At our age a second 12th Anniversary is a significant milestone. Jerry was married for nearly forty years to his late wife and my marriage to Gabor had hit the fifteen year mark when he passed away. Luckily for us a mutual friend (who never tires of reminding me of this fact and indeed did so by voice-mail and text this year) introduced us, thinking we would be a good match. Clearly she was right. (I had to include this fact, or I would have received another reminder.) Seriously, we are both grateful.
Dreary Covid days have inspired many home bakers including yours truly, and it was high time I invested in the standard tools of the trade. Now armed with excellent plastic disposal pastry bags, an assortment of couplers, two new sets of Ateco piping tips, gel colors and a variety of decorating books, websites and Youtube subscriptions, I decided to attack the monster head on. Let me say at the outset that the final result didn't rise to the level I had aspired to, but I learned a lot and am relatively satisfied with the look of the cake
Early on I settled on Earl Grey for the sponge flavor. I selected a recipe utilizing steeped tea liquids rather than ground dry tea solids. Uncharacteristically the recipe called for all purpose flour instead of cake flour and baked at 325°. Although skeptical, I chose that version which ultimately turned into the moistest layer cake I have ever made from scratch. The sole problem was the crumb texture, which is not perfectly even, but perhaps I made some mistakes while filling the tins or didn't adequately tap them on the counter before baking. My original intention to utilize raspberry filling evaporated after I tasted the batter. Instead I went with vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream enhanced with about 4 ounces of cream cheese.
My ambitious plan included four sets of skills. Since my calorie and health conscious lifestyle relegates major baking projects to holidays and rites of passage, I had to throw the book at this one: two piping techniques—shell borders and high swirls—and two color methods—watercolor sides and two toned piping. The border piping was moderately successful and the top swirls came out nicely. I am not an experienced colorist, and since I truly dislike deep colored icing, the variations I chose didn't really blend as I had planned, both on the sides and in the two toned piping. I will use a tin of store bought icing to hone my technique in the future. Next time!
If you've made it this far, you are in luck because the recipe information follows. I adapted the cake from Ana's Baking Chronicles. On her website look for Earl Grey Tea Cake. As stated above, I didn't use her icing and I mixed up a soak consisting of about two tablespoons of the Earl Grey syrup in lukewarm almond milk, and painted it on the layers before filling and icing.
https://www.anasbakingchronicles.com/
The final verdict? The cake sponge was very delicious with a delicate yet fully recognizable Earl Gray flavor. The icing tasted like a classic buttercream with just a tiny hint of cream cheese tang to cut the sweetness. My only regret was insufficient contrast in the colors and an over reliance on a pink palette. If I had it to do over again I might have substituted more of a raspberry color for the medium pink and deepened the purple. I probably should have started with red rather than pink in the first place. Live and learn!
