Champagne Cake With Strawberry French Buttercream
It is Project Pastry Love’s birthday today! I published my first post on April 12, 2014. My mom always tells me and my siblings the story of how we were born on our birthdays, so here’s PPL’s story… Project Pastry Love was born prematurely. I had been in the middle of working on my post and hit the publish button by mistake. Before I knew it, Project Pastry Love was in my arms, screaming like a baby, and naked for all the world to see. She’s a good sleeper, she’s talking up a storm, and she’s ruining my diet. I made a champagne cake with strawberry French buttercream for this special occasion.
I’m currently focusing on buttercream, and today I learned how to make a French buttercream. French buttercream is velvety in texture and rich in flavor. I love it! This champagne cake is dense, buttery, and has slight tangy taste. It’s pairs very nicely with the strawberry French buttercream. I found the cake recipe on the wonderful blog Lovely Layer Cakes.
The process of making French buttercream is similar to Italian buttercream. The only difference is that egg whites are used in Italian buttercream, and egg yolks or whole eggs are used in French buttercream. Here’s how it’s done… First, heat sugar and water together until it reaches 236 degrees F.
Once the sugar/water mixture comes to the right temperature, remove it from the heat. In a standing mixture, whip the eggs until they become thick, pale, and drip off of the whisk in thin ribbons.
While the mixer is running, slowly pour the hot sugar/water mixture down the side of the bowl. This should take 2 to 3 minutes to complete.
The sugar/egg mixture is called pate a bombe, and will be added to a horrendous amount of softened butter.
Pour the pate a bombe into a large bowl and allow it to cool completely. Clean and dry the mixer bowl and add the butter. Beat the butter until smooth. Then, slowly add the cooled pate a bombe, a little at a time, while the mixer is running.
Mix in your flavorings. In this case, I added vanilla extract, and crushed strawberries. I also divided up the buttercream. Three-fourths were set aside to frost the cake, and the rest was used to decorate with. I added red food coloring to the larger amount of buttercream to create a light pink color. For tips on frosting a cake click here.
- 1 cup (two sticks or 224 g) Unsalted Butter
- 1 cup Champagne or Prosecco
- 1 cup (125 g) All-Purpose Flour
- 1 cup (113 g) Cake Flour
- 1 3/4 cups(249 g) Sugar
- 1 tsp. Salt
- 1 tsp. Baking Soda
- 2 Large Eggs
- 1/2 cup Sour Cream
- 2 tsp. Pure Vanilla Extract
- 2 cups (398 g) Sugar
- 1/2 cup of Water
- 3 Large Eggs, at room temperature
- 1 and 1/4 pounds Unsalted Butter, at room temperature
- 1 tsp. Vanilla Extract
- 1/2 cups (127 g) Strawberries, hulled and crushed
- Food coloring
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter two 8-inch round pans (or three 6-inch). Line the bottoms of the pans with parchment paper.
- In a medium bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking soda and salt. In a separate bowl, mix together the eggs, sour cream, and vanilla extract.
- In a large saucepan, melt butter on medium heat.
- Increase heat to medium-high and whisk in champagne. Bring mixture just to a boil.
- Remove from heat and quickly stir in dry ingredients, followed by egg mixture. Stir until ingredients are completely combined, but do not over mix.
- Divide batter evenly between prepared cake pans.
- Bake at 350 degrees F for 25-30 minutes or until cake tester comes out clean and tops spring back when lightly pressed.
- Cool in pans for 5 minutes and then carefully run a knife around the edge of each pan. Let cool in pans 15 more minutes before turning out onto racks.
- Cool completely before frosting.
- To make the sugar syrup, combine the 2 cups of sugar and 1/2 cup of water in a saucepan and heat over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until it starts to boil. When the mixture boils, put the lid on the pot for 2 minutes. Fill a small bowl with water and have your pastry brush nearby. Once the saucepan is uncovered, brush the insides with water to wash away the sugar crystals. This is particularly important for decorating purposes so that you do not end up with pieces of sugar clogging your decorating tubes.
- Allow the syrup to reach 236 degrees F. using a candy thermometer to determine this.
- When your syrup has reached the proper temperature remove it from the heat and cover it. Set aside. Have your eggs ready in a bowl fitted to an electric mixer. Beat the eggs until they are pale and fall off of the whisk like a thin ribbon, then slowly add the hot sugar syrup. The syrup must be added slowly so as to gradually heat the eggs, avoiding the unpleasantness of chewy bits of candied scrambled egg in your frosting.
- The egg and sugar syrup mixture, pate a bombe, has to cool to room temperature before it is added to the butter. Just allow it to cool in or out of the refrigerator. Cover the mixture with plastic wrap to prevent it forming a sugar crust.
- When the pate a bombe is cool and you are ready to make buttercream, place the room temperature butter into a bowl fitted to an electric mixer. Beat the butter until smooth, then gradually add the pate a bombe until completely absorbed. Add the vanilla, and strawberries and mix until combined.
- For frosting the cake, the buttercream can be quite soft and somewhat airy; for decorating you'll probably want it a bit firmer. Beating the buttercream longer will usually make it whiter and fluffier.
- Electric mixer
- Two 8-inch round cake pans or three 6-inch round cake pans
- Candy thermometer
- Pastry bursh
- Off-set spatula (for frosting the cake)
- Parchment paper
