At our annual post-family obligations Christmas Cocktail Hour in 2004, when everyone was good and inebriated, our friend Pete showed up with his wife-to-be and an incredible peppermint cake in tow. The cake was a three layer white cake with peppermint frosting and little crushed peppermint candies strewn about. I haven’t found a recipe for a cake like this, so I decided to put together my own from some existing cake and frosting recipes that I have used in the past. I know last year the cake was attacked by everyone and devoured in minutes… It was so good, and we were so blotto, that all that was heard was “Mmmmm” and “Wow this is good” for the 15 or so minutes it took us all to devour the cake. Let’s hope this year’s cake, made by me with the following as-yet untested recipe will get the same reaction!

Cake
2 3/4 cups cake flour
1 1/4 cups plus 2/3 cup sugar
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup vegetable oil
4 large egg yolks
6 tablespoons sour cream
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon whole milk
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 1/4 tsp. peppermint extract
6 large egg whites

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter and flour three 9-inch-diameter cake pans with 1 1/2-inch-high sides. Sift flour, 1 1/4 cups sugar, baking powder, and salt into medium bowl. Whisk oil and egg yolks in large bowl until well blended. Whisk in sour cream, then milk, peppermint, and vanilla. Whisk in dry ingredients in 3 additions. Using electric mixer, beat egg whites in another large bowl until soft peaks form. Gradually add remaining 2/3 cup sugar, beating until whites are stiff but not dry; fold into batter in 4 additions. Divide batter among prepared pans.

Bake cakes until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 20 minutes.

Frosting
3 cups unsalted butter, room temperature
10 1/2 cups powdered sugar
3 tablespoons whipping cream

Using electric mixer, beat butter in large bowl until fluffy. Gradually beat in sugar, then cream.

Assembly
Coarsley crush 2 cups of peppermint candies. Assemble cake layers with frosting and one cup of peppermint candies, frost the exterior of the cake and use the other cup of crushed candies on the top.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 10th, 2007 at 6:45 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.