Daring Bakers: Let Them Eat Cake!

It took quite awhile, but someone from the Daring Bakers finally chose a recipe from Dorie for their choice of challenge. Morven, you made a great choice!

Her choice was so good, I'd actually made it already: Dorie's Perfect Party Cake.

Its a good cake, even though it involves the dreaded buttercream icing that so threw me for the Yule Log challenge. The buttercream that I made successfully the first time I made this cake, and was able to turn to when having so many problems with the Yule log, restoring my confidence.

I had no worries making this recipe. I'd done it before, I knew I could do it again. Only this time, I was taking the challenge on the road. That's not my kitchen counter in the picture.


Yes, Bob went on a road trip. Along with a few other items, like my cake flour and cake pans. Should have brought a few other things with me though, like good spatula, my homemade vanilla, some parchment paper..... The list could go on.

You see, I decided to make the cake for Easter weekend, where I would be making dinner for my family, some of which I only see once or twice a year. This dinner was going to be at my mother's house, though, and even though my mother used to cook, she doesn't anymore. And her kitchen is lacking in a few things that I find essential. Like a good sharp knife. And a spatula. And baking powder.

I managed to work around the lack of stuff, though, and turned out a reasonable looking cake. Morven had given us a bit of leeway with the filling, written as raspberry preserves, so at the last minute I substituted huge, beautiful and fragrant strawberries instead.

At the end of a huge meal for my family (I had bbq'd a very large roast beef, and roasted a turkey), everyone made room for at least a slice of this lovely looking cake. At least three people went back for seconds.


Every months' recipe provides a different challenge: When will I find time to make it? OMG, I need to do what with the sugar?!? Yeast? But I'm afraid of yeast! Sometimes the challenges are easy to over come, other times require a bit more courage and just diving into the recipe, hoping for the best. It is ironic that with this recipe the biggest challenge for me was working in someone else's kitchen. (Okay, and having to remake the buttercream after I put it in the fridge to go do something else and could not get it to soften up again without breaking, that was a challenge as well.)

Many thanks to Morven for giving me a bit of a break this month, a recipe I could dive into with my eyes wide open, and enjoy. I'm sure I'm not the only Daring Baker who enjoyed this challenge, but just in case there is any doubt, check out as many of them as you can, over here on the Daring Baker's Blogroll. Get cozy though, there are well over 600 of us now!

Now, must run off to the DB site and see who is up next! My cupboards are a bit bare, in need of a new recipe.