trois.

joyeux anniversaire. happy birthday. Yesterday was my eighteenth birthday, I am officially old now! Any special occasion calls for a wonderful cake, but none more so than a birthday. Since I am usually the one to bake in the family, I decided that there was no shame in making my own cake. Actually, it was quite nice. I picked out exactly what I wanted, my little present to myself.

I decided on a frangipane raspberry cake from a cookbook my sister gave to me, "tea with bea". The cake itself is a moist vanilla/almond cake that uses almond paste. Almond paste, similar to marzipan is one of my favorite things! I was immediately drawn to this recipe when I saw that ingredient. The cake is layered between raspberry jam and topped with scrumpcious vanilla flavored Italian Buttercream.

The cake as a whole takes a bit of time ( I made mine the night before), but isn't extremely difficult. The almond cake is straightforward; mix bake, yum. The buttercream is the tricky part. Temperature is absolutely key in any kind of buttercream. You make a meringue which you then add to the butter, but if it isn't properly cooled, the entire mixture will melt..not ideal. If you take your time and really watch the temperature (using a candy thermometer) it should turn out parfait!


 Shown below is the Italian buttercream being mixed up. YUM!

 

 Up above, I show the steps of frosting the cake. I refrigerated the cake after the first later so it would have time to set. Then, I was able to do the fun and pretty decorating.

My cake even had it's own shelf in the fridge! 

I had a wonderful birthday spent with friends and family. The perfect way to end the day? Cake, of course! I was hoping that this cake would be as good as I had anticipated. And I have to say, it was! The almond cake was moist and dense. The tart jam and light buttercream tied everything together for pretty darn good birthday cake. I would say this baking adventure was a success! 

-ali