Amande du Jardin Cake

Today I'm combining a lot of the things that have been shown in previous entries to concoct a cake. I'm planning on making a two-layer 6" round Frangipan cake with a layer of Lemon Curd in the center and topped with a Lavender-Rose Buttercream, Toasted Almonds and Lemon Zest.

It's been nine days since I began the lavender-rose extract. It's now time to pour the mixture through a sieve to separate the extract from the rose/lavender. I did this process about three times. Discard the leaves and bottle the extract to use any time you want it. I'm planning on adding some of this extract to some butter cream I'm about to make.


 Buttercream (or Butter Cream) is basically just a type of icing used inside cakes, as a coating, as a decoration or all of the above. It's extremely versatile; some people use it on it's own or choose to flavor it using pretty much anything you can think of: jam, extract, coffee, etc. Buttercream can be made a number of different ways, the recipe I'm using today requires:

•  1 1/2 Cups Unsalted Butter
• 3/4 Cup Sugar
• 1 Cup Egg Whites

 There are always different methods for doing things but for mine I use softened butter and combine all the ingredients in a pot and heat it up on the stove until it's all melted together. I was taught to use my hand to stir the ingredients together (the hand replaces a candy thermometer for temp.) Basically, you keep it moving and when your hand begins to feel the temp getting hot enough that you're worried you'll burn yourself it's time to take it off. If this makes you uncomfortable please find and use another method.

Pour your liquid into your mixing bowl and start whipping it on a low setting (so it doesn't splash hot liquid all over you.) It will take awhile to come together so I will show you a series of photographs of it gradually becoming thicker until it fully forms.

As the liquid begins to thicken you can begin to crank up your whipping speed, eventually cranking it up on its highest setting to fully incorporate the ingredients and whip in air.

Another way of beginning to tell if it's coming together (other than visually of course) is by touch. Periodically touching the outside bottom of the mixing bowl you will feel the temperature not only dropping but actually getting cool. This is a good sign so just keep feeling the cooler it's getting.

Finally, you'll end up with something that looks pretty much like this. Use it as is or (as with everything else) put it in a covered bowl and refrigerate. Now, it's going to pretty much just taste like butter (hence the buttercream name) some people really like this, I'm not a HUGE fan and if I were I'd probably just eat a stick of butter. This is where you can add another flavoring (Raspberry Preserves? Vanilla Extract? Almond Extract?) I've taken this opportunity to put in 1 1/2 TBS of the Lavender-Rose Extract I just finished. I'm experimenting here so I'm going to see how the buttercream tastes on a cake.

Yesterday I made a second batch of Frangipane and baked off each batch in its own 6" round cake pan. I let them cool for quite awhile before preparing and stacking them.

I've decided to put a layer of Lemon Curd in between the two layers of Frangipan. After they are stacked and evened out I place it back in the fridge to cool and set before icing the entire cake.

Ice the entirety of the cake in the buttecream using a flat spatula to even out the layers as much as possible.

Next, I chose to toast some almond slices beforehand and toss them on at the bottom. Not only for a nice visual aspect but also for added texture and flavor.

I wasn't totally pleased with how the buttercream turned out, I think perhaps there are too many egg whites. There were issues with separation when I tried piping with it, which can sometimes be helped by re-heating the batch and then re-whipping it together but for a lighter touch I decided to make some whipped cream, adding a TSP of the lavender-rose extract.Then I piped 6 little rosettes with the whipped cream on top of the cake indicating each piece as well as one larger rosette in the center. I placed almonds in each rosette and then topped it all of with a slight sprinkling of lemon zest. Now, it's ready to eat!!

PS: It's delicious