Week 1 Finalists: Your Best Layer Cake

Recipe 1: Not Red Velvet Cake with Fudge Glaze by Abs

This cake has the wonderful, fluffy texture you get from boxed cake mixes, but with a made-from-scratch flavor they never manage to achieve. Because it doesn't contain any red food coloring, it has a beautiful marbled crumb, and the chocolate glaze is both decadent and great for people who are intimidated by the thought of icing a cake. We also love that the delicate aroma of cocoa in the cake is followed by a wallop of semisweet chocolate in the glaze.

 

Recipe 2: Lemon Birthday Cake by Eric Liftin

Visually, this cake is a scene-stealer -- a birthday cake that makes a statement. It looks like a giant, sophisticated marshmallow. We were concerned it would be too rich (grand total: 8 whole eggs, 4 egg yolks, 1 1/3 cups of cream and 2 sticks of butter), but miraculously it's not: lemon and rum infuse the batter and give it the character of an English tea cake. The icing is a lightly sweetened meringue scented with vanilla and more lemon. Don't overwhip it as we did, and don't skip the berries, a nod to strawberry shortcake.

 

The ingredients for Not Red Velvet Cake with Fudge Glaze:

Merrill cutting parchment to line the pans.

 

Sifting the dry ingredients: flour, cocoa, salt.

 

After creaming the butter and sugar, we add the eggs to the mixer.

 

Watching the pot boil.

 

Alternating buttermilk and dry ingredients.

 

When you add the white vinegar to the baking soda, it foams up like soda on ice cream.

 

Pretty, right?

 

Merrill's turn to do the dishes!

 

Merrill set the springform pan on top of an upturned bowl, then she let the rim of the pan drop so she could simply lift off the cake.

 

The cakes go in the freezer before icing.

 

Measuring the semi-sweet chocolate.

 

Making the fudge glaze, which is really a ganache -- hot cream and chocolate, with a pinch of salt.

 

All you have to do is nudge the glaze to the edges of the cake and let it drip down the sides. Great for non-bakers!

 

The End!

 

The Lemon Birthday Cake ingredients:

 

Does it really say 15 eggs?

 

Zesting lemons for the batter and the icing.

 

Rubbing the lemon zest into the sugar helps release its fragrance. Feels nice, too!

 

 

 

Whisking cream into the batter.

 

The batter is loose enough to use a whisk for adding the flour.

 

Whisking in the melted butter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The cakes came out with rounded tops, so Merrill shaved off the domes before icing.

 

 

 

 

We slightly over-whipped the icing. Argh!

 

 

 

 

The icing is super easy to work with -- you are its master.

 

Ta-da!