After days if not weeks on raspberry skepticism in the lead up to Wedding Cake Week: – that is the true lust-like WANT of a raspberry cake without any reasonable idea of how to achieve one (a bit like having a crush on a movie star), I am happy to report that the razz crush cake is now my favourite. My other other favourite that is.
I made another one this week, and as I previously noted, being incapable of not putting frou on cake these days, was not satisfied to leave it in a state of cake-nakey or “nacakedness”. However, I couldn’t be bothered with the whole making frenchy french buttercream business, or pureeing and sieving the seeds out of the raspberries.
Dilemma.
I had half a box of Philidelphia cream cheese in the fridge though.
I quite dig the addition of cream cheese to icing. I’m not talking about cream cheese icing, although that is good, particularly when dosed with lemon zest and whipped with sour cream, that is the business and no mistake. But cream cheese icing goes a lot further than just carrot cake (or for the americans in the audience, red velvet cake – not that I believe on the basis of my meagre research on the topic that cream cheese icing is the appropriate topping for red velvet cake no matter what Martha Stewart says, I firmly believe in butter roux icing on that topic… but I digress).
I mean YES, by all means wadge that stuff on whatever you fancy, by all means feel free to add melted white chocolate to it in about a 4:1 cream cheese:chocolate ratio. Feel free to add 70% lindt chocolate to it also, not that I have done this, but whilst I am thinking about it I have to admit I am personally feeling freer and freer on the subject.
Feel free to add crushed strawberries.
Feel free to add lemon curd. Or passionfruit curd for that matter.
Or raspberries.
The thing about cream cheese in general as regards its place in baked goods (or on them for that matter), is that as a general rule you have to soften and beat that stuff until it is smooth. One has no desire for lumpy baked cheesecake. If you wanted it lumpy, you would have put ricotta in it. And the thing with cream cheese is that it WILL NOT go smooth if you beat it with something runnier.
I was reminded of this as I started making the icing for my razz crush cake. I softened the butter first, didn’t I. But I didn’t fancy dirtying another bowl to soften the cream cheese, did I.
I didn’t.
I mean, I did my best to achieve smoothosity. I smashed it about a bit and then added icing sugar in order to increase shear forces (bit of physics in there), but frankly, it was not homogenising. The upshot of which is that I wound up with small flecks of whole cream cheese in the mixture.
Not to worry, methought, this is only for my own private noshing. I tipped in the frozen berries, (crushed frozen – so in little bits), and gave it a mix.
Oh Purrrdy like a field of flowers!!! Now I had icing with little flecks of white and little flecks of pure raspberry.
H.E.A.V.E.N.
It is from these incompetencies that great discoverys flow.
I split the cake in half and put half the razz cream cheese inside, then the rest on top. When you cut a slice it just looks like the girliest high tea cake in the universe. Which it is. And the fresh raspberry flavour smashes your brains out.
