TWD: Berry Surprise Cake

This is going to be another short and sweet one, folks. Coming off of a three day weekend of gorgeous weather, and looking forward to Inauguration Day, I haven't felt much like holing up in the kitchen to bake. In fact, I've just finished baking this week's TWD assignment this morning. I almost passed on this one, but Dorie's Berry surprise Cake looked like such a fun idea, I decided to give it a try (despite the fact that raspberries this time of year cost almost as much as my car)!

Mary Ann of Meet Me in the Kitchen chose our recipe for this week. Berry Surprise Cake is composed of a spongy genoise cake, which is hollowed out and filled with a light cream cheese filling topped by fresh berries. Another piece of the cake is placed on top, as a sort of lid, and the whole thing is smothered in fresh whipped cream. The "surprise" is the filling inside the cake. The whole thing is like a big, fluffy gift package!

I must admit, after I read how much trouble many of my fellow bakers had with the genoise sinking, I was nervous. My fears turned out to be well-founded. Instead of one large cake, I baked four small ones in mini springform pans. My little cakes sank like battleships! Frankly, I was stunned. My eggs whipped up into voluminous clouds of pale yellow perfection. I folded my other ingredients into them with the gentlest hand I could muster. Still, they sank!

CRAP AND DOUBLE CRAP!!!

I ended up making only two small cakes and used the other two "Frisbees" to top them with.

I have to tell you that I really was pretty ticked off at that point. I gave those f#@&*% diva eggs more TLC than they deserved. What the hell did they want from me? Dinner and a movie? I've made plenty of genoise cakes before and this was the first time I ever had one flop. Sigh....... At least whipped cream can cover a multitude of sins!

Since I was using fresh berries, I decided to flavor my filling cream with lemon. To do this, I whipped about 1/4 cup of lemon curd into the cream cheese mixture. This part of the process went very well. The filling was light and creamy with a lovely, bright lemony flavor.

Filling and frosting the cakes was without incident. They actually looked pretty cute once they were finished. I'm just still annoyed that I only have two little cakes instead of four, since I was planning on giving them away.

Would I make this recipe again? Nope! I love the concept, but not the aggravation. I might try making a cake like this using a different genoise recipe - one that has worked for me before.

In any event, if you'd like to try this one at home, the recipe can be found in Dorie's book, Baking: From My Home to Yours or on Mary Ann's site. Also, to see far better results than mine, visit the TWD blogroll.