Rose Levy Beranbaum Cream Cheese Butter Cake with Lemon Curd Buttercream

I just had this wonderful cheese butter marble cake which my mum baked from a recipe in The Star newspaper. I was browsing for baking books on Amazon and I came across Baking Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum. They say that she's very pedantic with her recipes and you have to follow her recipes to the letter otherwise prepare to face failed cakes. 


I was browsing the free preview of her book and came across her cream cheese butter cake recipe. I thought of the yummy cheese butter cake my mum baked and wondered how Ms Beranbaum's recipe would match up.


Browsing further there's a photo of the cream cheese butter cake with lemon curd buttercream  in glorious yellow greeting you like beautiful morning sunshine.

See what I mean?


Apart from the wonderful combination of cream cheese and butter cake, I was also curious as to how cake would taste like with sour cream - which is the other reason why I was so inclined to this recipe. And lemon curd buttercream! Doesn't it sound so good, the whole combination itself, cream cheese, butter, sour cream and lemon curd buttercream. Certainly doesn't sound like just any other cake to me. 


Of course I didn't follow her recipe to the letter. See the notes in blue for my mum's and my variations.

Cake

• 85g unsalted butter at room temperature (I never use unsalted butter, always salted and omit salt)
• 3 to 4 large egg yolks (3 eggs)
• 150g caster sugar (bit sweet, reduce to 120g)
• 42g cream cheese
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 121g sour cream
• 150g superfine flour
• ¼ tsp baking powder
• 3/8 tsp baking soda (Mistaken the 1/4 tsp for 1/8 tsp. After putting in the second 1/4 tsp of baking soda then only I realised it was 1/4 tsp. Ended up putting 1/2 tsp soda)
• ¼ tsp salt (use salted butter and omit)

Preheat oven at 175°c 20 minutes beforehand and set oven tray at lower third of the oven.

Whisk egg yolks and 2 tbsp of sour cream and vanilla just until lightly combined (Whisked egg yolks and vanilla in separate bowl).

Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda with flat beater on low speed for 30 sec. Add butter, cream cheese and remaining sour cream. Mix on low speed until the dry ingredients are moistened. Raise the speed to medium and beat for 1.5 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. (Here we creamed the butter and sugar then add sour cream, egg mixture and finally folded in the dry ingredients) 

Starting on medium low speed gradually add the egg mixture in two parts, beating on medium speed for 30 secs after each addition to incorporate the ingredients and strengthen the structure. (I just added the eggs in one go. Wonder what that did to the structure?) 

Scrape batter into prepared 8”x2” square pan and smooth the surface evenly with small offset spatula. (We used an 8" round pan of course) 

Bake for 30 to 40 minutes.

Buttercream

• 113g unsalted butter, cold
• 2 large egg yolks
• 1.5 egg whites
• 74 ml/ 79g lemon juice (about 2 large lemons) (we only had about 50g lemon juice left so all that went into the curd)
• 100g caster sugar
• salt

(Use immersion blender or stand blender)

On top of a double boiler set over barely simmering water, don’t let the bottom of the container touch the water, whisk the egg yolks and whites with sugar until well-blended. Whisk in the lemon juice and salt. Cook over medium low heat stirring constantly with spatula until thickened resembling hollandaise sauce, which thickly coats the spatula but is still liquid enough to pour (Whisked egg mixture with sugar and lemon juice then set on double boiler constantly stirring. Mixture will slowly become thicker) 

The mixture will change from translucent to opaque and begin to take on a yellow colour on the spatula (Yes you can really see the wonderful yellow colour. Keep stiring.). Don’t let it come to a boil or it will curdle. Whenever steam appears, remove pan briefly from the heat stirring constantly to keep mixture from boiling (We didn't have to remove pan from heat as it wasn't under direct heat. In fact, we had to turn up the heat for the curd to thicken. Watching it bubbling up as it thickens.).

When curd has thickened and pools thickly when little is dropped on its surface and disappears, pour it at once into the strainer and press it through (Totally skipped the strainer part!).

Scrape curd into blender and let cool until less hot to the touch, about 20 minutes. Cut butter into 1tbsp slices. Blend on low speed adding the butter 1 slice at a time, a few seconds apart until all of it is incorporated. (Whisked butter into the curd instead of using blender. Works fine too.)

 

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So how did the cake turn out, since we didn't follow the recipe exactly?

It was so good. But a little sweet for my taste.

The texture is very rich and moist, dense but tender at the same time. It's different from the usual butter cakes. Some lemon zest in the cake would be nice.

After some googling, I found out that the sour cream gave the cake its moist and dense texture. Baking soda is used to leaven acidic ingredients, like sour cream, used in the recipe. 1/2 tsp works fine even though the recipe only calls for 3/8 tsp.

My hubby commented that the cake had a kuih like texture, can it be less moist? This is a rich and moist cake and not necessarily a good thing if people around you like lighter cakes. I love it though, especially the sweet and tangy lemon curd, it was so good with the cake. One small slice is enough as it is a very rich cake. 

Here's some photos to tantalize your taste bud.

Happy baking! xx