Vanilla cake with raspberry cream filling and lemon buttercream

Remember the pretty bow cake I made? Here are some in-progress photos along with the recipes at the end!

I already had a lovely moist chocolate cake recipe so I set upon finding one for a basic vanilla cake. Along came another recipe that called for oil instead of butter and here was one of my two cakes:


I greased and flour the cake pans properly and the cake released without a hitch. Here's the proof via a perfectly smooth bottom:


Just like my chocolate cakes, I cut each cake into two layers and torted using the method I learned in the basic decorating class. Here is what my cake looked like after the first torting:


And here are two photos showing what I did... After piping a dam using lemon buttercream, I spread a thin layer of raspberry jam and then added a generous layer of raspberry cream filling:



Once I finished torting, I covered the entire cake with the remaining buttercream. Unlike the pure buttercream cakes, I didn't do a crumbcoat plus a top layer because no one would care about crumbs inside a fondant cake:


I took the cake to class along with my pre-flavoured and coloured fondant. We rolled out our fondant in class, covered our cakes, and started decorating. As I had decided to use the giant fondant bow I made in my first class, I pulled it out:


I glued it to the top of my cake using gum glue (made of fondant and water) and added some mini flower cutouts for a little something extra:


When I got home, I couldn't wait to give my cake a try so I removed the bow and sliced it up right away!


Here is a snapshot of the inside and the layers clearly show the cake, buttercream, jam, and cream filling:


What did I think of the cake? It was quite tasty, although I would cut the sugar in the cake recipe next time. Half would be about right since the jam and buttercream were already sweet, but the rest of the recipe is a definite keeper! Here are all the different parts of the cake except for the thin jam layer (which is just jam) and the fondant (which is Wilton fondant flavoured with Galloway's raspberry extract and dyed with Wilton burgundy icing colour):

• Vanilla cake
•  
• 2 1/2 call-purpose flour
• 2 1/4 tspbaking powder
•  
• 4eggs
• 2 cgranulated sugar
• 1 csoy milk
• 3/4 coil
• 1 Tbspvanilla extract
•  
• Sift flour and baking powder. Set aside flour mixture
•  
• Beat eggs and sugar for approximately 1 minute until slightly thickened. Add all liquids and mix well. Fold in flour mixture.
•  
• Pour into two 8" round pans and bake at 350 degrees F for 30-35 minutes.

• Raspberry cream filling
•  
• 1/2 cwhipping cream
• 1/2 craspberry jam
•  
• Whip cream until soft peaks form. Add jam and mix.

• Lemon buttercream
•  
• 1 cshortening
• 1 tspbutter flavour
• 1 Tbsplemon extract
• 2 Tbspsoy milk
• 3 1/2 cicing sugar
• 1 Tbspmeringue powder
•  
• Cream shortening, butter flavour, lemon extract, and soy milk. Add icing sugar and meringue powder. Mix until creamy.