
posted by plinth at 8:10 PM on February 20

Have you done a layer cake search on the home cooking boards on chowhound.com? That's my current favorite cooking discussion boards....some fabulous chefs there that really know their stuff, and rarely have steered me wrong.
posted by purenitrous at 8:33 PM on February 20

My girlfriend made my mother this awesome beehive-shaped honey cake (with marzipan bees!) for her birthday last summer. I think the mold is available from Williams-Sonoma.
posted by nicwolff at 10:03 PM on February 20

This Fourteen Layer Cake caught my eye last week. I'm a big fan of making WOAH!-factor cakes, and I have fantasies of making the number of layers match the number of years in the birthday for members of my family. How freaking cool would that be? The really great part of this, is if you slather it with frosting like Bakearella does, no one knows it's going to be so complex until you cut it.
posted by lottie at 12:59 AM on February 21

How about this awesome looking Chocolate Peanut butter cake.

Or a Smith Island Cake.

posted by JonnyRotten at 1:19 AM on February 21

What about Norwegian Kvæfjordkake? Not super-advanced, but I don't know if you have anything similar, so it might be exotic.
posted by Harald74 at 2:22 AM on February 21

These suggestions are wonderful, thank you all so much! I'm especially excited by these cake books, if only because who doesn't love a good cookbook? Kvaefjordkake looks delicious, as does the fig preserve cake (though it's a bundt pan number) and the Pavlova...I'm not really looking for a meringue-based 'cake' this time around, but these are definitely recipes I'd love to try. The Danish Layer Cake seems a lot like Princess Cake without the marzipan cover, not that it wouldn't still be delicious!
posted by nonmerci at 9:10 AM on February 21

Look around on tastespotting.
posted by knile at 10:44 AM on February 21