Tuesdays with Dorie—Berry Surprise Cake

While watching the inauguration of President Barack Obama, I made this Berry Surprise Cake. What an exciting time to be a citizen in the USA, and although I'm not a US citizen, I'm enjoying watching it unfold from Canada and feel a sense of pride even so.

As for the cake, it seems like a perfect celebration cake. Genoise, framboise syrup, cream cheese filling and sweetened whipped cream with a hidden berry as a surprise.

I used my mini cheesecake pan to make eight individual genoise cakes. I baked them for 15-20 minutes, and they overflowed a bit but didn't sink. I cut off the overflow and assembled the cakes.

Recipe

I halved the recipe.

For the cake:
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
¾ teaspoon baking powder
Pinch of salt
4 large eggs
2/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled

For the syrup:
1/3 cup water
3 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon kirsh, Chambord, framboise or raspberry syrup

For the filling:
6 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
½ cup plus 2/3 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon sugar
1½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract

For the topping:
1 cup cold heavy cream
3 tablespoons confectioners' sugar, sifted
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1-1½ pints fresh raspberries, for filling and topping (I used strawberries)
You can find the recipe for Berry Surprise Cake in the book Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan. To see how the rest of the TWD group fared with this week's recipe, click here and then click on each blogger! Thanks to Mary Ann of Meet Me in the Kitchen who chose the recipe for this week and will post the recipe.


Tasting Notes
This was an upscale version of strawberry shortcake, and the cake had a nice light flavor but needed sweet berries to enhance it. I'll blame the January strawberries at our grocery store since the cake needed to be a little sweeter for me. It also might be all the Turtles and Toffifee chocolates that I've indulged in since Christmas. My taste buds were expecting something sweeter. But making it while watching the inauguration will be a sweet memory.

"With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations." — President Barack Obama

Recipe for Next Week (January 27)
Fresh Ginger and Chocolate Gingerbread on page 212 chosen by Heather of Sherry Trifle.