- [John] Today, I'm going to show you
how to make this amazing orchid cake,
which just so happens to be browned butter vanilla
on the inside, my favorite flavor.
Let's get started.
The first thing we have to do is brown our butter.
It needs to warm up, brown, and then cool in the fridge.
So, I'm gonna take two sticks,
or about 225 grams, of unsalted butter,
and place that into a small saucepan
over medium heat.
My butter's browned to this beautiful golden color.
It really changes the character
and adds a lot of depth of flavor.
I'm gonna transfer this to a medium bowl
and then place it in the fridge so it can chill down,
because I'm gonna whip it up.
Look at this color, you can see all the milk solids
have kind of caramelized the heat,
and they taste amazing.
It gives this beautiful aroma.
I'm gonna sift the dry ingredients together.
So that's one and two-thirds cups of all purpose flour,
one heaping teaspoon of baking powder,
one heaping quarter teaspoon of baking soda,
and a generous pinch of salt,
as well as one and one-thirds cups of granulated sugar.
Give it a whisk, and we're gonna set aside.
So, for the wet ingredients, I have my browned butter,
which is at room temperature but still liquidy,
and that's totally fine.
Now I'm mixing together my half a cup of sour cream,
half a cup of whole milk,
three egg whites,
three teaspoons of a good vanilla.
Because the browned butter
has all these beautiful specks in it, I'm actually gonna add
a little bit of vanilla bean paste as well.
Vanilla bean paste has no alcohol,
but it does have the vanilla seeds,
so it gives you the full visual of the vanilla
as well as that wonderful taste.
Give it a quick whisk
(whisking)
and set aside.
It smells really nice already.
Now, all we have to do is pour the wet into the dry,
and give it a good whisk. Look how beautiful this batter is.
It's kind of mesmerizing.
Take a stick of cold butter,
run it around the edge and the bottom,
just so you completely coat the pan.
That little bit of butter is gonna hold the flour on
and the cakes will release beautifully.
If you're having difficulty releasing cakes,
here is my advice.
Besides buttering and flouring, let the pan sit
for five minutes, just five minutes,
after they come out of the oven
and then dump them out onto that wire rack.
If you let them sit for too long,
Things can harden up again,
and that's where the problems start.
But, if it's right out of the oven,
the cake is so tender that that can crack as well.
So just give it five minutes,
then dump it out, it should be fine.
I'm using a kitchen scale to make sure each layer
is exactly the same.
And while they bake, I'm gonna move them around halfway
in the oven, because my oven has some hot spots,
even though it's brand new.
So, each layer is 505 grams, give or take five grams.
So, now we're ready to pop these in to the oven
right after we do the most important thing,
which is add baking strips.
So, baking strips are just wet fabric strips
that you wrap around the edge of your pan.
And what they do,
is cool the edge of the cake layer down during baking,
so the center and the outside cook at the same time,
and they rise evenly, giving you a flat layer
with no caramelization on the outside,
meaning it's not gonna be burnt and hard on the outside.
It's gonna be really pillowy soft and beautiful.
I'm gonna pop these in to the oven
at maybe 345 for about thirty-five minutes,
or until the edges are pulling away from the cake pan
and the center is springy.
While my cake's baking in the oven,
I'm gonna start my browned butter
Italian meringue buttercream.
So tasty, you're gonna love it.
Four egg whites, in to a very clean bowl,
with a new, clean whisk attachment.
Healthy pinch of salt,
and a couple dashes of cream of tartar,
and you're ready to mix. (mixing)
In to a small sauce pan,
I'm adding in one-third of a cup of water
and one heaping cup of granulated sugar.
We're gonna mix it up just a little bit,
until the sugar is dissolved,
and then heat it over medium-high heat
until it reaches 240 degrees Fahrenheit.
Once your eggs are frothy,
add in your third of a cup of granulated sugar.
(mixing)
Once your meringue's reached the soft peak stage,
you're ready to drizzle in your 240-degree molten sugar.
You're gonna run your mixer until it's room temperature.
So, right now this sugar is really warm
and it's gonna melt the butter in to a pool.
This has to be at room temperature
so the butter will keep its consistency
and you'll end up with a buttercream,
not a butter soup.
My meringue is at room temperature and so pretty.
I love these peaks you get in Italian meringue.
