Petite Iced Cakes … Coffee Cream, Raspberry Cream & Chocolate Cream
“I loved their home. Everything smelled older, worn but safe; the food aroma had baked itself into the furniture.”
Susan Strasberg
Petite Iced Cakes for an event I enjoyed creating for. I had a blast making these, experimenting with different flavours and layering mini cakes. Had I the time, I would have made a second batch because the first one turned out to be such fun! The event? An Interflora challenge for the baking blogger community to create a delicious treat for ‘Grandparents’ Day Baking Challenge’ on Sunday 7th October.
It’s got a nice feel to it . All you need to do is bake a recipe that’s been handed down to you from generation to generation, or something you have fond memories of baking with your grandma in the kitchen or simply a delicious sweet treat to celebrate the occasion. Bake it, blog about it and mail a link to these good florists in London who are hosting the challenge. A public vote will decide the winner!
I have a confession to make. My Grandma never baked, an oven in a remote Indian house unheard of at the time. She cooked a LOT, my paternal grandma that is. I still remember her sitting all hunched up in a brick and stone kitchen, cooking over a low wood fire, blowing air through an iron pipe when the flame needed some help! The aromas from that almost extinct Indian kitchen still dance in my head, and come alive each time I smell a wood fire oven!
So much for connect and food memories. She even had a dark room where she stored HUGE jars of Indian pickles and preserves, the room kept locked to keep pesky kids from sticking their fingers in. We visited once every year as my father was in the Air Force and we were always posted far away. The little dark room was always open for us, much to the other kids chagrin!
Thankfully my mother did bake ‘some’, in the sense that she baked an annual Christmas Fruit Cake {with garam masala} that we waited for eagerly every December, the high point of our curious little lives. The funny thing is that it always got so late that in many ways it became a New Years Fruit Cake! I’ve blogged about her Garam Masala Chritmas Cake and am thankful the kids can remember her as baking something, anything! She used to bake a mean roast once upon a time … about 30 years ago!
So here we go … I have created little somethings to help spread the awareness about Grandparents day, a day to recognise the contribution that the older generation gave to their families and wider society. These little iced cakes may not look perfect but they hold something for everyone! There’s Coffee Cream {my personal favourite}, there’s Chocolate Cream that everyone loves, and there’s Raspberry Cream, reminiscent of the favourite British Victoria sandwich cake.
Once again ingredients laid out, the mind began experimenting. I had a genoise sponge in mind, using melted butter in the batter. Thoughts of the Del Monte contest on IndiBlogger made me reach out for Del Monte Olive Oil instead! The sponge came out moist and pillowy soft! The petite iced cakes are on their way to WorldFoody as there is some raspberry fruit filling from Del Monte in one of them too.
When I started off I had just a layered coffee cream cake in mind. As I mixed the batter, my mind went towards many little cakes, and then the possibilities exploded in my mind. I was a baker in a hurry! I narrowed down to Coffee Cream, Raspberry Cream and Peaches ‘n’ Cream. 
Then ‘normal life happened’. While one terrible teen demanded to be dropped to a friends place, the other had to be picked up, some more deadlines had to be met … blah blah blah! The peaches lived happily ever after in their tin, and I made a Chocolate Cream cake instead as I had a small portion of chocolate pastry cream in the fridge. 
So come, put your best baking skills forward and bake something sweet to celebrate Grandparents Day … a desert that might be a family speciality, a dessert that might be just the thing to bring a smile to their face, or one that you can surprise them with. When I looked at these little almost crooked cakes, I heard the junior teens voice deep in my head, ” Why does Nana always keep laughing so loudly at everything, I mean EVERYTHING?” 
To enter the competition simply email your photos, recipe and a link to your blog article to blog@interflora.co.uk by Friday 21st September.The winner will receive a luxury arrangement of flowers of their choice plus a Grandparents’ Day Gift Basket which will be delivered to your chosen recipient in time for Grandparents’ Day. 5 runners up will also receive a Grandparents’ Day Gift Basket for their nominated grandparent.
Summary: Dainty little iced cakes lavished with a vanilla buttercream. Each good to serve four, they are made with different flavours – coffee, chocolate & raspberry. The flavour possibilities are endless … and the fun, infinite!
