One of my best friends, Emily, doesn't eat gluten. Gluten is the thing that makes all your baked goods light and fluffy. It's a pretty popular dietary choice these days. It has been shown that gluten is inflammatory, so many people complain bloating, indigestion, fatigue, and sometimes headaches related to eating cakes and breads (and other delicious treats).
I picked up a gluten free cake mix from Whole Foods. I remember Emily telling me that she avoids baked goods because the gluten free versions are terrible. I took a chance.
King Arthur Flour makes a damn good gluten free cake mix. It's non-GMO, which makes a big difference to me. Pick it up at your local Whole Foods.
I've never baked a gluten free cake mix. I tend to avoid cake mixes anyway, since I know how to bake a reasonably good cake. I was afraid of the density. The photo on the box looked fluffy, but you can never tell if the photo represents the end product. To combat that, I put my whole heart into every step. The box said to add one egg at a time- I whipped tf out of the batter between eggs. The box said alternate milk and dry ingredients- I combined like nobody's business.
I poured the batter into buttered springforms and prayed.
It rose in the middle, just enough to need a trim. I tasted the trimmings. The edges were a tad grainy, but it was definitely not dense.
Awesome. Super awesome.
In Seattle, Emily and I had taken a day trip to visit my parents in Olympia. We walked to the pier and perused the farmer's market. The first stall on the right was a teenage girl selling jams and jellies for Johnson Berry Farm. They had strawberry basil jam and habanero pepper jelly and everything in between.
The first we tried was tayberry. Tayberry is like a cross between a blackberry and a raspberry. It's acidic, but has some deep flavors as well. It's not a black raspberry, though. I googled it.
I took mascarpone cheese, which has an awesome flavor on it's own, and added tayberry jam and a touch of whipped heavy cream with powdered sugar. I fluffed it up in the immersion blender, to break up the mascarpone.
It was tasty. Right this moment, I'd love it stuffed inside a Texas Toast pain perdu. That sounds wicked tasty.
While I was at Whole Foods picking up all the wonderful ingredients for this cake, I asked the bakery to give me a to-go container for a cake. They did. I'll keep that in mind.
I forgot to get a cake board, though. Luckily, I haven't taken out my recycling in a few days (weeks). I cut up and cleaned a piece of cardboard from a box.
I took my two trimmed cakes, placed a whole bunch of the mascarpone goodness on one of them, and flipped the other over on top of it. The rest of the cream were used to fill in the space in the sides and crumb coat. I like to flip the second layer, since the pan created such beautiful edges on it already.
I love caked finished in whipped cream. I'll take whipped cream anytime over any buttercream. It's light and fluffy and perfect. Buttercream is weighty. Whipped cream is delicate.
When we moved to Dallas, I had to leave my KitchenAid mixer with my mom. It was too heavy for our weight limit on the moving truck. I whipped cream by hand for the first time a few weeks ago, when I made chocolate mousse for the first time in the kitchen at Herb's Social.
Chef asked me if I could make chocolate mousse. I said yes with faith, since I'd never done it. I'd watched it on TV, but I'd never practiced any of the techniques used. I just assumed I was capable. I found a recipe online from a French cookery school's textbook.
I made a Swiss meringue in the stand mixer, folded in melted chocolate cooled down to whatever degrees, and folded in cream that I hand-whipped since there was only one mixer. I took all the precautions- used chilled cream and an iced whisk, put ice under the bowl. Cold utensils help the cream whip faster.
I spent 45 minutes whipping tf out of that cream that day. I was so proud. I felt like Jesus turning water into wine.
I don't think I could make whipped cream with a mixer. It just doesn't feel the same.
At Whole Foods, I bought 4 pints of cream. I didn't really know how much I would need. Note: you don't need 4 pints of cream to ice a cake. You probably need like 1.
I used a plastic tupperware to elevate my cake for icing- this is why that cake board was important. You can elevate your cake with whatever vessel you want. A cup would work, or a bowl. Anything, really.
I took a few berries and almond slices to decorate some flowers, Yep, I saw this on Pinterest. Pinterest is my favorite website (besides my own, of course)!
Show me how you decorated your boxed cake!
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