Monday, August 30, 2010

The inspiration for this next baked goodie actually comes from Starbucks. Before we began this blog, we had compiled a list of possible cakes, cookies, and cupcakes that we're going to do for the next few months. We ended up talking about how delicious the cakes look in Starbucks, especially the Raspberry Swirl Pound Cake, so we decided to make our own raspberry pound cake and see how well it would turn out. We first visited our local Starbucks and tried the raspberry pound cake, and their lemon and poppy seed loaf. The raspberry swirl cake that we had looked rather pathetic compared to the one shown on the website, and naturally we were convinced we could bake a better cake by making it a Raspberry Swirl Lemon Cake. Well at the end of our baking session, we ended up making two pound cakes. The first one did not turn out as marble-ly as we would have liked it, and the second one turned out great, but looked a lot like our Starbucks Raspberry Swirl Pound Cake.


There are two elements to this recipe: the lemon cake, and the raspberry swirls, which is a raspberry sauce. The lemon cake recipe was taken from The Joy of Baking website. We followed the recipe but omitted the poppy seeds. As for the raspberry sauce, that was taken from Betty Crocker's Book, Basics: How to Cook and Entertain With Confidence. All other changes that we made to the recipe are in italics. Our initial plan was to divide the lemon batter, and mix half with the raspberry sauce. Unfortunately the batter turned out more purple than pink (that's where food colouring and artificial flavour is quite useful) so we did not get the marble effect we were hoping for, but with the second batch there was more of an emphasis on creating swirls, which turned out quite beautifully.

Raspberry Swirl Lemon Cake


Lemon Cake

3 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 cup (60 ml) milk
1 1/2 cups (195 grams) all-purpose flour sifted
3/4 cup (150 grams) granulated white sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon grated lemon zest (outer yellow skin of the lemon)
13 tablespoons (184 grams) unsalted butter, softened

Lemon Syrup

1/4cup (60 ml) fresh lemon juice
1/3 cup (65 grams) granulated white sugar

Raspberry Sauce

1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoons cornstarch
3 tablespoons of water
5 ounces of frozen raspberries in syrup, thawed and undrained

Directions

1.Begin with the raspberry sauce. Mix the sugar and cornstarch in the saucepan. Stir in water and raspberries. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens and boils.

2. Continue boiling for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove the saucepan from heat.


3. Strain the sauce through a strainer to remove the raspberry seeds. Let it cool.


4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C) and place the oven rack in the center of the oven. Butter and flour the bottom and sides of a loaf pan (8 x 4 x 2 1/2 inch) (20 x 10 x 7 cm).

5. In a bowl, whisk together the eggs, vanilla extract, and milk.

6. In the bowl of your electric mixter, or with a hand mixer, beat the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and lemon zest until combined. Add the softened butter and half the egg mixture and mix on low speed unitl moistened. Increase the speed to medium and beat for about one minute. (This aerates and develops the cake's structure.) Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add the remaining egg mixture in two batches, beating about 30 seconds after each addition. (This will strengthen the structure of the batter.)

7. Pour half of the batter in the prepared pan. With the help of a spoon pour half of the raspberry sauce and use a knife to create the swirls. Pour the remaining batter and the remaining sauce and swirl.
That's not blood, we swear!
8. Bake for about 55 to 65 minutes or until the bread is golden brown and a tooth pick inserted in the center comes out clean. Ours took 30-35 minutes, so keep an eye after 30 minutes.


9. Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, bring the sugar and lemon juice to a boil, stirring until the sugar dissolves. When the bread is done, remove from the oven and place on a wire rack. Pierce the hot loaf all over with a wooden skewer or toothpick and then brush the top pf the loaf with about half of the hot syrup. Cool the loaf in the pan for about 10 minutes then invert onto a greased wire rack. Brush the remaining syrup onto the bottom and the sides of the loaf. Reinvert the bread so it is right side up and then cool the bread completely before wrapping. Store at least overnight before serving to allow the lemon syrup to distribute throughout the loaf.
First Batch
Second Batch
Ann's Thoughts

I've had lemon pound cake a millions times before but I've never had the change to make one. When we were making the cake, we were kind of skeptical that one tablespoon of lemon rind would actually make the cake lemony, I even suggested to Ana that we should add some lemon juice to the batter, but she insisted that we stick to the recipe, (after all, we were risking it with the raspberry sauce.) It was a good thing we went by the recipe because surprsingly we could actually taste the sweet, tangy, lemon flavour.

Out of the three recipes that we've done so far, this cake is by far our most experimental. We could not find a lemon raspberry pound cake recipe so when we decided to make this cake, we had to figure out how to make the raspberry swirls. Using jelly was one possibility, but I suggested that a raspberry sauce would probably do the trick. Making the raspberry sauce was ridiculously fast, easy, and is excellent for drizzling on top of cakes, brownies, and ice cream for an extra sweet treat.

