Spice Cake with Brown Sugar Buttercream for Festa delle Donne #TheCakeSliceBakers

 

Here we are the March 2021 edition of the Cake Slice Bakers. For 2021; we are baking from Little Everyday Cakes: 50+ Perfectly Proportioned Confections to Enjoy Any Day of the Week by Candace Floyd.* I can't believe that we're already in a new year. In many ways 2020 dragged on as the shelter-in-place orders continued month after month; on the other hand, it was a completely blur because there weren't milestones to mark the passage of time.

In this group, we are given a selection of three cake recipes. We each choose one cake to bake, and then on the 20th - never before - we all post about our cake on our blogs. There are a few rules that we follow, but the most important ones are to have fun and enjoy baking & eating cakes!

Follow our Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest pages where you can find all of our cakes, as well as inspiration for many other cakes. You can also click on the links below to take you to each of our cakes. If you have a blog and are interested in joining The Cake Slice Bakers and baking along with us, please send an email to thecakeslicebakers at gmail dot com for more details.

The Cake Slice Bakers also have a new Facebook group called The Cake Slice Bakers and Friends. This group is perfect for those who do not have a blog but want to join in the fun and bake through this book.

Here's the line-up for this third month of 2021...

Crumb Cake

• All That's Left Are The Crumbs
• A Little Bit of All Right
• A Day in the Life on the Farm

Spice Cake with Brown Sugar Buttercream Frosting

• My Recipe Reviews
• Culinary Adventures with Camilla
• Amandie Bakes

Jam Cake

• Making Miracles
• Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Camille Cooks

Feste delle Donne

All over Italy, on March 8th, women don yellow clothing and head out to eat, drink, make merry, and celebrate Feste delle Donne, or Women's Day. In the middle of the 20th century, Italian feminists adopted the mimosa flower as the day's symbol, representing both strength and femininity. So, mimosa corsages and bouquets abound and foods in all shades of yellow grace the restaurant menus from mimosa eggs (what we in America called 'deviled eggs') to saffron-dyed crocchette di patate (potato croquettes). I only lived in Italy for one year, but that day - with all its yellow steeped in the struggle for women's rights - left quite an impression.

And, at the end of the day, there's cake. Torta Mimosa is a layered sponge cake brushed with limoncello, slathered with lemon-infused pastry cream or lemon curd, covered with cubes of sponge cake to mimic the small blossoms of the mimosa flower, and dusted with powdered sugar.

This isn't that! But I decided to take our assigned Cake Slice Bakers cake and decorate it with buttercream mimosa flowers...or  at least my approximation of them. You'll have to use your imagination. Sorry. Cake decorating is a work in progress for me.

Spice Cake with Brown Sugar Buttercream

inspired by and adapted from Floyd's recipe - makes a two-layer 9" cake

I typically think of spice cakes as flavors of autumn or winter. Don't get me wrong: I love a good spice cake. But I wanted this to be a litttle bit more Spring-y, so I made a few changes, including adding a smear of lemon curd between the layers. I am, however, now a convert to the brown sugar buttercream. That tiny crunch from the larger sugar crystals is magical.

Cake

• 1-1/2 C flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon ground all-spice
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup organic dark brown sugar, lightly packed
• 3 eggs, separated
• 2/3 cup buttermilk, room temperature
• 1 teaspoon vanilla paste or extract
• Also needed: two 9-inch round baking pans, parchment paper, lemon curd

Brown Sugar Buttercream

• 3/4 cup butter, softened
• 1/3 cup organic dark brown sugar, lightly packed
• 2 cups organic powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla paste or  extract
• 1 to 2 Tablespoons buttermilk as needed (you can use whole milk or cream also)
• Also needed: food dyes of your choice, if using

Cake

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare 9" round baking pans by buttering them and lining the bottom with parchment paper. Set aside. Note: I was making two two-layer cakes, so there are lots more cake layers in that photo above than you need!

In a medium mixing bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and spices. 

In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter and brown sugar until lightened and fluffy, approximately 3 minutes. Add in the eggs yolks and vanilla paste. Mix again, then pour in the buttermilk and whisk to combine.

Sift the dry ingredients into the batter and fold in gently with a spatula until just moistened.

In another mixing bowl, beat the egg whites until medium peaks form. Fold the egg whites into the batter, taking care not to deflate the egg whites too much. Divide the cake batter evenly between two cake pans. 

Place pans on baking sheets and place them in the oven. Bake for 25 minutes, rotating the sheets halfway through, until the layers are firm and golden. Remove the trays from the oven and cool the cakes completely on wire racks.

Buttercream

Place butter and brown sugar in a mixing bowl. Beat until smooth, approximately 3  to 4 minutes. Add in the powdered sugar a little bit at a time. Beat between each addition until smooth. Add in the vanilla paste and buttermilk. Beat until well-combined. Add more buttermilk as needed to get the consistency you need to spread.

Once your buttercream resembles what you think of as buttercream, add in the food coloring. I pulled out about 1/4 of the buttercream and dyed that yellow; I dyed the rest green.

For Finishing

Once the cake layers have cooled completely, use a serrated knife to cut the layers flat. Spread a generous amount of curd between the layers and place them on your serving platter.

Smooth the green buttercream over the top and along the sides, keep about 2 to 3 Tablespoons of the green for the stems of the mimosa flowers. Dye the remaining green a little darker green; I actually ran out of green and had to use blue. So, my dark green verged on dark teal. Oh, well. 

Pipe stems on the cake, then add yellow dots to emulate the blossoms of the mimosa tree. Place cake in the fridge to let the buttercream set. Remove from the refrigerator about 15 minutes before slicing and serving. 

That's a wrap for the March #TheCakeSliceBakers' event. We'll be back next month with three more cakes to inspire you.

*This blog currently has a partnership with Amazon.com in their affiliate program, which gives me a small percentage of sales if you buy a product through a link on my blog. It doesn't cost you anything more. If you are uncomfortable with this, feel free to go directly to Amazon.com and search for the item of your choice.