Ella is participating in American Heritage Girls and is desperate to earn as many badges as she can so her vest is full and pretty like the girls who have been in the group for a while.  I really like the program and I appreciate the clarity and consistency of the badge program.  She chose a few different projects that she wanted to pursue and we got started with the Cake Decorating badge-work this week.

She needs to dye frosting various colors for part of the badge-work so she selected a cake with pink frosting (I know, you're totally shocked).  This particular cake was featured in the book Vintage Cakes by Julie Richardson.  I'd love to write out the recipe but it's a newish book and I have no idea about the copyright restrictions.   As it happens, the cake we made is featured on the cover below.  Not that ours looked like that!



This cake required hard to find ingredients like Dutch processed cocoa, so much butter that my heart is still palpitating and I had to actually take a bowl of egg whites and heat them up over a simmering pot of water.   Never again, I say.


We made raspberry buttercream frosting to go on top and it took longer to make than a Betty Crocker cake takes to mix and bake.  I kid you not.  My four year old son got particularly animated when it was time to mush the raspberries through a strainer and get all the juice but none of the pulp out.  I am still finding raspberry juice splatters all over the kitchen.  He definitely had a great time.




This cake turned out to be amazingly tasty and light and fluffy and the frosting was to-die-for good.   I just wish the author's bakery was close to my house so I could buy one of these cakes the next time I get a craving for it rather than having to slave over for hours myself.



Ella is halfway to earning her badge with the making of this cake and I earned a nice glass of wine.  This book is great, even for a non-baker like me.  If you like making cakes, this is a book to have on your shelf!  Even as a non-baker, I'm glad I've got it handy as this cake was literally the best cake I've ever made.  Yum.