The post that’s been the most popular so far is our recipe for the Vanilla Cake with Blackberry Mascarpone Icing. It’s always exciting to receive a message or see a tag of it being posted on instagram. Most of the time, someone has made it their own by changing up the icing or adding a different flavor just as we did when we adapted it from I Am Baker’s recipe. The beauty of such of recipe is that it can be adapted in all sorts of ways, shapes, and forms. Add a different topping or mix in a different flavor into the batter. There are so many options and few ways to really mess it up.
Our Vanilla White Cake with Blackberry Mascarpone Frosting (click photo for recipe)
We’ve recently been using this amazing white cake recipe for teacakes. A few weeks ago we made a blackberry rosemary version for an afternoon picnic. The pretty frosting is a blackberry glaze with chopped rosemary. It was so good, and portable!
We baked up another batch of tea cakes this weekend when we went to Jane’s moms house for Mother’s Day. (That would be Atlantis Home’s or @atlantishome on Instagram). We made fresh homemade bread, tea sandwiches, buttery lemon currant scones. The star of the spread were the tea cakes with candied clementines. They added a Marie Antoinette, “Let Them Eat Cake” kind of touch to the spread.
Jeff thought of the candied clementines as a topping garnish for the tea cakes. Neither of use have candied fruit before, but it actually turned out perfect! Sliced clementines were the perfect size to top these mini cakes.
RECIPE NOTES
For the cake, we used the previously posted mix but switched it to 2 tsp of vanilla and only 1 tsp of almond. Almond extract had the potential of overwhelming the citrus flavor of the clementines and we felt the vanilla would be more complimentary. Here is the print version of the recipe: Vanilla White Cake
For baking, we used a cupcake tin that bakes a dozen. The cake mix will create enough batter for almost 2 dozen. Once they’re finished baking for 30 minutes, allow to cool in the pan for about 5 minutes, and then remove, flip and rest on a cooling rack, small side up. I basically pushed the rounded (cupcake) tops in so they can rest flat as the bottom on the rack. Do it lightly but it should hold. Gravity will help as well.
While the cakes are still warm, spoon the glaze on top lightly forcing it over the sides to allow it to drip down. The glaze is very simple to make.
2 cups of granulated sugar
1 cup of water
20 clementine slices (approx 1/8” thick)
2 tbsp clementine juice, strained to remove any pulp or seeds.
1 1/4 cup powdered sugar
Bring sugar and water to a simmer in a sauce pan. Add clementine slices and continue to simmer for about 1 hour. I flipped them about every 15 minutes or so.
After an hour, remove clementines and place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or a silpat. Place in a preheated over of 250 F. Allow to bake for 45 minutes.
Remove, place slices on a cooling rack with something below it to catch any sugar drips, and allow to cool for 15-20 minutes. When cooled, place on top of tea cakes and serve.
Whisk together until thoroughly blended.
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