Prep Time: 1 hour
Total Time: 1hour 30 minutes
Ingredients:
- Sponge
- 3 eggs, room temperature
- 60g {1/2 cup} all purpose flour
- 110g {1/2 cup} raw sugar {or Castor}
- 20g {1/4 cup} almond meal
- 1tsp baking powder
- pinch of salt
- 10gm / 2 tsp Del Monte Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- 1.5tsp 2% fat mil
- 1/2 tsp vanilla bean powder {or 1 tsp pure vanilla extract}
- Classic Vanilla Buttercream
- 100gm unsalted butter, not too soft
- 40ml low fat cream {Amul}, chilled
- 150gm icing sugar {it was a little oversweet for me, but fine with the kids}
- pinch salt
- 1/2 vanilla bean scraped
- Flavourings
- 1 tsp coffee for the coffee cake
- Dark chocolate ganache, chocolate chips
- Del Monte Raspberry Fruit Filling
Method:
- Sponge
- Line the bottoms and sides of three small 4″ baking tins. Preheat oven to 180C.
- Sift the flour, almond meal, baking powder and salt together. Reserve.
- Mix the olive oil and milk in a small bowl Reserve.
- Beat the eggs and sugar over simmering water on high speed for about 10 minutes until the mixtures becomes thick and mousse like, tripling in quantity {Thermomix, Speed 4, Butterfly insert, 37C, 10 minutes or more}
- Take off water and continue beating for 3-4 minutes until it cools down a bit. {Thermomix, Speed 4, Butterfly insert, 3-4 minutes}
- Gently fold in the flour mixture in 3-4 goes. {Thermomix, Reverse Speed 2}, followed by the olive oil and milk mixture. Blend in gently but uniformly, divide batter between tins and bake for 20-25 minutes until the sponge springs back when touched lightly, ora tester comes out clean.
- Cool on racks for 5 minutes, remove from tins and cool completely.
- Classic Vanilla Buttercream
- Beat the ingredients together until smooth and light. Taste and adjust sugar if required.
- Assembling
- Reserve a little buttercream for piping on top if desired.
- Cut the little cakes horizontally into 2-3 layers each. Sandwich one with the buttercream, add a few chocolate chips within if desired, and top with a chocolate ganache. Pipe some plain buttercream if desired.
- Sandwich the second with some buttercream and raspberry fruit filling, topping that cake with some buttercream and a dollop of filling.
- Whi the remaining buttercream with 1 tsp of coffee and sandwich and frost the little cake with it. Pipe some plain vanilla rosettes if desired and add a chocolate lace border if you have the time and/or inclination!
- Chill until ready to serve.
- ENJOY
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Also find me on The Rabid Baker, The Times of India
Deeba @ PAB
About me: I am a freelance food writer, recipe developer and photographer. Food is my passion - baking, cooking, developing recipes, making recipes healthier, using fresh seasonal produce and local products, keeping a check on my carbon footprint and being a responsible foodie! I enjoy food styling, food photography, recipe development and product reviews. I express this through my food photographs which I style and the recipes I blog. My strength lies in 'Doing Food From Scratch'; it must taste as good as it looks, and be healthy too. Baking in India, often my biggest challenge is the non-availability of baking ingredients, and this has now become a platform to get creative on. I enjoy cooking immensely as well.
32 Comments
Barbara | Creative Culinary
Aw Deeba you put us to shame. ONE of these cakes would have been spectacular and then you do three? Wishing you were my neighbor! Lovely, gorgeous, beautiful, amazing and I’m betting totally DELICIOUS!!
Rosa
So dainty and cute! Those cakes are fabulous.
Cheers,
Rosa
Omee
They look super gorgeous! And your story made me think about my grandma as well 🙂
pavithra
Wow they looks sooooooooo cute… lovely write up too 🙂 Wish To have a slice in each of those 🙂
belllii
I would like to be wise, but maybe not prehistoric…smile. but I would love to celebrate grandmothers day for my own mom and someday for myself. As for these little cakes they are gems. Good luck in the competition.
Marjorie (Sugar for the Brain)
Cute cute cute!!! Love them! Mini-desserts are so beautiful 😀
Rekha Kakkar
Oh THAT spong!!! Need to learn it from you I just can’t get that snowy pillowy texture.
