I’ve been a member of Tuesdays with Dorie for ten months, and I haven’t missed even one week. I’ve posted through holidays, vacations, and…I’m trying to come up with a third thing to round out this sentence, but honestly, I have no life. Hence it’s been easy to stay on track with TWD. But this week really tested me – my dishwasher is broken. That’s been rough.
It’s a good thing I persisted though, because I forgot to take into account Dave’s love of fruit + cream desserts. He goes nuts for them. I made a fourth of this recipe, and we ate the whole thing on Saturday night. Dave was talking about it all day Sunday, and it wasn’t until the end of the day that he realized there was none left. He wasn’t happy.
I guess I’ll have to make it again sometime then! Which is no problem, because there were things I really liked about this as well as things I’d like to experiment with.
Like most of the group this week, my cake fell in the middle. I’d read through the reviews of people who made it before me and knew this was a possibility, so I was so careful when mixing up the batter. I certainly didn’t overmix, because there were still clumps of hard, dry flour in the baked cake. On the other hand, I could see the structure of the beaten eggs breaking down as I tried to fold in the flour, so I knew I had to stop.
It was no matter though, since we were hollowing out the cake anyway. Dorie’s instructions are to slice off the top of the cake, make a nest in the middle, fill the nest with berries and cream, then put the top of the cake back on. Because the sides of my cake were nice and high, I was able to do all of that except I didn’t have a “lid” to cover the filling with. I just spread the whipped cream topping right over the filling.
The other issue people had with the recipe was the filling, which is a combination of cream cheese, sugar, vanilla, and cream. So basically cheesecake batter, which I absolutely love. Dorie then whips up more heavy cream and mixes that with the cream cheese ingredients, but a lot of people were saying that the filling ended up bland, so I skipped the extra whipped cream.
There were things I loved about this recipe – the cream cheese filling, raspberries of course (I lucked out and found good ones for a reasonable price), the whipped cream topping…so basically everything except the sunken cake. To be honest, I’m not sure I’ve ever had a genoise I loved. When I make this again, which will be soon if Dave has any say in the matter, I’ll just use a different vanilla cake recipe.
Mary Ann has posted the recipe.
One year ago: Maple Walnut Cupcakes
Hang in there with the dishwasher!!
Kudos for still participating in this week’s TWD – your cake is phenomenal!!
I love the way you staged your photos! Beautiful! I will also probably have to make this again soon. My hubby loved it as well!
Beautiful cake, as usual! If it makes you feel better, I don’t have a dishwasher unless you count my 2 hands and my husbands. LOL. We’re forced to hand wash all our dishes – even when we’re hosting all our dinner parties and entertaining events. Blah! But we’re used to it and now dishwashing is almost therapeutic 🙂
well, you were able to disguise your problem well–it’s a cute little cake! (ps: i hope your dishwasher is back in action soon–that is rough!)
Your cake is beautiful! Hope your dishwasher gets fixed soon. When we first moved into our apartment our dishwasher wasn’t working and it took a few days to get it fixed. Washing all those dishes by hand was no fun!
Hehe, I actually have a dishwasher but never use it – with just one person, it’s actually easier just to handwash everything. I must admit that I liked the genoise batter better than the cake itself. Yours looks gorgeous though!
Your cake looks wonderful! Gorgeous. Tough luck about the dishwasher…I don’t know what I would do without it.
I have to say after 7 years without a dishwasher I am so happy that our new house has one! Especially now with the boys!
Your cake looks great! I thought about just doing half or a quarter but knew that Jason and the boys would love this so I did a full recipe and we have leftovers!!!
Also – love the pictures – they’re great!
Tania
Beautiful cake, beautiful photos. 🙂 And kudos on never missing a week of TWD! That’s incredible!
Your photos are beautiful! The cakes looks gorgeous 🙂 x
beautiful, beautiful photos. 🙂
The cake looks amazing! I wish I could have a taste. I love raspberries. Great photos like always!
Absolutely lovely! Hope the dishwasher gets fixed soon! 🙂
I absolutely agree with Dave: fruit + cream is all the dessert I need. Those are certainly some beautiful photos, as well. And consider all that handwashing as moisturizing your hands 🙂
your cake is so pretty , it looks likes a little puffy cloud 🙂
GORGEOUS!
This looks like an amazing cake! Makes me think of summer.
This cake is beautiful, as are all the pictures you took of it. It makes me think wonderful, happy thoughts. I’m not even kidding.
I nominated your blog for an award. You can pick it up on my blog. I love your blog and am continually inspired by it. Thank you so much for all the wonderful recipes you post.