Thursday 24 July 2014

Whipped Cream Cake

Whipped cream cake is a bit of a misnomer to be honest, as my 'cream', which was a mixture of 300mls extra thick double cream and 75mls of semi-skimmed milk, didn't bulk up when whipped. I'd done a rough calculation which suggested the mixture would have roughly the same fat content as the cream needed in the recipe, but obviously that's not the only factor involved in whether cream will whip, or not. I wasn't too worried, as I was only trying the cake as a better alternative to throwing the cream away at the end of it's shelf life, which is something I would be have been very reluctant to do.

I carried on with Rose Levy Beranbaum's recipe (found here, on Martha Stewart's site), regardless, after beating the cream failed. In  this particular recipe the cream is used as a complete substitute for any other form of fat or oil, rather than an additional source of fat and moisture, as in many other recipes which look similar at first glance. It's a cake which is very easy to make with a stand mixer, and I think it would be good baked as a sandwich cake, rather than a bundt cake, if preferred.

I think the loss of the extra air, which would have been held in properly whipped cream, made the cake a little denser than it should have been, but it was still relatively light and very moist. The plain vanilla flavour made this cake an ideal accompaniment to summer fruit, for a dessert, but I think if I make it again I would like to try some additional flavour - citrus zest, rose extract or almond extract perhaps. I would like to make it at least once again, with the right cream to see if I could get an improvement in texture.

6 comments:

Alicia Foodycat said...

It turned out of the tin very nicely!

Suelle said...

That's the work of cake release spray, Alicia!

Unknown said...

Hi Suelle - you had me at whipped cream, to be honest! I've never seen this sort of cake before, but have been thinking a lot about cream lately as I've recently learned that what Americans call 'half and half' is actually half cream, half whole milk (the decadence!) As for using up cream that's nearing the end of it's shelf life, there's a fantastic Dan Lepard bread recipe using proper sour cream, but I substitute cream for that with excellent results. I've also got a very simple recipe (on my blog) for homemade creme fraiche, which is very easy AND extends the life of cream for another 10 days at least. I'll go and check out the Rose Levy B recipe now, thanks for the tip!

Phil in the Kitchen said...

I like the sound of this as a dessert cake. I have made a cake with cream before and it was quite dense but none the worse for that. I've never tried using whipped cream, though, and that sounds intriguing.

Unknown said...

wow, this really does sound so interesting... I love the idea of whipping the cream first before it goes into the cake to add lightness and even though you say yours failed it looks great and I actually love a little bit of denseness in a cake.

Unknown said...

wow, this really does sound so interesting... I love the idea of whipping the cream first before it goes into the cake to add lightness and even though you say yours failed it looks great and I actually love a little bit of denseness in a cake.