Every since I first got my hands on The Cake Bible, I have wanted to make the Star-Spangled Rhapsody cake. The thing about holiday cakes is, well, you've got to wait for the holiday to come around, and I was not going to miss this opportunity. I had been daydreaming about it for weeks. How many layers? What kind of filling? Keep the same decorative pattern?
As usual, the details of my cakes tend to result from what I have on hand. At that moment, it was a farmer's market with fresh ripe sweet strawberries, extra egg yolks from a batch of Swiss meringue buttercream, and two layers of white velvet butter cake I had in the freezer left over from baking for the Neapolitan cake last week. The cake was still not complicated enough for it to be fun for me, so somehow I decided it must be an ice cream cake. Must.
This was pretty good for a first ice cream cake. Although, I may have been a little obsessive with the over-freezing and dry ice transport. I might do a few things differently the next time.
- Turning my freezer to maximum seemed to make the ice cream too icy. This is probably not necessary next time.
- Making a Swiss Meringue buttercream is totally wasted here because the "best frosting I have ever tasted in my life" is completed dulled by the freezing process. Sadly, it became unremarkable.
- Freezing the decorative fruit made them all frosty! They were gorgeously vibrant right before I returned the cake to the freezer.
Overall, I am simply very pleased with this cake. I think the red, white and blue just presents spectacularly as inspired by the Cake Bible showcase cake. This 8 inch cake also served 12 perfectly. There was apple pie too of course. So of course, you have to have both. You can't have 4th of July without apple pie.
