Golden Almond Cake with Raspberry Buttercream Frosting

I, like many amateur bakers resort to the classic cupcake butter cream frosting.  You know the one; butter, a TON of confectioners sugar, vanilla and milk.  Super sweet, a crowd pleaser - kids LOVE it!  Hell, I love it!  The question is, is it stable enough to stack cakes...the answer is NO.  Unless you plan on serving cake immediately after frosting the cake.  You will find that the frosting settles with the with of the cake on it's shoulders.  The frosting has no where to go...but out the sides.

I have tried the Classic Butter cream frosting (found in many cookbooks) multiple times and find that the frosting either; A curdles or B is just too dang soft to stand up to a cake.  After all, how can one whip 6 eggs and add super hot sugar and not mess it up??!  I think that there is still sugar mixture on my ceiling from the last time I tried this little butterlicious adventure.

Lesson #1 (for me) Butter cream frosting!!!  After my fist attempt I feel that I may give up and go back to the sugar heaven that is cupcake frosting! 

Today I took on the Golden Almond Cake - page 37 of the Cake Bible with the Neoclassic Butter cream.  Rose (my new hero) swears that since she has perfected this recipe, she has never gone back to Classic Butter cream.  I have a sense that I need to go back to the drawing board!

The Cake:
2 Large Eggs
2/3 cup Sour Cream
1 tsp Almond Extract
1/4 tsp Vanilla Extract (always pure...don't even think about imitation)
1 2/3 cup sifted Cake Flour - why cake flour...I still have not learned this yet, stay tuned I will figure this out!
1/3 cup toasted, sliced almonds, finely ground.  - Oh and yes, I did burn the first two batches!  After that, I am an almond toasting genius!!!
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp baking power
1/2 tsp baking soda (yes both...not sure why, YET!)
1/2 tsp salt
1.5 sticks unsalted butter

Learned a new method today.  Mix all dry ingredients then add the butter and 3/4 of the sour cream.  Weird because I had always read to cream the butter and sugar first.  Oh the places you go when you read the bible!  The wet stuff (1/4 sour cream, eggs and extracts) are added a third at time.   Batter looks so good you just want to eat it right out of the bowl!  Seriously!!!!

Bake for 35 minutes (or in my case 24 minutes) at 350.  The cake will start to "shrink away from the sides only after the cake is removed from the oven" or in my case, over bake and shrink rapidly away from the sides as if the cake was scared of the pan!  Ouch...I will be trying this recipe again.  Hey, they say that practice makes perfect right?


Neoclassic Butter cream

6 large egg yolks
3/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup corn syrup
2 cups butter (soft soft soft)
optional flavor...I opted for raspberry!  Oh how I love raspberry!

Sugar and corn syrup...having a party!

Making the puree...the frozen raspberries need to thaw for several hours!  Several!

All looks good so far!  Oh and it tastes REALLY good too!  I just can't seem to get the consistency that I am looking for!

How to make the raspberry puree:
2 12 ounce bag of frozen raspberries (no sugar added...we will add later, I promise!)
2 tsps lemon juice (fresh!)
optional...Is sugar really an option, NO! 
2/3 cup sugar

Well that is it...my cake adventure for the day!  Almond cake with raspberry butter cream.  A really short cake with a really thin butter cream, sigh!  I live to bake another day. 

I have made some REALLY good cakes!  I can't wait to share my chocolate cake recipe with you, best damn chocolate cake I have ever tried!!!

I hope that my cakes may rise and my frosting may not fall in the near future. 

Heard this is a fantastic recipe...I will try again. Let me know if it works for you.

 HAPPY CAKING!