Summer Citrus Series: Berry Citrus Shortcake Observations

Let’s get right to it. This project was an epic fail! I wanted the last post for my Summer Citrus Series to be a transition from the end of the Summer to the beginning of the Fall. I decided to try a version of berry shortcake because had I made a Strawberry “Shortcake” for a friend’s wedding, about this time 5 years ago, and thought it would be the perfect choice. My friend’s wedding cake was an orange flavored yellow cake with fresh strawberries and strawberry Italian meringue buttercream. I have never been a fan of oranges so I thought why not experiment with some different flavor combinations. I wanted to stay as close to the classic berry shortcake as possible with one major exception. I am lactose intolerant and even though I can have very small amounts of diary occasionally, consuming such a substantial amount of diary wouldn’t be possible. So, I had a plan. I would substitute white cake flavored with (my favs) lemon and lime zest for the sponge cake/biscuit and berry flavored Swiss meringue buttercream for the stabilized whipped cream, keeping the star of the show the fresh in season berries. I was super excited! I was using two new white cake recipes to keep this project as experimental as possible.

I was ready to go. After reading the new cake recipes I had a few doubts, but quickly brushed them aside because I’d had a similar experience with a Red Velvet Cake recipe from the same cookbook and the finished product came out way better than expected. I had finished making the first cake batter and could see right away that it was too thick to create the final product that I wanted. I decided to add more milk to my batter hoping that would fix the problem. As I didn’t want to over mix my batter, because it causes the cake to become tough, I mixed in the milk by hand. I put the cakes in the oven to bake and everything seemed great. I stupidly moved on to making the second cake batter, taking the time to make some adjustments to the amount of milk in the batter to make sure I didn’t have a problem with thickness. The first cakes came out of the oven and looked okay and the second batter went in to bake. This was my third mistake, instead of checking the cake as soon as they had cooled completely I wrapped them for storage and popped them into the refrigerator. I went on to make my swiss meringue buttercream. This was the part of the experiment that I was looking forward to the most. I was making blackberry, blueberry, raspberry and strawberry buttercream to accompany my cakes. They all looked and tasted awesome! I could now move on to assembling the cakes.

I knew as soon as I started cutting the cakes into layers that something wasn’t right. I tasted scraps from both cakes and almost choked on the overly sweet hard bits of cake. I was devastated. I didn’t have enough ingredients to redo the cakes using a tried and true recipe. I had done all the work to make the buttercreams and prepare the fresh berries for the cake. Did I stop and waste all the ingredients/products that I had paid for/made? I talked with my sister about it and we both agreed that just because my cake sucked that didn’t mean I shouldn’t continue the project. I do these projects for myself but also to share my baking experiments with you. So, although it wouldn’t work for me this time. I could still share how I would finish this project for the blog. I did change up my plan a little. I made a point to use as few berries and as little buttercream as possible for my pictures and videos. This way I could at least use my berries for breakfast (smoothies and yogurt) and freeze my unused buttercream for a time when I had good cake.

That’s it. Clearly, I should have tried maybe one cake or a dozen cupcakes instead of four layer cakes with two unknown recipes. I guess the lesson learned here is to always trust your gut. I mean intuition is just experience, right? If we can’t rely on our experiences to help us through life how would we learn. As far as trying new things, I don’t believe we should ever stop wanting or trying to have new experiences, just be prepared to unexpected outcomes. Anyway, later days.

#swissbuttercream #cake #strawberry #blueberry #raspberry #lime #lemon #blackberry