Back in Decemeber, my friend Annie posted a cake on her blog that she wanted to have on her birthday. This cake had six layers of alternating chocolate, vanilla, and pink vanilla layers, iced with pink buttercream frosting, I thought it would be a fun challenge to make it and a nice surprise for her. When I saw the cake I had never attempted anything like it before, except for a 3 tiered cake at school. This was new territory for me.
The first thing that I did to make this cake was draw out a diagram of how I wanted it to look inside and out. It’s dorky, but it helps! I also wrote out a list of the components of the cake and a timeline for when they needed to be completed as a guideline for production. I also decided to make my own addition to the cake: raspberry jam (to cut the richness of the cake and buttercream).
Once I had done that, I set out to find the recipes I would use for the cakes and the buttercream icing. After researching I decided to use Martha Stewart’s recipes for chocolate and vanilla cake and a tradtional buttercream recipe from the Magnolia Bakery cook book. Since this cake was going to be six tiers high, i thought it was best to make the cakes a smaller size and used 6 in. cake pans instead of the more common 9 in. cake size. This created a cake that had a really cute appearance, especially when placed on my small pink cake stand. (The recipes made more cake than I needed so instead of wasting the batter, I baked some cupcakes)
So the Friday before Annie’s birthday party I baked each of the three cakes, let them cool, cut off the tops to even them out, sliced them in half and wrapped each one individually to freeze until the next day (so they wouldn’t dry out). I also made a fresh batch of raspberry jam and refrigerated it until I was ready for assembly of the cake.
On Saturday, with most of the components already completed, I mixed a double batch of buttercream and set out to assemble the cake. With the aid of my diagram and my great sous chef, I started icing and layering the cake on top of a cardboard cake round. First layer down was vanilla, then I piped on some pink buttercream. Then it was topped with pink vanilla and an outer ring of buttercream (or moat- to prevent jam from leaking) and jam inside, then topped with chocolate cake. After that, I just repeated the process until all six of my tiers had been layered. I then covered the outside of the cake with two layers of buttercream and let it rest in the refrigerator before decorating.
To decorate the cake I piped vertical lines of frosting a half inch apart down the sides of the cake. At the end of each line I placed a pink draget (decorative sugar ball) and also used them to decorate the top. I was happy with the result of the cake. It was really fun to make and I was really happy to make it for Annie!
