The Pink Cake

I posted briefly about this cake a couple of weeks ago, intending to put up the rest of the photos and the recipe a few days later, but, evidently, completely forgot until now. The recipe I used was a basic Génoise (French Sponge) cake adapted from The Golden Book of Deserts, but, I found it to be a little unclear on some steps, which left my cake a little flat. After doing some research, I came to prefer a recipe from this site, since it outlined the process much more clearly. And all French cooking is about the process. Every time I start out to make a French cake, petit fours, or macarons I always look at the recipe thinking this is comical, it's so simple. Then, once beginning, I quickly take back my thoughtless words as soon as I've whipped my eggs into a frenzy and spent twenty minutes folding and sifting various mixtures. The French are all about killing the cook with over complicated processes that will, if done correctly, reward you with the sweetest of treats.

Anyways, I started out with a slightly less fluffy than one would hope génoise -prepared the night before - then sliced it into two equal layers. I was a little worried about slicing it in half since it had come out much thinner then I had anticipated, but, luckily, the layers behaved and didn't crumble instantly. Then I whipped up a quick buttercream. I don't use a recipe, usually I just toss in the basic ingredients - butter, cream, vanilla, powdered sugar and food colouring - but, there's a good one on this site (my go to baking authority, can you tell?). From there I scooped out a ton of jam - I used raspberry, but it doesn't make much of a difference - tossed on the buttercream, and topped it off with a few sliced up strawberries. Once the filling was sufficiently pink, the top layer was added and sprinkled with more powdered sugar, because the cake was not sweet enough yet, obviously. In the end, it turned out pretty well, regardless of the slightly fallen cake - maybe all the sugar made up for it.