This is totally usable, by the way.
You can make many delicious things
with Italian meringue, and no butter added.
However, for our purposes we'll be adding in a pound
of browned butter, a little bit at a time,
while the mixer is running.
And, I am switching to a paddle attachment.
The color is insane.
I love this caramel color.
It's like a toffee.
(mixing)
My Italian meringue browned buttercream is all done,
and delicious.
And I'm gonna do another batch for the outside
because this cake is gonna be covered in beautiful orchids,
and I don't want those brown flecks in there.
We're gonna repeat the same process all over again,
just with butter that has not been browned,
but is at room temperature.
I let these cake layers cool for about four minutes
in the pan, and now I'm gonna dump them out.
But before I do that, I want you to see
that it's totally flat on top.
That's why cake strips are amazing.
Yay!
That's a great, perfect, nice soft layer.
As you can see, these are completely flat
and totally uniform.
They're all the same height,
which is just nice, when someone takes a piece of cake,
sees that it's all the same, and each bite is consistent.
There's not one sad layer in the middle
or on the bottom, that's all squished in.
Hm.
We're gonna let these cool to room temperature
and then we're gonna get to decorating our cake.
So, the orchid stems are getting made with candy melt.
I love using candy melt because you don't have to temper it.
You can melt it really easily
and it cools and hardens right away.
To color the Italian meringue I'm using for the orchids,
I used mostly gel food colorings,
but I also used some matcha powder for the buds
and for the leaves, because I love the hue it gives.
I'm making two different-sized flowers for this cake.
The small cake is using a 127 tip for most of the petals.
Pull the tip out and then bring it back in to the center.
And create three of those petals.
Then, starting at the top,
you're going to create a semi-circular petal
that's mostly flat.
There's two of those, one on each side.
You can use a toothpick
to dob some orange or yellow buttercream
in the very center for the pollen.
And then, a 401 tip,
to create those two interesting orchid petals
that kind of stick out at the center.
The larger orchid is exactly the same,
except the petals use a 120 tip,
which is slightly larger.
The 401 tip is still totally fine.
This is optional, but I created some detail work
using purple with a toothpick,
just dobbing on little points to create that speckled look
you see on a lot of orchids.
I thought it brought some more depth in,
and I really like the effect.
Just make sure you chill the orchid before you do that
so that it's manageable.
Otherwise, it's too soft and it'll fall apart.
Once you're done, leave them in the freezer
just to chill, so that you can handle them
when you place them on to the cake.
Transfer your green candy melt in to a piping bag,
snip the tip off, and then pipe some stems
on to a sheet of parchment paper.
It'll dry really quickly and you can handle it carefully,
to place those on to your chilled cake when you're ready.
Assembling this cake is really easy.
All you're gonna do is pipe or smear some buttercream
on to the first layer.
Plop the next layer on top.
Repeat the process.
Then pipe or smear a thin layer of buttercream
to cover the cake completely.
Use a bench scraper to scrape the sides smooth,
and an offset spatula to smooth the top.
(upbeat music)
We're gonna add a second layer
of white Italian buttercream on right now,
and repeat the same process all over again.
Give it a really nice smooth.
After you're done smoothing the cake,
pop it in to the fridge and let it chill
so it's nice and set.
It'll make it much more forgiving
if any mistakes are made when you're placing the flowers.
I sketched my leaves on to a sheet of paper
just so I could get an idea of the composition.
Then, I used that as a guide for a line drawing
that I just etched in to my chilled cake.
I used a pallet knife to apply the green buttercream
and just smoothed it out.
It doesn't have to look perfect.
I kind of like the painterly effect you get
from seeing all the pallet strokes.
Think about where you want the flowers to go,
then dob on some buttercream where they'll be attached.
Very gently, press the chilled flowers
in to the buttercream.
And at the very end of the stem,
I actually had piped some buds
that I just used the 127 and 120 tips with,
to create little beetle-shaped buds.
Okay, so before I devour this cake,
let's have some real talk.
You might not want to go crazy
and do this whole orchid extravaganza.
I thought the cake was beautiful
just with the browned buttercream.
It had these beautiful flecks of vanilla bean
and the caramelized butter.
So pretty, just on its own.
If you have any questions,
ask me in the comments below.
Don't forget to hit that like button,
and thanks for watching.