A Prettyish Kind of a Little Wilderness: birthday surprise i: tiramisu cake.

Last week, B. had a birthday. And so we celebrated. The actual birth-day included mid-morning kir royales at Parc, sipped at a sidewalk table, followed later by dinner at Stella. Pistachio and red onion pizza; black truffle and egg pizza; margherita pizza; broccolini and garlic pizza. All-around pizza goodness, capped off with ice cream at the Franklin Fountain.

Impossible to top, right? Wrong. Even more yumminess ensued the next day. Surprise yumminess!

We plotted a boozy birthday party complete with multiple kinds of cocktails and alcohol-infused desserts. C. and I baked, M. and T. went on a hunt for cheese so that we didn't all go into sugar shock, and M. tended bar despite her jet-lag. We schemed, we decorated, we waited eagerly for the surprise moment, and then we celebrated. The final menu:

DRINKS
Ginger lemonade
M.'s concoction, with fresh mint and honey - yum!
*
Gin & tonic
Made with Fever Tree tonic water; impressive.
*
Old-fashioned
Potent.
*

DESSERTS
Tiramisu cake
See below.
*
Peach and blackberry trifle
Joint desserting effort with C. - wonderful.
*
Bourbon pecan pie
C.'s. Oh. My.
*
Chocolate cherry brownies
Details soon.

C. made an official menu. It was beautiful. In fact, thanks to lovely friends, the whole evening was beautiful:

Before the party, though, there was baking. Much baking. Wish-I-had-two-ovens-or-at-least-more-counterspace-so-that-I'm-not-balancing-bowls-on-the-edge-of-the-sink baking.

I love to cook and bake for people - especially to bake. Being able to present someone with a pretty treat lets me say, "Hey, I care about you." It's not the only way to do so, of course, and yes, I realize that I'll have to seriously revise this strategy before I someday have children and inadvertently turn them into little butterballs of baked-good love, but it works for me.

First up? Tiramisu cake. Tiramisu was a no-brainer for this boozy bash, but we needed a cake for candles! Enter this recipe from smittenkitchen. The final product was delicious. Getting there was ... tricky. This is something of a fiddly recipe, and it wasn't helped by the significant heat/humidity going on that day. The frosting was particularly troublesome; I ended up whipping an extra 3/4 c. of heavy cream and folding it in so that I would have enough to cover the entire cake, and it was decidedly lumpy-looking. Still, though, the cake turned out well, and I would make this recipe again, perhaps with a bit more experimentation and a bit less summer ickiness.

Tiramisu Cake
from smittenkitchen

Cake layers:
2 c. cake flour (*hint: you can substitute for 1 c. of cake flour with 7/8 c. all-purpose flour and 1/8 c. cornstarch; easier than keeping cake flour around)
2 tsp. baking powder
1/8 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
10 tbsp. butter, at room temp.
1 c. sugar
3 eggs
1 egg yolk
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
3/4 c. buttermilk

Espresso extract:
2 tbsp. instant espresso powder
2 tbsp. boiling water

Espresso syrup:
1/2 c. water
1/3 c. sugar
1 tbsp. amaretto, Kahlua, or brandy (*I used rum)

Filling and frosting:
8 oz. mascarpone
1/2 c. confectioners' sugar, sifted
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tbsp. amaretto, Kahlua, or brandy (*again, I used rum)
1 c. heavy cream
bittersweet or semi-sweet chocolate (*finely chopped, chips, or grated from a large bar, as I did)

Make the cake:
1. Preheat oven to 350F. Butter and lightly flour two 9" cake pans, then line bottoms with parchment paper. Put the pans on a baking sheet.

2. Combine dry ingredients (except sugar) in a bowl. In a stand mixer, beat butter on med. speed until soft and creamy. Add sugar and beat for another 3 mins. Add eggs one by one and then yolk, beating for 1 min. after each one. Beat in vanilla.

3. Reduce mixer speed to low and add dry ingredients, alternating with buttermilk - add dry ingredients in 3 parts and buttermilk in 2, beginning and ending with dry ingredients. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed and mix only until all ingredients disappear into the batter.

4. Divide batter evenly between two pans and smooth down tops with spatula. Bake for 28-30 mins., rotating the pans halfway through. Cakes are done when golden and springy and a knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Transfer cakes to a rack and cool for 5 mins., then run a knife around the sides, invert them, remove paper liners, turn them back onto rack and cool right-side up.

Make extract:
1. Combine boiling water with espresso powder in small bowl; stir and set aside.

Make syrup:
1. Stir water and sugar together in small saucepan until barely boiling; pour into heatproof bowl, stir in liquor of choice plus 1 tbsp. espresso extract, then set aside.

Make filling/frosting:
1. Whisk mascarpone, sugar, vanilla, and liquor in med. bowl until combined. Set aside.

2. In stand mixer, whip heavy cream until it holds firm peaks. With rubber spatula, stir 1/4 whipped cream into mascarpone mixture; fold in the rest lightly.

Assemble cake:
1. Place one layer right-side-up on a cardboard round or cake stand (protected with strips of parchment paper slid under the edge of the cake so that you won't get frosting everywhere). Using pastry brush or small spoon, soak layer evenly with about 1/3 of espresso syrup. (*I found that the cake soaked up the syrup really, really quickly. Next time, I'm using a pastry brush instead of a spoon. Once I buy a pastry brush.) Smooth some of the mascarpone over the layer - about 1 1/4 c., or enough to cover. Sprinkle/grate your chocolate of choice on top.

2. Invert the second cake layer on a plate/counter and soak the bottom with half the remaining syrup, then turn it over and position it, syrup side down, over the filling. Soak the top with the rest of the syrup.

3. For the frosting, whisk 1 to 1 1/2 tbsp. remaining espresso extract into remaining mascarpone filling. (*This is where I ran into trouble: there wasn't nearly enough mascarpone mixture to cover the cake, so I whipped an additional 3/4 c. of cream with a dash of vanilla and a sprinkle of instant espresso tossed in so it wouldn't be too bland and folded it into the mascarpone mixture along with the espresso extract. It did increase the volume of the frosting and certainly tasted good, but the texture was a bit off.) Taste frosting as you go to decide how much espresso flavor you want. If the icing looks a bit too soft to spread, press plastic wrap on top and refrigerate for 15 mins.

4. With metal icing spatula, smooth frosting around sides of cake and over top. Decorate with chocolate-covered espresso beans or cocoa powder.

5. Refrigerate cake for at least 3 hours (or up to 1 day) before serving to let the flavors set.

A word about decorating the cake: Deb at smittenkitchen cut out a wax-paper star stencil and grated dark chocolate over top, which looked great. It inspired me to break out of my usual piping bag routine and try a (slightly more ambitious/compulsive) stencil of my own. I wrote my happy birthday message on a legal pad, using the lines to get the letters even, and then traced on either side of each stroke to create thicker letters. Then I glued each word to wax paper and cut them out for my makeshift stencils, then pressed them lightly onto the cake (wax-paper side down).