Cherry Blossom Cake
A cake that brings to life spring's most gorgeous trees: a cherry blossom surprise inside!
Servings 2 8 inch round cakes
Equipment
- two 8" round cake pans
- stand mixer or hand mixer to make the batter
Ingredients
Sakura White cake
- 360g cake flour
- 226g butter unsalted and softened
- 75g coconut oil
- 400g fine granulated sugar
- 1 tsp fine sea salt
- 1 tsps pure vanilla extract
- 1 tsp sakura extract can sub with rose water orange blossom water
- 2 tsps baking powder
- 4 large egg whites
- 240g buttermilk or kefir
- ½ - ⅔ cup pink sprinkles homemade or storebought
Chocolate Squiggles
- 30g unsalted butter
- 50g fine granulated sugar
- 1 egg yolk
- 32g cake flour
- ¼ tsp baking soda
- 2 tablespoons dutch cocoa powder
- 60g buttermilk or kefir
Sakura Vanilla Buttercream
- 226g cup butter unsalted and at room temperature
- 325g organic powdered sugar
- 1 tablespoon heavy whipping cream or milk
- ¼ teaspoon sakura essence
- ½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon fine sea salt
Instructions
Make the chocolate batter:
- Beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add a dash of vanilla a pinch of salt, the egg yolk, baking soda and vanilla and beat for a few more minutes. Sift in the flour and cocoa then add the buttermilk and stir until just combined. Set aside. When it is time to build the cake, put the batter in a small piping bag.
Make the white cake batter:
- Preheat oven to 325. Butter and flour two 8” cake pans.
- Beat butter, sugar and coconut oil together until light and fluffy – about 5 minutes. Add egg whites one at a time, beating for a good 2 minutes after each addition. Scrape down bowl. Add the salt, vanilla, sakura extract, and baking powder and beat well. Scrape down bowl. Sift in flours, fold a bit with a spatula so it doesn’t make a mess when you turn the mixer back on, and with mixer on low, slowly pour in buttermilk. Mix until just combined. Fold in pink sprinkles and ensure all batter is homogeneous by scraping the bottom of the bowl.
- Add some of the white batter to the bottom of each pan and smooth it down - just enough to make a 1/2 inch layer.
- Grab your piping bag with the chocolate batter and snip off just a bit so you have a small opening. You’ll squiggle it (this is the best word I can think of to describe it, see pic) around the batter, shaking it as you go and overlapping (don’t make straight lines) so that it kind of looks like branches that are intertwined. Don’t overdo it or it will weigh down the center of the cake.
- Add more white batter, smooth the top down very gently without disturbing the squiggles and pipe more squiggly lines.
- Repeat until all the batter is equally distributed between the two pans.
- Bake cakes for 40-50 minutes. Let cool for 5 minutes in the pan and then invert onto a cooling rack.
Make the Buttercream:
- Beat butter until very light in color, about 7 minutes. Add the vanilla, sakura and salt and beat to combine. Sift in powdered sugar and beat until combined and fluffy. Add cream or milk and beat to combine.