Ruchira
Petite cakes! So wonderful. So lovely. I want iced coffee cake. I want to know why nana laughs at everything? (Mine did too) This mystery needs to be solved
natasha
These are so cute! I want to gobble them up right now:) Beautifully written as well.
Love Natasha
Anjali
Deeba that is so true in the Indian context, none of our grandmas baked cakes and breads as they are not Indian foods though they would have been curious to explore. They cooked the yummies curries and rotis that a non Indian Grandma would surely dream of though.
Deepa
Oh Deeba!! just an awesome post! I did not have the chance to experience grandparents, but watching my son with my parents beats everything!! My mom sure is the frosting!!
Neev
very pretty little cakes….smiles for you and all grandmas.
Jennifer
Fabulous kind of cakes I like it very cute the mini cakes…Thanks a lot for sharing the recipe…I love it..
ArabianCoffees
Terrific looking cakes… I bet they taste amazing.
Will give these recipes a go, but will try using our Arabic coffee as a flavouring!
Deeba @ PAB
Arabic Coffee? Now that sounds even better! Mmmm
Tadka Pasta
Whoa! 3 beautiful cakes! Wonderful flavours and combinations.
Swapna
very pretty cakes..
where did you get the raspberry filling from?
Deeba @ PAB
I got it from Del Monte. They do have it in large tins {freezer to thaw properties} for hotels, bakeries etc.
Rituparna
The discussion about grandparents day reminds me of an incident. I passing out of class 5 and the primary section of our school had organized a Grandparents Day for the very first time. I was all involved and asked my grand maa to come the function. She refused, as she didn’t wanna go alone. I was born after my grand father had passed away. I howled and cried till my cousin grand parents agreed to go for me. My grand paa, a retired Railway employee came all suited booted for the function. He was awarded the Best Dressed Grand Father that evening. My eyes still tear when I think of it. At 97 today, he is still going strong. Grand parents are sooo precious.
Love those cakes, to my of ranting here. 🙂
Meena
Lovely cakes.
Grandparents are precious! Lost for words to voice the emotions that choke me.
Meena
Lovely Post. Gorgeous caes
Laura Dembowski
Those cakes are stunning! I love mini layer cakes. There is something so special about them. I miss my grandparents dearly; they are all unfortunately gone now, but I think of them all the time.
Niki
Cute. Lovely Cakes Deeba.
i have a request-can you please post a tutorial on how to level and frost cakes?? have never been able to do it nice and evenly as your cakes-would love to be able to do that!!
Deeba @ PAB
Thank you Niki and sorry because I know you have written to me before & I lost your comment after my PC did the royal crash. Will do {asap} and post it for you. Else will do a Google hangout.OK? Will teach you! It’s simple!!
Priya Sreeram
dainty and petite indeed; the recipe has my attention. bookmarking it deeba
A Brown Table
Your petite cakes look absolutely delicious. I wish I could eat one right now, okay to be honest, I’ll probably try to eat more than one. The look so good!
Taylor
Those little cakes are adorable! I almost ate my screen. They look so tasty. 🙂
Runnergirlinthekitchen
I have been travelling, to get over my boredum in the train i picked up the latest Femina Issue. Just flip through the pages only to see your beautiful similing pic, in that lovely kitchen of yours. Loved the article, dint know u had a thriving catering business (your multi talented) and totally understood when you said that you have to focus on what you need to make the blog all about!
Coming back to the post, i am running out of adjectives – its simply brilliant!
Deeba @ PAB
LOL…thanks aton! You must have been the first one to pick up a copy. I didn’t even know it was out. Thank you! I had a small bake to order business if thats what it’s called. Thriving is an added adjective thanks to Femina! Thank you for all those wonderful words!
Jamie
Deeba, I am enthralled. Why don’t you write and tell us more of your upbringing, your grandmothers and mother. This image you paint of your grandma in her kitchen is fascinating! I want more stories! And the cakes are brilliant and now I want to make mini individual cakes, too. Yours are so pretty and I want to taste each one. The texture is perfect! Wonderful post, darling! xo
Meeta
Grandparents are the best and they rock! But OMG Deeba you rock with these lovely cakes. You are such an artist!
Kate
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