For those of you who follow my baking and cooking, you will know that I really really hate food coloring. I rarely use it and generally find that if it isn’t a color that naturally occurs in something that one would generally eat, you shouldn’t dye it that color. The only thing that I would put in my mouth that is the color of this cake is Pepto Bismol, which didn’t exactly help in the baking. But every now and again, I bow to pop culture and decide to make something silly. Back to the regularly scheduled programming tomorrow.
Also, the last time I made one of these “Cake-Inside” Cakes, I took photos of all the steps. Those can be found here.
Ingredients
for the hot pink Peep cake
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoons table salt
1 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened but slightly cool, cut into 12 pieces
3 large eggs
3/4 cups milk
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon “Rose” gel food coloring
for the vanilla cake
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoons table salt
1 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened but slightly cool, cut into 12 pieces
3 large eggs
3/4 cups milk
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
You will also need: a 4x4x9 inch Pullman Loaf pan and a Peep cookie cutter (made by Wilton)
Directions
Preheat oven to 350F. Prepare a foil sling for your 13 x 9 baking pan and spray liberally with baking spray.
To make the “Peep cake”: In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar on low speed. Add the butter, 1 piece at a time, and combine until the mixture resembles coarse sand. Add the eggs, 1 at time, and mix until fully combined. Add the milk and vanilla, increase the speed to medium, and mix until the batter is light, fluffy and free of lumps. Add the food coloring and mix thoroughly one more time. It will be shockingly pink!
Pour the batter into your prepared pan. Bake for 28-30 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack completely.
Towards the end of the cooling, make your vanilla batter. In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar on low speed. Add the butter, 1 piece at a time, and combine until the mixture resembles coarse sand. Add the eggs, 1 at time, and mix until fully combined. Add the milk and vanilla, increase the speed to medium, and mix until the batter is light, fluffy and free of lumps.
Reheat oven to 350F. Liberally spray your Pullman Loaf pan with baking spray (except the lid; spray that just before you cover to cake).
To make your Peeps, even out the top of your red velvet sheet cake. Then, using your cookie cutter, cut put as many Peeps as you can (I came up with 5 or so). Stack as many as you can flush together, so you have a long row of Peeps — essentially one piece, 5 inches long. Trim off the bottom so that they will sit flat in the pan and the ears won’t stick out the top. Put a half inch of the vanilla batter in the bottom of then pan, and then insert your “Peep core”, ears side up. Holding them in place as best you can, fill the pan round the Peeps to just covering them (3/4 full). Put in the pull loaf lid.
Bake for 42-50 minutes or until a skewer inserted through comes out clean (of course you have to take it out and remove the lid to do this, but 45 minutes was perfect for me). cool in the pan for 15 minutes before inverting to a wire rack to cool completely. You should have an almost perfect square that when you cut into slices, will have a Peep inside (note that the Peeps may have shifted during baking and may not be straight. Go with it… part of the charm.)
