One benefit of making sweets for family and friends is that I get to experiment with new flavor combinations. My mother's birthday was last week, and I was excited to try something a bit different. Year to year, I always try to one-up myself with unique flavors, creative designs, and new pastry techniques.
This year, my mom requested pistachio cake. But, after making a giant pavlova for my brother's girlfriend's birthday a couple weeks ago, I remember her saying she loved meringue too. So, my plan was to somehow incorporate baked meringues and cake in one. The result? Well, you can see here in the pics. Cake decorated with baked Meringue Kisses!
Of course not everything went to plan. When does it ever really? Come birthday week, I could not find pistachio paste need for the recipe anywhere! The afternoon before my mother's birthday I found myself at the last sure place to find the ingredients I needed, only to find that they were sold out. So here I was stranded without a plan B- at least I was at Gourmet Warehouse. This year's "new recipe + unique flavor pairing" challenge was sure taken up a notch. I was surrounded by almost every spice, herb, type of chocolate, jam, tea, etc you could think of. I pretty much had too many options and no time to brainstorm. I quickly started heading down each aisle, picking up flavors I knew my mom liked. Finally, I had to stop, rack my brain a bit, and try to remember some of the recipes on my "to bake" list.
PINK PEPPERCORN! Yes, I know that is something I always wanted to work with. And mom loves interesting flavors. And what goes with pink peppercorn? Well, I don't know.... But I know strawberries go well with black pepper, so I figure any red fruit would probably do. The final result? Pink Peppercorn and Cherry Cake. "Yes! This will totally work," I thought. I grabbed some Cherry Jam and the almond extract I needed and ran home to make the cake.
This cake ended up being delicious, unexpected, and pretty darn cute- if you ask me. Layers of almond cake were topped with spicy-sweet pink peppercorn buttercream and cherry jam. The whole cake with iced in the beautiful pink buttercream speckled with crushed peppers. I used a Swiss meringue buttercream base and the pink peppercorn paired beautifully. The buttercream is slightly sweet and buttery, and the spicy-sweet crushed peppers added a level of flavorful that was unexpected and unique. You may adjust the amount of peppers to your liking. And paired with sweet, tangy cherry filling? Perfection!! Last but not least, the meringue kisses acted as whimsical cake toppers- dusted with a bit of gold luster for added prettiness.
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Assembly:
Using 3 butter cake rounds, layer with buttercream and a thin layer of cherry jam. As mentioned, I used store-bought cherry jam. Use the buttercream to create a damn first before filling in with cherry jam to prevent it from leaking. For further instruction on how to layer and ice a cake, go here!
lyndsay // coco cake land
oh love the flavour combination of this cake, tessa! it's a beauty! love those meringue dollops, too - so cute! happy belated birthday to your mom! xo
Joey
Wow! Such an interesting flavour combination. If I can find pink peppercorns I'm definitely going to try this out 🙂 I don't see cherry jam anywhere in the recipe though...Could you clarify?
Tessa
Thank you, Joey!
Yes, definitely worth at least trying 😉 The cherry jam was store bought and just layered between the cakes as filling with the buttercream. I'll hop on over to the post to clarify. Thanks, again!
Alexandra @ Confessions of a Bright-Eyed Baker
The flavors of this cake are totally unexpected! I'm honestly not sure whether it would be too crazy for me, but I had to click over and tell you that it turned out gorgeous!
Tessa
Thank you!!! You can always gradually ad in the peppercorn a little bit at a time, to your taste. Thanks for stopping by!
Mallory @ Total Noms
Saw this pop up on a few food photography sites and Pinterest today and had to stop by and say WOW- talk about creative! This looks amazing! I love that you were able to come up with this combo on the fly... God bless Gourmet Warehouse LOL! Nice work, beautiful cakes! 🙂 You have a new fan!
Tessa
Mallory,
I'm so glad you stopped by! Thank you 😉
Jennifer
Hi Tessa. Do you have a favorite Meringue Kisses recipe?
Tessa
Jennifer,You can use the meringue recipe from this post: http://stylesweetca.com/2013/07/06/summer-fig-pavlova-2/
Put meringue in a pastry bag with a round piping tip and pipe out "kisses" on a baking sheet lined with parchment. Bake for about 30- 45 min, or until they are crisp on the outside and dry inside.
Tauri
Hi Tessa,I am completely in love with your work and just had a question...How do you hide your cake boards?!? Or do you even use them? I find when I frost over them, they still end up peeking through and I'd rather them not show at all. But not using one is not really an option since they opten move from my turn table to a box to a stand for events. I've piped over them before but sometimes (most times) I like the sleekness of a plain buttercream frosted cake. I could use the advice!
Thanks so much!
Tessa
Tauri,
Good question! Yes, it can be pretty tricky to hide those pesky cake boards! Depending on where the cake is being served, I have a few different strategies. I sometimes trim the board slightly smaller than the cake to ice, and then place the small board and cake on top of a larger board for transportation. Just make sure to secure the two boards with a bit of icing to make sure they don't slice around.
Pink Peppercorn and Cherry Cake | IMG Recipes| Share Your Favorite Recipes, Cooking Tips & Food Images
[…] Pink Peppercorn and Cherry Cake Pink peppercorn buttercream and cherry cake with baked meringue kisses.For full “Pink Peppercorn and Cherry Cake” recipe click here […]