TWD: Berry Surprise Cake

I really enjoy spending time in the kitchen... measuring, stirring, sifting, etc... It's one of the reasons why I like to bake so much (the other reason is because of my rampant sweet tooth, of course). There is something mind-numbingly soothing about the preciseness of baking.

So, I have no problems with recipes that take a little more time and effort. Recipes that dirty up a shit ton of bowls and spoons and scrapers. Especially... when it's for a special occasion and I get to share the end result with friends or family.

That brings me to my biggest issue with this recipe. Mary Ann of Meet Me in the Kitchen chose this Berry Surprise for this week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe. In theory, this recipe is awesome... a white cake (a genoise, in fact) with whipped cream, cream cheese and berries (strawberries, in my case) tucked inside. Iced with whipped cream.


Sounds delicious, right?? Well, it's good. Yes. Is it good enough to spend this much time and effort in making again? Definitely not.

I mean, granted, I'm not the biggest fan of whipped cream. I mean, sure I like a little as a garnish sometimes, but it's not something that I spoon graciously all over my desserts (like paula deen does... I swear, it's like she covers her stuff in whipped cream). Anyway... digressing...

So, you make this genoise cake, right? And it's kind of a pain in the ass, cause there's lots of folding involved... and then of course, I overfolded mine and ended up with a sunken middle. Then after you bake the cake, then you gotta whip up the surprise center which is composed of cream cheese, cream, and some sugar (not enough sugar, in my opinion). Then you gotta fill the cake with that mixture, and frost the cake with some whipped cream that you have to make from scratch.

All this and you wind up with a glorified strawberrry shortcake with cool whip. I mean, seriously.... that's what my cake tasted like. Like I had bought those little shortcake/sponge cake thingys in the grocery store... cut up some strawberries and topped it all with insane amounts of cool whip. You know how much easier that would have been? Ummm... yeah. Not going there.

Taste good? Yup... how could it not? Taste good enough for all that effort and messy bowls? Ehhh. Not for me.