Recipe: Fruity Pebble Cake!

I have to start by saying I am SO not usually a baker! I have dabbled here and there but never hardcore like this. I am so sick of box cakes. They do serve a purpose but I they just taste so...from a box. So my endeavor here was to make everything from scratch and I succeeded. I only have the one picture for now but I will get more put up soon!

This cake was in honor of my friend's birthday, really I wanted an excuse to make a cake and she provided me with the perfect one! I got the idea for this from Whisk Kid's blog. From the second I saw her creation of a rainbow cake I wanted one too! (food jealousy runs high with me) I liked her idea and presentation but I wanted to expand on it. I added some extracts and thus was born Fruity Pebble Cake! (I put the full recipe at the bottom of the post for convenience!)

First let's talk about the cake. I originally wanted to make it a six layer cake representing the six main flavors of Pebbles, however due to batter loss and time constraints (I am a last minute cook i.e. 2 hours before the party I started) it ended up with only five layers.

I pulled out an old colonial cooking book that I've had for years, I purchased it at Valley Forge when I was quite a bit younger. In the book there was a basic cake recipe so I used that. And I took a cue from the lovely miss Whisk Kid for the frosting and used her Swiss Meringue Buttercream.

For the cake:

(Software) A nod to AB!

2 cup white sugar

1 cup butter (I lean toward organic)

4 egg whites

2 whole egg

3 cups all-purpose flour

3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 cup milk (I used whole)

Extracts 1/2 teaspoon of each (I think I would bump that to 1 to 1.5 teaspoon next time)

-Cherry

-Raspberry

-Orange

-Lemon

-Grape

-Lime (part of the missing layer)

Coloring Gel (Only use Gel! liquid coloring will not be vibrant enough)

(Hardware)

2 9x9 square baking pans (Any shape or size is ok however adjust cooking times accordingly)

Stand Mixer

Cooling Racks

Dolly (for frosting and optional)

Plenty of bowls! (you will be dividing the batter remember)

Spatula for utilizing all batter made (I didn't use one and that was the aforementioned loss)

Now for the Frosting:

(Software)

5 egg whites

1 cup sugar

2 sticks butter

1 tsp vanilla extract

(Hardware)

Stand mixer

Double boiler (or a makeshift one like I did)

Let's get started on the cake!

First get all your ingredients measured out and ready to be used. There is a good reason on every cooking show you watch they have all that set to go before they begin cooking! (It took me a long time to realize that was half my battle with learning to cook)

Get out the stand mixer (or hand mixer) and use a whisk attachment. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

We'll start by sifting the flour and baking powder.

Then we'll cream the butter and sugar together. Start the mixer off slow as they begin to incorporate into each other crank up the speed. You'll know it is ready when the mixture looks light and fluffy about 3-5min of mixing total.

Now we want to add the eggs, flour/baking powder mixture to the party. The best way to do this in order to ensure a light a fluffy cake is to alternate between one egg at a time and a little bit of the flour mixture. I started with the egg first I don't think there is a prescribed method to which should come first the flour or the egg (ok semi bad pun) but that's what I did. Also bring the mixer speed down, unless you want to have flour face!

After that is incorporated we'll slowly add the milk and keep mixing until the batter is smooth.

Now we have to split up the batter into 6 equal parts. Miss Whisk kid did this by weight. I didn't have a proper scale so I did it by volume. I took a 1/4 cup measuring cup and dealt the batter like I deal cards into 6 six bowls. After the batter is divided take a toothpick and add a fair amount of the coloring gel to each batter. Start with a little bit and after mixing it though decided upon how deep you want the color and add more if necessary. (I wanted the red and blue to be darker than it turned out but oh well)

Then let's add the extracts to each batter and mix thoroughly.

Now we bake them. I did them in shifts of two colors at a time. Pour the batter for one color into one of the 9x9 pans. Then do the same for another. Bake them for 10 minutes and do the toothpick check to see if its done if not give it a couple more minutes and check again, I would say that the longest it should take would be 15 minutes but don't use that as a benchmark you will end up with over baked cake.

When they are done cool in the pan for about 10 minutes and then transfer to a cooling rack. In no time you'll have 6 vibrant and flavorful layers!!

Now for the frosting. I think that Whisk Kid did such a good job at explaining it I will tell you to check her out here.

Follow her directions on making the frosting and then we'll put it all together here. I'll give you some time to check her page out...

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Ok back? Good good. She really knows her stuff!

So now we need to put it all together! Take one of the layers and put it on the surface you'll be frosting on. (mine was a dolly that spins) add a dollop of frosting to the top and smooth it out. I just used enough to make the layers stick.

Continue on this way until you reach the top and then frost the rest accordingly!

Final thoughts:

This cake was in the end not only easier to make than I had originally assumed but turned out to be a bigger success than I thought it would. Again I'll say next time I would add more extract but still it was a success after all! Finally Thanks to Sami for the picture of my work!