Cherry Vanilla Cake with Pink Dream Icing

It's a double whammy today...Easter dinner with the family and a celebration of two lovely young girls' birthdays...So what could be more appropriate than vanilla cake with maraschino cherry bits and a fluffy pink icing with pastel Mini Eggs?
When K was just three, she had a book called 'EAT YOUR DINNER, BA'...where a stubborn little bear had trouble eating his dinner...until his Dad pulled out dessert - 'a honey cake with pretty pink icing and cherries on top'....suddenly his appetite came back!  K loved that book and was so taken with the cake image that she requested this cake for her 3rd birthday.  I made one similar, but this is the grown up version...with the cherries in the cake!  So twelve years later, we re-create a favourite!  Happy Birthday to my lovely, sweet niece and my baby girl....

Cherry Vanilla Cake
(adapted from Chatelaine)

3 cups all purpose flour
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup unsalted butter (room temp)
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
4 eggs (room temp)
4 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cup buttermilk
1 - 375 ml jar maraschino cherries, drained well, dried with paper towel and chopped (save some of the juice for tinting the icing)

Preheat oven to 350F

Spray 2 round 9 inch cake pans with oil and line with parchment circles.  Spray circles.  Stir flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a bowl. Beat 1 cup of butter in a large bowl, using an electric mixer beat until creamy, about 1 min.  Gradually beat in sugar, then eggs one at a time.  Add vanilla.  Gradually beat in the flour mixture, then 1/2 of the buttermilk, scraping down sides of bowl, if needed.  Repeat, ending with flour mixture, beating just until blended.  Stir in cherries.  Divide batter between pans and bake in centre of oven for 25 - 30 mins or until cake tester inserted in centre comes out clean.  Cool in pans 15 mins, then remove cakes to wire rack and cool completely.

Fluffy Icing 

This is an excellent icing.  Beautiful to show and easy to make.  It makes a glossy white frosting, which can easily be tinted with a bit of food colouring, or in this case some of the juice from the maraschino cherries.  

1 cup white corn syrup
2 egg whites, room temp
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp vanilla

In a small saucepan, bring corn syrup to a rolling boil.  Meanwhile beat egg whites and cream of tartar to stiff moist peaks.  Beating constantly at high speed on electric mixer, gradually add the hot syrup in a thin stream.  Continue beating until frosting hold stiff shiny peaks.  Beat in vanilla and/or food colouring.  Makes enough to frost an 8 - 9 inch layer cake.  Decorate as you see fit!

Hungry for the Hunger Games - Flourless chocolate cake

With the hysteria over the Hunger Games in full force at our house, I decided to surprise the troops with a 'Hunger Games' dessert.  A simple flourless chocolate cake (and I do mean simple....I can say this because I made it TWICE....the first one got overdone while I worked on the stencil for the mockingjay symbol), with a stencilled icing sugar mockingjay...voila!

The stencil was printed off the internet and then lovingly cut out with a exacto-knife.  While it generally turned out okay...lifting the final stencil off sent some powered sugar in a pouff onto the dark chocolate cake....a damp paper towel took off most of it.

A fitting 'tribute' to the newest teen craze!

Simple Flourless Chocolate Cake

Makes one 8-inch cake

4 ounces fine-quality bittersweet chocolate (I used 76% cocoa solids)
1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
confectioners sugar for dusting the stencil

Preheat oven to 375F and butter an 8-inch round baking pan.  Line the bottom of the pan with a round of parchment paper and butter the paper.

Chop chocolate into small pieces.  In a double boiler or metal bowl set over a saucepan of barely simmering water, melt chocolate with butter, stirring until smooth.  Be careful not to let the bowl touch the simmering water or the steam to escape the sides to touch the chocolate mixture.  Remove top of double boiler or bowl from heat and whisk sugar into into chocolate mixture.  Add eggs and whisk well.  Sift 1/2 cup cocoa powder over chocolate mixture and whisk until just combined.  Pour batter into pan and bake in middle of oven for 25 minutes or until the top has formed a thin crust.  Cool cake in pan on a rack for 5 minutes and then invert onto a serving plate.

When the cake is completely cool, place stencil on top of cake and dust with confectioners sugar.  Be careful when removing the stencil so the extra sugar doesn't drop on the cake!  I lifted the stencil with the exacto-knife and removed with a butter knife for more support.  Serve with whipped cream, ice cream or sorbet.