Cutting Miss Daisy

I have to tell you, if a 2-foot long daisy cake doesn’t make you smile after this never-ending winter of monotony, then I just can’t help you.  Is it me, or does it seem to be going on and on?  Everyone I talk to just lights up at the proposition of the coming spring.  I myself feel more drawn to it this year than in the past.  I think it’s been a difficult season for many people and I for one am excited to bid it adieu.

In my effort to maintain happy thoughts of the green things to come, I offer you the Daisy Cake.  This cake really made me laugh while I was making it…some might say it’s because I’m not taking medication any longer, but sometimes when you are creating you find a precious and joyful quality, one that really, truly makes you smile.

Two factors led me to this cake, the first being seed starting.  Every year around this time, about 2 months before the last hard frost, I start seeds in containers indoors.  The past couple of years I’ve started flats and flats of seeds in an effort to economically populate the garden I started in the back yard.  Plants are expensive, and if you can be patient and plan ahead you can grow some really successful and beautiful plants, treasures you might not find at your local nursery.  I have one place in particular called Select Seeds where I get heirloom varieties of both perennial and annual flowers.  I love the older varieties (most heirloom seeds are from plant varieties dating back at least 50 years), and having an old Victorian has inspired me to look for plants that could have been in the garden a 100 years ago when our house was built. 

I’m finally running out of space in the yard and am only starting one variety this year, an annual called Verbena Bonariensis.  They grow to be 4 to 5 feet tall, and are lovely, slender stalks featuring delicate purple flowers.  These plants pair handsomely with golden sea grasses and will make your autumn garden sing.  Yes…I am waxing poetic about plants…I can’t help myself.  (These are the little purple guys in front of the tall grasses in the photo).

The second reason I came to this cake is because of one Mrs. Emily Sertz.  Last week when we attended Andrea’s baby shower, Emily loaned me a book published by the General Mills Food Corporation dated from 1973.  It’s called Cut-Up Cake Party Book, and it is fantastic!  Part of its charm is the day glow colors used in the printing (very of the time), and also that coconut was used as decoration in every recipe.  The concept of the book is cutting basic geometric shapes out of standard sized cakes, and building interesting cake sculptures such as a boat, or a lion or a the lovely daisy I made this afternoon.  

Although the book has you using coconut tinted with food coloring in conjunction with 7-Minute Frosting to decorate all the cakes, I tried to simplify it a bit and used food coloring to tint the icing to the desired colors instead of dying a bunch of shredded coconut and patting it on top of the icing (Plus it makes for a cleaner appearance without the coconut).  To make this cake, you will need a double batch of frosting.  The basic recipe comes out white, but what I did was keep the frosting in the mixing bowl and iced the petals first.  Next, I put the bowl back on the Kitchen Aid mixer and added yellow food coloring.  This frosting was for the center of the daisy.  And finally, I put the bowl back on the mixing stand once more and added blue food coloring to the yellow frosting and got a nice green color for the flower stem.  It was really very easy, but it did take some time.  It took a little over an hour to decorate the cake, but the icing is very forgiving and didn’t get too hard or become unworkable.

The other wonderful thing about this book is “user friendliness”.  Anyone can make these cakes.  There are templates for everything and most just require one or two round, square or standard rectangle cake pans.  You can also use any kind of cake you prefer.  I started with a basic “yellow” cake and changed the recipe around just a bit to get something with a little more kick.  Since you aren’t layering this cake with a flavoring or simple syrup in the middle, it’s imperative it be moist and packed with flavor…not just a bland old dry cake.  No, no, no…Taking a cue from the January citrus recipes, I added lemon zest, grapefruit zest and a wild card…freshly chopped thyme.  (Try it!)

The recipe for this cake is as follows (it makes two 9-inch round cakes):

2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for pans

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for pans

1 1/2 cups cake flour (not self-rising)

1-tablespoon baking powder

1/2-teaspoon salt

Zest of 1 lemon

Zest of 1 grapefruit

1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme

1 3/4 cups sugar

3 large eggs

1-teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 1/2 teaspoons lemon juice

1-cup milk

1/4-cup sour cream

Follow this Yellow Cake recipe, but make ingredient adjustments based upon the list above.  Add the lemon juice and sour cream to your wet batter, and add the zests and thyme to your dry ingredients.

These are very refreshing and bright cakes, and to top it off, I used a lemon extract in place of vanilla in the 7-minute frosting.  The cakes held up nicely to the semi-precise cutting required and still had a delicate crumb.

Transporting this cake is the issue.  I had to build it on a full sized sheet pan, which is roughly 2 feet long.  The book suggests making it on large cardboard flats and then traveling with it inside of a box.  For me, taking a large box of cake on the train and subway to work isn’t an option.  Sadly, I had to cut off a part of the stem (which we got to eat at home) and only take the flower part of the cake into the office.  Hopefully I won’t be given too much grief for the missing stem.  I may be judged harshly since some of the folks at work are calling tomorrow the season finale of “Top Chef”…meaning my last Monday to bring in dessert treats.

I will be starting a new project at another company the middle of this week and I will be leaving my new friends behind for a while, but hopefully I will return soon…such is the nature of the freelance CG artist/baker.  We’ve eaten a lot of treats together and it’s been fun.  I was even getting requests as of last week, which made me very happy.  One of our producers (thanks Jen) asked for a Chocolate Banana Bread, and I thought it sounded quite yummy and different too.

I didn’t have a recipe for the bread on hand, so I scoured the handy-dandy internet and found someone else’s baking blog featuring a delicious version of the bread laced with cocoa, chocolate chips, ripe bananas and sour cream.  It turned out really good…and naughty.  It was pretty much like having cake for breakfast, but no one seemed to mind.  I know I didn’t.  The only thing I changed about this recipe was the addition of 1/2-tsp of salt.  I think all sweets need a little savory thrown in to bring out their sugary goodness. 

Baked goods have been a bright spot in an otherwise snowy white week.  I’m happy to say the sun was out today, and a flower cake grows in Westchester.  What more do you really need?  For me, nothing.  It’s just who I am.