This week’s Project Pastry Queen recipe was selected by Beth of Powdered Plum – White on White Buttermilk Cake with Jack Daniels Buttercream. It’s a moist white cake topped with a whiskey-spiked Italian meringue-style buttercream frosting.

I didn’t have any Jack Daniels so I went in a different direction:
– I only made half the cake recipe, reducing the sugar 25%, and baked it in 6-inch pans.
– I had planned to make a Chambord frosting instead but then found a bowl of leftover Raspberry Swiss Meringue Buttercream (recipe below) in the very back of the fridge while I was gathering ingredients. I used that instead of making more frosting.
– Because I didn’t have to make frosting, I made a cake wrap after finding a bag of candy melts with my cake decorating supplies (sense a pattern?) and piled a bunch of raspberries on top of the cake.

The white cake itself is a good, solid white cake. I’ll post a how-to on the cake wrap soon. I’d forgotten how “fun” those were 🙂

Thanks to Beth for picking such a fun cake! Head over to Powdered Plum for the full cake and original frostin grecipe. And check out the other Project Pastry Queen members’ cakes!

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Raspberry Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Use fresh raspberries to make a pretty pink swiss meringue buttercream.

Ingredients

• 6 oz fresh raspberries
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 1/4 cup sugar
• 4 egg whites
• 3 sticks of butter, cut into cubes and at room temp
• 2 Tbsp lemon juice

Instructions

1. To make the puree, place raspberries and water in a small sauce pan over medium-high heat.
2. Cook for ~5 minutes, and then break the berries apart with a spoon.
3. Reduce heat to medium and cook uncovered for 15 minutes to reduce the liquids in the saucepan.
4. Pour into a fine strainer set over a bowl, and using the back of a spoon, press and scrape the pulp and juices through the strainer for several minutes until you have just a clump of seeds left in the strainer. You should have 1/3 to 1/2 cup of puree.
5. Cool to room temperature.
6. To make the frosting, whisk the sugar and egg whites together in the bowl of a stand mixer.
7. Place the bowl over a simmering pot of water and whisk until the eggs are very hot (160 degrees) and the sugar has completely dissolved.
8. With the whisk attachment, whisk on high until the mixture is light and fluffy and has cooled (~10 minutes).
9. Switch to the paddle attachment and drop butter into the mixer 2-3 Tbsp at a time.
10. After all of the butter has been added, add in lemon juice and 1/3-1/2 cup of cooled raspberry puree.
11. Beat until well mixed and then frost completely cooled cupcakes/cakes.
12. Leftovers store wonderfully in the fridge for weeks. Set the frosting out 1-2 hours ahead of time and then mix using the paddle attachment for a couple of minutes on medium.

Notes

Yields: Enough to liberally frost ~18 cupcakes or 24 modestly

Adapted from Martha Stewart's Classic Swiss Meringue Buttercream