Ana's Thoughts

More sugar! Oh my, after a week eating sugar everyday (i.e. pancakes, ice cream, cupcakes, cinnamon buns, and more ice cream. =O), here comes our baking-for-the-blog –weekend and guess what? More sugar, this time in the form of cake. Raspberry swirl lemon cake to be more exact. But I don’t mind. It’s for the blog so it’s for a good cause. *wink*

This week we baked at my new place. =D Despite the small space, the lack of some utensils and a different oven, everything went fine. Well, almost everything. (Ha! I bet you were finding it weird that nothing went wrong this time.) We had to make the recipe twice, as Ann said in the beginning, because we had a problem with the marbling. Both tasted good, though. So lemony and moist and fluffy. Hmmm. My mouth is watering just writing this. Okay, I’m having another piece right now. See you next week!

P.S.: They aren’t too sweet, so I guess this doesn’t count as sugar. ;) (Yeah, right.)

Receita em Português:


Bolo de Limão
3 ovos
1 1/2 colher (chá) de baunilha
1/4 xíc.(60 ml) de leite
1 1/2 xíc. (195 g) de farinha de trigo
3/4 xíc. (150g) de açúcar
1 colher (chá) fermento em pó
1/4 colher (chá) de sal
1 colher (sopa) de raspas de limão
3 colheres (sopa) de sementes de papoula (opcional)
13 colheres (sopa) (185g) de manteiga sem sal, temperatura ambiente

Calda de Limão
1/4 xíc. (60 ml) de suco de limão
1/3 xíc. (65g) de açúcar

Calda de Framboesas
1 1/2 colher (sopa) de açúcar
1 colher (chá) de amido de milho
3 colheres (sopa) de água
140g de framboesas em calda, descongeladas


Modo de Preparo

Comece pela calda de framboesas. Combine o açúcar e o amido de milho em uma panelinha. Junte a água e as framboesas. Cozinhe em fogo médio, misturando constantemente, até ferver e engrossar.
Deixe ferver por mais 1 minuto, misturando constantemente, e retire do fogo.
Passe a calda por uma peneira para retirar as sementes e deixe esfriar.

Pré-aqueça o forno a 180ºC. Unte e enfarinhe uma forma de bolo inglês.
Em uma tigela, misture os ovos, o leite e a baunilha.
Na tigela da batedeira, bata a farinha, o açúcar, o fermento, o sal e as raspas de limão até combinar. Acrescente a manteiga e metade da mistura de ovos e bata em velocidade baixa até obter uma massa úmida. Aumente a velocidade pra média e bata por mais um minuto. Acresecente o restante dos ovos, em duas partes, batendo bem após cada adição.
Despeje metade da massa na forma e metade da calda de framboesas. Utilizando uma faca, faça movimentos de vai-e-vem para obter um efeito mesclado. Despeje a outra metade da massa e da calda e repita o processo.
Leve ao forno e asse por 55-65 minutos ou até dourar. O nosso bolo assou em 30-35 minutos. Fique de olho no forno após 30 minutos.

Enquanto isso, leve ao fogo os ingredientes da calda de limão e misture até o açúcar dissolver.
Quando o bolo estiver pronto faça furos com um garfo e pincele a calda de limão por todos os lados. Após esfriar, embale e deixe de um dia para o outro para que a calda umedeça todo o bolo.

5 comments:

  1. Oh god, raspberry @_@ Berries are made of pure love!

    Hey Juliana, your blog is pretty nice! I find it so difficult to read recipes in English... it's over Level 10 haha

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi, Kenji! Fresh berries are the best!=)
    Oh thank you! We're trying to improve the blog every week but we don't have much knowledge about computers..hahah
    It's not difficult at all..you just have to know a few terms and you'll be fine. ;)
    Thanks for the comment! =*

    ReplyDelete
  3. Oi, Jú!
    Adorei seu blog! Eu também adoro fazer doces, vou testar suas receitas.

    bj,

    Carlinha =)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Oi Carlinha!Se precisar de ajuda com as receitas é soh me falar, ok?
    Mas tenho certeza q irá gostar =)
    bjosss

    ReplyDelete
  5. This sounds great, I am going to try it today for my girlfriends birthday cake.

    You two would be a great addition to our community dedicated to Food + Travel Adventures. Please check out www.eatitupadventures.com. You can use our site as a secondary home to meet other like minded people and still send them back to your blog or vice versa. Hope to see you there. We are new, so help us make it a great place.

    Cheers,
    Chad

    ReplyDelete