January Cake Log
notes from a week(end) of baking
I spent most of January sick with the mysterious illness spreading around New York City—not Covid, not the flu, not Norovirus, but a secret fourth thing—which wreaked havoc on something sacred to me: my birthday. As someone who loves their birthday (I typically like to celebrate for a week straight), it was incredibly distressing to stay inside the entire weekend, cancel all celebratory plans, and enter my 29th year with an ear infection, sore throat, runny nose, and generally feeling miserable.
Fortunately, I have a ton of love in my life and my wonderful boyfriend convinced me to celebrate the following weekend instead, which meant I had extra time to plan my birthday cake. I was also baking a cake for Archestratus’s To LIVE and REBUILD in LA bake sale, raising money for those affected by wildfires.
Honey soaked earl grey cake filled with earl grey infused chantilly & strawberry jam and Triple Vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream
Thursday January 23rd
I started a new, full time, in-person job at the start of January and I feel like I’m still in an adjustment period in terms of how much energy I have. The days seem to slip by so rapidly that I’m starting my baking endeavors on a Thursday before a busy weekend.
If I’m being honest, I did not feel like baking today. I got home from work, sat down on the couch, and accidentally spent a good hour engrossed in my current read (The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang) before finally dragging myself into the kitchen. I needed my trusty, old faithful album to get through: Wicked, recorded by the original broadway cast.
I was about to start on my olive oil cake when I realized I had forgotten to buy buttermilk. Doubled with the fact that we’re currently in an egg shortage (and I already need approximately 6 eggs for my Swiss meringue buttercream..) I switched gears to this vegan vanilla sheet cake recipe. I had planned to do a basic olive oil cake with jam and vanilla buttercream, but when my plans changed, I took a quick glance through my pantry. I had a tiny bit of earl grey I had blended for a baking project a few months ago, dumped that in with my dry ingredients, then added 2 bags of Earl Grey Imperial by Mariage Frères for good measure.
Cake in the oven, I thought about this Eater article by the wonderful Tanya Bush. I knew I had a carton of heavy cream in my fridge, so I poured it into a pint deli container, and plopped 2 more bags of the earl grey from Mariage Frères inside. Shook that up, back in the fridge. I’ll make a chantilly with that later.
While waiting for the cake to finish baking, I realized I had forgotten to bring my butter to room temp. I zapped my dinner (leftovers from the previous night—really good, would recommend) in the microwave, sat on the couch, ate. I had planned on making buttercream too, but I was too tired. Instead, I went to bed early.
January 24th
I raced home after work, emptied my earl grey infused cream to my stand mixer, then whipped that with approximately 4 tablespoons of powdered sugar. Honestly, I thought I made it ever so slightly too sweet, but I really liked how the flavors of the tea peaked through the cream.
I was still unsure about what kind of buttercream to frost my cake with. I finally decided on vanilla because I was thinking about London Fog, which is one of my favorite drinks to order when it’s on a cafe menu. I separated the whites and yolks from 5 eggs (some were very large, and I go by grams, so I need between 4-6 depending on egg size), freezing the yellows and vigorously whisking whites with sugar over a double broiler. The egg sugar mixture is then whipped on high speed to create a meringue, to which room temp butter is slowly added. I used three types of vanilla—Trader Joe’s bourbon vanilla bean paste, Beyond Good pure ground vanilla powder, and a generic vanilla extract—for optimal vanilla flavor.
I often find a huge difference in texture & moisture between cakes that are soaked vs. not soaked, so I turned the kettle on to thin out approximately a tablespoon of honey with warm water. I brushed the earl grey cake with the thinned honey, added a layer of strawberry jam, a layer of earl grey chantilly and repeated with the top layer of cake, then covered the entire thing in the vanilla bean buttercream.
I went for a simple decoration for this cake—pretty swirled edges, simple squiggles to hold pansies. The sides were actually decorated with a tiny, intricate pipping tip, but I forgot to snag a good pic before dropping it off at Archestratus.
Archestratus wound up raising $9.1k (+ $4k from corporate funding!), which is incredible.
Malted chocolate cake, earl grey whip, @sqirlla x @andysorchard bing cherry jam, cherry Swiss meringue buttercream
January 25th
Baking for myself feels slightly different than baking for other people. Of course, I’m still considering what tastes good together and what I want to eat—but I often base the final product on things I want to use up in my fridge, freezer, or pantry. I get sent a lot of products and I also love to grocery shop, so my kitchen is permanently overstocked.
I knew I wanted to make a chocolate cake, so I started there. I have many go-to chocolate cake recipes I use, and am a big fan of this recipe. I accidentally purchased a massive container of malted milk a while ago and I’ve barely made a dent in it (I just looked it up and honestly, I should probably toss it at this point…lol), so I added a few tablespoons to my batter. I was looking for malted milk in my neighborhood but no one sold it, so I purchased online without realizing the container size.
In the fridge, leftover earl grey whip from my Archestratus cake. I love an earl grey x chocolate combo, so that became the filling. I actually celebrated my birthday earlier in the month with family and in my first cake, used a cherry jam I had bought while in L.A. at Sqirl as the filling—a collab bing cherry jam with Andy’s Orchards. This might be one of my favorite purchases, and I hope to find it in the wild again soon.
After realizing I had enough jam for the filling of my cake, I decided to incorporate a bit into my buttercream to enhance the cherry flavor. This provided a subtle tart flavor to the cake, as well as a lovely pink hue.
Piping wise, I’ve been so drawn to open star piping tips, in both medium and small sizes. I love what it does to the shape of my squiggles, and I love the tiny stars it adds as details. When I’m piping for other people, I often get overwhelmed with anxiety & fear—what if I’m trying too hard? What if everyone thinks this is ugly?—resorting to wiping and redecorating numerous times to get it right. When it comes to baking for myself, I can normally get it right in one try. It’s funny what happens in our brains when we just let loose and play! Ultimately, my favorite part of baking cakes is the playful nature in which I decorate. I try not to take myself too seriously, and just do what feels good.
great breakdown! really loved reading about your method :)
borrowing the steeping tea in cream tip!!