High Altitude Cherry Vanilla Rosette Cake
This cherry vanilla cake has three layers of soft vanilla cake filled with cherry buttercream, decorated with piped buttercream rosettes.
All recipes on Curly Girl Kitchen are developed for high altitude at 5,280 feet. See FAQs for adjusting to higher or lower elevations.
Equipment
- Stand Mixer with Whisk Attachment
- Piping Bag + Tip 1M
Ingredients
Vanilla Cake
- 1 ½ cups granulated sugar
- ½ vanilla bean, seeds scraped
- 3 ¼ cups cake flour, spooned and leveled, then sifted
- 3 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
- 2 large eggs
- 2 egg whites
- 1 ½ cups whole buttermilk room temperature
- ½ cup unsalted butter, melted
- ½ cup vegetable oil
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
Cherry Buttercream
- 2 ½ cups unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- ¾ cup cherry jam or preserves, pureed until smooth
- 5 cups powdered sugar
- 1 tbsp meringue powder, optional
- ¼ tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
- 2 ½ tsp vanilla extract
- 1-2 tbsp milk or cream, if needed
Instructions
Cake
- Preheat the oven to 350F and spray the bottoms of three 8-inch cake pans with non-stick spray.
- In a large bowl, measure out the sugar. Scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean pod and use your fingers to rub the seeds into the sugar until very fragrant and the seeds are evenly dispersed throughout the sugar.
- Set a fine mesh sifter over the bowl of sugar, and sift in the cake flour, baking powder and salt. Use a whisk to combine the dry ingredients well.
- In another large bowl, whisk together the eggs, egg whites, buttermilk, melted butter, oil and vanilla extract until smooth.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet, and whisk until combined and smooth, about 10-15 seconds. Divide the batter between the cake pans. Tap a few times against the counter to pop any large air bubbles.
- Bake the cakes for about 21-25 minutes, or until a cake tester or a toothpick comes out clean, and the tops spring back when lightly touched.
- Set the pans on a wire rack, cover them loosely with a clean kitchen towel, and cool completely before frosting. When ready to frost and assemble the cake, remove the cakes from the pans.
Buttercream
- In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the butter for 1 minute until smooth. Add the pureed cherry jam and mix until smooth.
- With the mixer running on low, add the powdered sugar by spoonfuls, the meringue powder and the salt, mixing until thick and combined.
- Add the vanilla and the milk; increase speed to medium and whip for 4-5 minutes, scraping the bowl down several times, until light and fluffy.
Assembly and Decorating
- Remove the cooled cakes from the pans. Place one cake on a cake board or cake pedestal. Spread with a layer of buttercream. Add the second cake layer, more buttercream, and then the third cake layer.
- Frost the cake all over with a thin crumb coat of buttercream, and refrigerate for one hour. You cannot skip the step of crumb-coating and chilling the cake – it ensures the piped rosettes stick to the crumb coat and don’t fall off the sides of an unfrosted cake.Cover the bowl of remaining buttercream with plastic wrap so it doesn’t crust over.
- Fit a piping bag with tip 1M and fill with buttercream.Starting at the bottom of the cake, pipe a horizontal row of rosettes all the way around the bottom edge of the cake. Pipe a second row of rosettes, positioning them as shown in the photos above so that the vertical rows are angled, and not straight up and down, or you’ll end up with gaps between the rosettes. Continue piping rosettes in horizontal rows, then finish the top of the cake as pictured. The last rosette you pipe will be the one in the very center of the top of the cake.
Notes
The buttercream recipe makes enough for the piped buttercream rosettes design. For a simpler frosting, reduce the butter to 2 cups and the powdered sugar to 4 cups.
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