You might not think of summer as the ideal time to take onelaborate baking projects—it’s the season offruity shaved ice, soft-serve ice cream, and avoiding the oven at all costs. But every member of my family has a summer birthday, and as the designated birthday cake baker, I don’t retire the oven mitts when the temperatures soar into the 90s. On the contrary: Summer is my baking Super Bowl.
At the start of the season, I was ambitious. I constructed a towering four-layer chocolate-caramel cake for my dad’s birthday in May; a similarly staggering strawberries-and-cream number for my mom’s in June. As the summer drawled on, my cakes became slightly less elaborate—a two-layercarrot cakefor my sister’s birthday in July, anice cream cakefor my brother’s at the beginning of August.
I love baking cakes, but after a summer full of birthdays, I’d extinguished my will to whip up yet another batch of Italian meringue buttercream in the 90° heat. For my own end-of-summer party, I wanted something simple yet classy. A cake that celebrated the last of the summer’s berries. A cake that did not require frosting, or finesse, or fuss.
Enter:This vintageGourmetstunner.
I stumbled upon this recipe while perusing the Epicurious archives, searching for ways to use a tub ofmascarponethat’s been lingering in my fridge. ThisGourmetrecipe was first published in August 2008 and has over a hundred 5-star reviews. “I am not a great baker, but followed the directions carefully, and the results were delicious and impressive,” wrote one reviewer. Others described it as light, delicate, and not too sweet—exactly what I wanted for an end-of-summer soirée.
The cake itself was simple: One layer of tender buttermilk cake, made with a classic creaming method (beat the butter with sugar until fluffy, add the eggs, then the buttermilk and the dry mixture). The buttermilk gives the vanilla cake a subtle tang and keeps it plush and moist. Once the cake layer cooks, it’s torted to make a Victorian-style sandwich (a.k.a. turning a single cake into multiple layers by slicing it cross-wise). But instead of the whipped cream and jam you’d find in aVictorian Sponge Cake, it’s filled with fluffy mascarpone whip, then dusted with powdered sugar and piled high with glossy sherried berries (say that five times fast).
The recipe fit all my requirements (relatively easy, fresh and light, unfussy), but it’s really the berries that sold me. You make them by reducing fino sherry and sugar into a quick syrup on the stovetop, then pouring the hot liquid over a jumble of fresh strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries. The syrup glosses the berries with the kind of shine I’d only ever seen on the picturesque berry tarts at French patisseries. I used farmers-market-fresh strawberries, but I bet this vibrant sherry syrup could revive even the watery grocery store specimens. To keep the berries from getting too soggy, I strained out the syrup after they soaked for 15 minutes. I reserved the remaining strawberry-sherry syrup to drizzle over the cake slices; I also used it in a batch ofsherry spritzes.
至于剩下的蛋糕,我调整了配方slightly to my tastes, doubling the amount of vanilla and adding a pinch of salt to the whipped mascarpone. To prevent the mascarpone filling from over-whipping (as mascarpone is prone to do) and curdling, I skipped the whisk and used my KitchenAid’s paddle attachment. Slowly paddling the mascarpone and cream builds a thick, fluffy, voluminous whip—a trick I learned from Bon Appétit food editor Shilpa Uskokovic’s brilliantwhipped cream cheese frosting recipe.
The cake was a total hit. My friends loved that it wasn’t too sweet; they piled their plates high with second helpings of sherried berries. Dusted with powdered sugar, the cake emitted an elegant, effortless vibe—not typical for my over-the-top self, but perfectly suited for the occasion. “Oh, this cake?” I said, pointing at my masterpiece on its silver platter. “I just threw it together.”
