Thought I would make this little “surprise inside” flower cake to urge on the flowers to bloom here soon in greater Boston. It’s a bit of work as you essentially have to bake two cakes in sequence, but it’s fun and a nice surprise.
Ingredients
for the chocolate blooms (inside)
2 1/2 cups sifted cake flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup cocoa powder (unsweetened)
1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup milk, at room temperature
1 teaspoon baking soda
for the vanilla cake (outside)
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
Directions
Heat oven to 350F. Prepare a foil sling for your 13 x 9 baking pan and spray liberally with baking spray.
Sift together the cake flour, baking powder, cocoa powder and salt into a medium bowl; set aside.
In the mixing bowl of your stand mixer, beat butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, about 3-4 minutes. Beat in eggs, one at a time, then beat in vanilla, scraping down the bowl with a spatula as you go. Add one third of the flour mixture to the butter mixture, beat well, then beat in half of the milk. Beat in another third of flour mixture, then second half of the milk. End with the last third of the flour mixture, beat until well combined, making sure to scrape down the bowl with a spatula.
Pour into prepared pan and for 38-40 minutes. Cool the cakes in the pan for 1 hour, then release remove with foil sling and transfer to a wire rack to cool 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 make your flower-center, even out the top of your chocolate sheet cake. Then, using your cookie cutter, cut put as many flowers as you can (I came up with 7 or so). Stack as many as you can flush together, so you have a long row of flowers — essentially one piece, 7 inches long. Put one inch of the vanilla batter in the bottom of then pan, and then insert your “flower core”. Holding them in place as best you can, fill the pan round the flowers 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 rectangle that when you cut into slices, will have a flower inside (note that the flower may have shifted during baking and may not be straight. Go with it… part of the charm.
