Princess Cake
I made a Princess Cake this week. It was another big endeavor that rivaled even the Esterhazey Cake and Sacher Torte. The hardest part for me was making the genoise cake layers. I just couldn’t get them to rise properly. It was maddening. Genoise is a sponge cake that is leavened by the air that has been trapped when whipped into the egg/sugar mixture. You must then carefully and gently fold in the remaining ingredients so as not to deflate the batter. If done properly, it will rise nicely and the texture will be “light as air”.
A Princess Cake is composed of three rum- flavored, sugar syrup-soaked genoise layers. Slathered in between these layers are berry jam, pastry cream, and whipped cream. It is covered with a light green marzipan fondant, and adorned with a pink marzipan rose. It’s a delicious show stopper cake- even if you screw it up, which is what I did.
Let’s work on the genoise, since this is the hardest part of the process. First, you must whip together the eggs and sugar until it triples in volume and it forms ribbons.
While the egg mixture is being whisked, sift your dry ingredients into a medium-sized bowl. Also, melt your butter in a saucepan over medium heat, keeping it on the burner until it reaches a light brown color.
Take about a cup of your foamed egg mixture and whisk it into the butter. Then carefully fold this butter mixture back into the whipped eggs and sugar.
Then fold in the dry ingredients. Do this quickly, but carefully, so as not to deflate the batter. Good luck. This is what tripped me up.
Bake at 375 degrees F for 25 to 30 minutes. Now, I’m going to give it to you straight… this cake should have been about 2 inches higher, and I was supposed to have sliced it horizontally. What I ended up doing was making two more genoise cakes, and using that to create my 3-layered princess cake. You win this round, Genoise, but i’m not done with you yet!
yum
Here’s how I made the rose!
- 1 recipe for Genoise Layer Cake (see below)
- 1 recipe for Sugar Syrup (see below)
- 1/3 cup Berry Jam
- 1 recipe for Whipped Cream (see below)
- 1 recipe for Pastry Cream (see below)
- Marzipan decoration (see below)
- 5 Large Eggs
- 3/4 cup (166 g) Sugar
- 2 TBS (30 g) Unsalted Butter
- 1 tsp. Pure Vanilla Extract
- 1 cup (100 g) Cake Flour, sifted
- 1/2 cup Water
- 1/4 cup (50 g) Sugar
- 2 TBS Myers's Dark Rum
- 3/4 cups Half & Half
- 2 TBS (18 g) Cornstarch
- 1/4 cup (51 g) Sugar
- 2 Large Egg Yolks, at room temperature
- 1/2 tsp. Pure Vanilla Extract
- 3 cups (709 ml) Cream
- 3 TBS Sugar
- 1 TBS Pure Vanilla Extract
- 3 packages (618 g) Marzipan
- Food Colors (red and green or any colors you'd like!)
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Butter, flour and line two 9-inch-diameter x 1 1/2 inch-deep pans with parchment paper.
- Bring saucepan of water to a boil. Using a whisk, stir the eggs in the bowl of a mixer fitted with the whip attachment. Whisk in the sugar. Place the mixer bowl over the saucepan of boiling water. To prevent the eggs from cooking, use your hand like a whisk to stir the mixture continuously until it feels quite warm. When warm, immediately remove the bowl from the heat, place on the mixer, and start whipping on high speed for 2 minutes. Then set to medium speed and whip for an additional 10 minutes.
- While the eggs are whipping, melt the butter and heat until lightly browned. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla extract. Set aside, but keep warm.
- Place the flour in the sifter and set aside. The egg mixture is ready when the eggs have just cooled and at least tripled in volume. When you lift the whip out of the bowl, the batter should fall off the whip in ribbons. Take a generous cup of the egg mixture and whisk it into the butter and vanilla. Slowly pour the butter mixture back into egg mixture in a circular motion. With a rubber spatula, gently fold together until none of the darker butter mixture is visible. Sift the flour over the egg/butter mixture. Gently fold in the flour using the rubber spatula. You will hear the batter crunch if you are too rough.
