Spring Wreath Cake and 3 year Blogiversary!

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I love Spring flavors. I love the flowers blooming everywhere, and making the area look so pretty. It is so fun to translate those flavors in the form of baked goods, or in this case a Spring inspired Cake! Strawberries are slowly coming in season, probably one of my favorite fruits. I did not taste sweet strawberries, until I came to California. The ones from the farmer’s market are just so sweet and juicy and you can taste the freshness, in each and every bite.

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I decided to make a Spring inspired Cake – basically a 3 tiered cake, and each layer having a different flavor. I went with Strawberry, Lemon and Lavender flavors, all very springy and fresh and fragrant. Strawberry goes well with Lemon, and Lemon goes well with Lavender, so lemon formed the middle tier of the cake. I used fresh strawberry puree and strawberry powder(from freeze dried strawberries) for the Strawberry Layer, lemon zest and lemon extract for the Lemon Layer, and lavender powder(from dried lavender flowers) in the Lavender Layer. I was contemplating putting lemon curd in the middle of each tier, but that would make it way too lemony, and you would not be able to taste the strawberry and lavender layers, so I decided to keep the buttercream a bit more subtle, by using an Elderflower Swiss Meringue Buttercream filling and coating for the cake. Why elderflower? Because it again goes well with the three different layers of the cake! I used St. Germain Liquer, which I am a huge fan of, to flavor the buttercream and use as a simple syrup for keeping the cake moist. I made a simple syrup, and added the liquer for the flavor of the elderflower in the simple syrup.

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For the Swiss Meringue Buttercream, I love how detailed the instructions are from Stella of BraveTart, and I adapted the recipe from here, at Serious Eats!  I have used my adapted recipe for the cakes that I have made in the past so I know that it works well. The recipe is fantastic, and she explains with clarification, at what temperature to wait for the egg and sugar mixture to boil, and how long to whip the meringue, and what temperature the meringue should be before adding the butter. I loved her detailed instructions, and it did make a very smooth buttercream. I added elderflower liquer to the buttercream, which makes for a very delicious buttercream and complements the cake flavors. I made the flower decoration out of American Buttercream just for more stability, as it was my first time pipping the flowers. I had so much fun with it, but I do know that I require a lot of practice. I bought Tessa’s beautiful new cookbook called Icing on a Cake, that I am so in love with!!! Tessa is such a sweet person on IG, and I love what she does and what she stands for, and her adorable family ofcourse! I love her new book, and I really wanted to make flowers like hers. I still require a ton of practice, but I think this was not a bad attempt for my first time making flowers ;). I am so proud of her, and her gorgeous book, and I look forward to baking a cake from it soon! If you want to learn how to pipe flowers, you must get her book too for loads of inspiration!

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I was very happy with this cake. It is easy to transform a base recipe, using flavors that you may like and that is how I generally approach all my bakes. I like plain flavors, but for me, I love adding fruity or floral flavors to any of my bakes. That is what gives me satisfaction and joy. The flavors worked out so well together. The texture of the cake was fantastic, and I was quite happy with the buttercream flowers too. I do require a lot of practice, and I cannot wait to experiment more with the flavors! Ordering more Wilton pipping tips soon!! 🙂

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It is spring time and I really wanted to make a Spring Wreath Inspired Cake with all the beautiful blooms out there, and use bright colors in it. My inspiration of the colors came from the Anthropologie window display. Anthropologie has the best window displays, always seasonal and so creative, and artistic and a joy to look at. Whoever comes up with the window displays, is truly a genius! So the flower pink shades and the peach shades were inspired from the display and that is what I tried to recreate, on this cake.

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The second reason for making this cake is … it is my 3 YEAR BLOGIVERSARY! 🙂 It is hard to believe that I have been blogging since the past 3 years. I started blogging in 2007, after my mom passed, as a tribute to her, to share recipes that we cooked together, and that invoked memories of her, and the time spent with her. It was very emotional for me to start this blogging journey, to talk about her in my posts, and share how much I miss her and wish she was here to taste all the food that I make, and cheer me on.  I have documented a lot about my family back home in India as well as here in the US, about my musings and upbringing, about my kids, who are a huge inspiration for many of the ideas I may come up with. The journey that started as a way to document my recipes, has evolved a lot over the past three years. I know I have not done any blog uplifting to make it look prettier, but that is mainly because I have not had time to do so with my full time job, my kids and putting recipes out there for all of YOU. It has been a joy to share the recipes on the blog, and many of you making the recipes and letting me know how much you like them, so a very BIG THANK YOU TO all of YOU, who have taken the time to do so. It means a LOT TO ME. So thank you from the bottom of my heart! I hope to write a cookbook someday, for the one person who talk me how to cook – my Mom and I really hope my dream comes true!

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With that, I will leave the recipe of this beauty of a spring cake for you to make and cherish! Have a wonderful day!

XO

Amisha

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