White Cake with Marzipan and Raspberry Filling and Buttercream

My friend Laura’s favorite cake is a white cake with real buttercream, so that’s what I made for her birthday.  I used America’s Test Kitchen’s recipe and it was really good with a wonderful crumb and light texture.  The directions sound very strange and I was a little apprehensive, but I trust them with all the recipe testing they do and decided to make it.  You mix the dry ingredients together including sugar, and then you add bits of butter and mix until you get a sandy mixture.  Then you mix the egg whites and milk together and pour it in to the dry ingredients and beat until it is smooth.  To frost the cake, I rolled out some marzipan and put it in the center, spread raspberry jam over that and then put some buttercream on top of the jam.  The buttercream recipe I have comes out every time.  You beat egg whites and sugar over a bain marie until it reaches 160 degrees  and then take it off the heat and beat it for 5 minutes or until the mixture has completely cooled.  Then you add pieces of room temperature butter while you continuously beat the mixture.  My KitchenAid mixer never lets me down and I would be lost without it!  I like to add pure almond extract and pure vanilla extract to the finished buttercream.  I make a large batch of Swiss meringue buttercream because that’s the best part of the cake and I hate to skimp on frosting and I also have enough to frost and then decorate the cake. I wish I had a piece now!!!  Click here for the recipe….