- Carefully pour the batter into the prepared pans; pour 1/3 of the batter into one pan, and the remaining 2/3 into the other. Set the cake pans on a baking sheet and immediately place on the center rack of the oven. Bake for about 20 minutes and wait to open the oven until the cake have baked at least 15 minutes or it may fall. The cakes are done when it just starts to pull away from the sides of the pan.
- Allow the cakes to cool on a rack. After they've cooled, run the tip of a knife around the edge of the cakes to loosen them from the pans and remove. Using a long serrated knife, slice the larger cake into 1/2-inch thick disks.
- Place a 10-inch springform pan without a bottom on a 12-inch cake board. Place 1 layer of the sponge cake on the bottom, and generously brush with the syrup. Spread the jam evenly over the syrup and place a second layer of sponge cake on top of the jam. Brush with syrup and spread the prepared pastry cream on this layer. Top with a third layer of sponge cake and again, brush with the syrup. Using your hands, press lightly on the cake to ensure cake is level. Refrigerate for 1 hour.
- Remove the springform mold from the cake and generously frost the sides with the reserved whipped cream. Pour the remaining whipped cream directly on the center of the top of the cake and using a spatula, make a mound, working from the center out. The height of the whipped cream should be approximately 1 1/2-inches in the center and about 1/2-inch on the edges.
- Dust a work surface again with confectioners' sugar and roll the light green marzipan to a 1/10-inch thick circle, using as much confectioners' sugar as necessary during rolling to prevent the marzipan from sticking to the work surface. When you're finished rolling, marzipan should be stretched enough to cover the entire cake and sides. Roll marzipan on rolling pin and gently lay it down on top of the cake, smoothing out the dome and lightly pressing on the bottom edges of the cake to form a perfect dome. Decorate with leftover marzipan, making a braided border on the edge of the cake or simply dust the entire cake with confectioners' sugar.
- Bring the milk to a simmer in a medium saucepan. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla extract. Whisk the eggs, cornstarch, sugar, and salt in a bowl until smooth. Add half of the milk into the bowl containing the eggs, whisking constantly, then return the mixture to the saucepan containing the remaining milk, whisking over moderate heat. Continue whisking until the mixture is thickened and begins to simmer. Allow cream filling to simmer, whisking for an additional 2 minutes. Transfer into another bowl, cover with plastic wrap (make sure it touches surface of pastry cream) and allow to cool completely.
- Whisk heavy cream with sugar until it is firm and holds its shape, being careful not to over whip. Fold one-fifth of the cream into the cooled pastry cream and refrigerate, covered, until chilled (approximately 1 hour). Reserve the remaining whipped cream in the refrigerator, covered.
- Bring water and sugar to a boil in a medium saucepan, remove from heat and stir in rum. Allow to cool.
- Color a walnut size piece of marzipan with the green food coloring coloring until the marzipan is dark green. Reserve. Using a sifter or a fine mesh strainer, dust a scrupulously clean work surface with confectioners' sugar. Tear off a pea-sized piece of green marzipan and knead it with 550 grams of the marzipan until it is uniform in color. Add additional pieces from the green marzipan until it achieves a light green color (it should be the color of a Granny Smith apple). Use the leftover deep green marzipan to make 3 flower petals.
- To make the marzipan rose, tear off a pea-sized piece of the remaining plain marzipan and color with red food coloring. Knead in the dark red piece of marzipan with the rest of the remaining until it becomes pink and uniform. Roll out into a 8-inch circle and using a small circle cutter, cut out 5 small circles. Take one and roll it up. That is the center of the rose. Now take each remaining circle and one at a time wrap it around the center. See photos above.
- Two 9-inch cake pans
- Parchment paper
- Electric mixer with whisk attachment
- Medium-sized saucepan
- 10-inch spring form pan
- Rubber spatula
- Circle cookie cutter
