Bianca White Chocolate Cake

Bianca Jacobsen, née White, ends many years of employment with World Learning in favor of Mount Holyoke College. It was suggested I bake a cake. It had to be white, of course.


Cake: double-layer white chocolate butter cake using egg whites, split horizontally (4 layers)

Filling: raspberry mousse (3 layers)

Painting: Each cake layer, plus outside and top, were painted with raspberry conserve to intensify flavor and etch each slice with a bold red border between white cake and pink mousse.

Frosting: white chocolate butter cream

Decoration: fresh whole raspberries and tiny white chrysanthemums

Blessings on your way, Bianca.

Photo by Jesse DeLaughter.

Golden Boy Shower Cake

A cake for Minhee Kang and Sehoon Ahn's baby shower, Friday, July 20, 2007. Their first child, known prenatally as Golden Boy, in recognition that he will be born in the Year of the Golden Pig, is due at the end of September.

The presented cake

How did it all come together? The sequence of cake assembly follows.

Cake components

Materials at the ready. Clockwise, from lower left, lemon-scented buttercream, cake (both layers still in foil), white cardboard cake round with brown waxed paper to keep the serving platter clean, lemon imbibing syrup (small jar), cake knife (long), icing spatula, fresh raspberries. In the center are fresh lemons, lemon curd, and raspberry conserve.

Filling first layer with buttercream

Each layer of cake is imbibed with lemon-scented syrup, then covered with the buttercream. A layer of lemon curd tops the buttercream. There are four layers.

Imbibing the top layer

"Imbibing" involves drizzling syrup into the cake, permitting the cake to absorb additional flavor and moisture. Not only does it taste more strongly, it feels better in the mouth. Toothpicks and ruler (on the dishtowel) at lower right are used to ensure the 3/4-inch layers are cut evenly and are level.

Sealing the assembled cake with raspberry conserve

Heating the raspberry conserve thins it and allows application by brush. Here, the exterior is coated. This keeps the three layers of soft filling from leaking out and adds color and flavor to each slice on the plate. The top receives a coat of raspberry, too.

Adding buttercream

Room temperature buttercream is easiest to spread. Disregarding rules followed by painters, a light-colored coat is applied to a darker one. There is a reason for this rule.

Using buttercream to adhere lemon slices

The waxed paper is removed after chilling the assembled cake overnight. The wall of the cake shows bits of red raspberry, the reason for the painter's rule. This impure white coat is camouflaged with slices of fresh lemon, de-seeded and dried. A circle of buttercream is applied to the lemon allowing it to stick to the cake better. The revolving cake stand is partially visible.

The finished cake

The finished cake is topped with a pool of raspberry sauce made by reducing the juice of raspberries into a syrup, taking the seeds out of the pulp and blending the syrup with the uncooked, fresh pulp. Fresh, whole raspberries give a clearer clue about the flavor of the sauce. The lemons do the same for the cake itself. The dark frame for the the more light-colored whole are leaves of climbing hydrangea.

"D'Or et Noir"

Àdieu, Jess!

Jessica Doerr, honoree

A surprise party to say good-bye requires cake, doesn't it? The request was for a dairy-free chocolate cake for a dear francophile. Here's the result, which served thirty celebrants generously (some more than once, but who cares?).

A cake called D'Or et Noir

Noir expresses the chocolate cake's dark flavor and its bittersweet chocolate glaze. Or expresses the complimentary flavor of apricot and was reflected in a decoration of the flower hemerocallis "Stella d'Oro." The value of Jess' work was golden, her effect on others was brightening. Sad feelings exist in the dark of her departure. Thus, the dark and light of a cake in her honor.

Gold? The closest I could come was apricot. Dried whole fruit was reconstituted in warm vanilla syrup, then pureed to an intensely-flavored paste.

Folding apricot puree into buttercream

Taking non-dairy to a fortuitous extreme, milk solids and water were removed from the cake's four pounds of butter. By browning the milk solids before straining them out of the butter, the result was a clarified butter with the heady scent of hot, buttered toast.

The cake itself was a double-layer butter cake made with cocoa, cut into 4.5-inch strips, then placed end-to-end on an oak plank. Both layers were generously imbibed with a syrup of vanilla and orange flower water.

Applying apricot buttercream to imbibed first layer of cake

To intensify flavor, apricot preserves were boiled, pureed, strained, and cooled. This sauce then topped the buttercream.

Applying apricot sauce to buttercream

Stirring softened butter into melted chocolate permitted an addition of vanilla (depth and aroma), orange flower water (brightness, aroma), and corn syrup (mouthfeel, stability). This chocolate glaze was strained for additional smoothness as it was being applied to the constructed cake.

Setting the chocolate glaze

Fortunately, the serving plank with finished cake fit between the back doors of the car, an inch to spare on either end.

Transporting the cake

The party was almost over when guests began requesting "some to take home."

Nearing the end of the party

Thus it was: a lactose-free gâteau made with toast-scented, clarified butter.

• cocoa-based butter cake
• imbibing syrup of vanilla and orange flower water
• apricot mousseline buttercream (no egg yolks)
• apricot sauce
• chocolate butter glaze
• presented on a plank

Cartelli Cake Production

Production notes from July 2005.



Applying filling to imbibed first layer.










Imbibing second layer. Note double width.








Leveled, trimmed cake. Imbibing and filling complete.

Applying the frosting.

The frosted cake.








Primitive (but effective) border piping.








Applying decorations.








Half of the cut cake.








A closer look at decorating a cake with fruits and vegetables.

Suzanne & Peter Cut the Cake

Three tiers of double-layered dark chocolate genoise imbibed with raspberry syrup, filled with raspberry mousse, frosted with raspberry lemon buttercream mousseline. Served with raspberry coulis. Decorations include raspberry coulis, organic fairy roses, and climbing hydrangea leaves.

Wedding couple: Peter Towle (left) and Suzanne Kingsbury, September 2006.

Minhee & Sehoon Cut the Cake

Four tiers of double-layered genoise imbibed with citrus syrup (orange, lemon), filled with lime rose mousse, frosted with rose buttercream mousseline. Decorations of organic fairy roses and rose geranium leaves.

Wedding couple: Sehoon Ahn (left) and Minhee Kang, September 2005. (Instruction by the baker.)

Eleanor & Carmen Cut the Cake

Triple-layered genoise imbibed with lime syrup, filled with lemon curd, and frosted with lime buttercream mousseline. Served with raspberry coulis. Carved decorations by Tukta Long include roses of sweet potato, beet, and carrot in the Thai style, boiled in syrup for translucence and stability. Other decorations include red currants, blackberries, limes.

Wedding couple: Carmen ___ (left) and Eleanor Cartelli, July 2005.