My husband is turning 40 next week. He loves all my cakes! He especially loves strawberry cream/ strawberry shortcake type cakes. I usually make chocolate, caramel , coffee.  I need to serve 40 -50 people. I think one double layer 12 in round would be enough. I am looking for some cake ideas.  I was thinking about doubling Woody’s lemon cake from RHC with strawberry cloud cream TCB as a filling and white chocolate vanilla bean butter-cream as frosting. I can’t use any cake/ frosting that has nuts because of familial allergies. Does anyone have any ideas? Also if i was to make this particular cake , what are the right proportions for 2 12 in rounds?

Hi, Hoosy!

Welcome!

Well, the cake part of the Lem Lux cake is my favorite yellow cake—the Golden Luxury Butter Cake from TCB.

Also, if you are speaking of the white chocolate Mousseline with vanilla beans, it is amazing!

I think the strawberry cloud cream could go along with this famousely!

Unforunately, I don’t often make large rounds, so I can only give my opinion on your (perfect, to me) flavor combo ... but there are others with experience here who can help!  You might want to use a flower nail in the middle of the 12” rounds to help them cook more evenly so the outsides don’t dry before the center is cooked.

—ak

Thank you so much. I was talking about the white chocolate vanilla bean butter cream that is in RHC in the wedding cake section. I was going to use that to frost and decorate the cake.  Would the proportions for the larger cake be in the TCB/ would you suggest maybe doing a 9 in and 6 in layer? how many would that feed and would i just make 1 1/2 time the recipe? Anyone who can help me with proportions would be greatly appreciated!

Sounds like a fun project!

re: white chocolate vanilla bean buttercream- this is one of my all-time favorite buttercreams, it is wonderful stuff.  It requires one to switch gears, so to speak- first you very carefully and slowly melt the white chocolate over low double boiler heat (so it doesn’t scorch or separate, which happens quickly even in the double boiler), then turn the heat a little higher and push to get it hot enough to thicken the custard.  Make sure you notice that the recipe as written only makes 7 cups of frosting- you have to make it twice to get the 14 cups mentioned.

re: 12” cake- the proportions and proper leavening adjustments haven’t been published (though you could post to the blog and ask Woody, he may know or at least have a very educated guess from having developed the lemon cake recipe), the only ones that have been completely tested and published are the ones in the wedding cake chapters of both the Cake Bible and RHC.  If you’d like to try it, you can scale up the recipe and reduce the leavening a bit, use cake strips and an inverted flower nail and hope for the best. 

Or, if you don’t want to test it or risk it, make the two smaller cakes, 6” and 9” and you’ll probably be just fine.  There may be a little doming with the 6” cake, which is easy to trim.

All that said, my favorite strawberry shortcake base is the Golden Butter Cream Cake from the Cake Bible.  If you make that one I would recommed the 6” and 9” option, as it has more of a pound cake structure and isn’t likely to do well in a 12” pan.  You could fill it with strawberry cloud cream, or even just the strawberry puree, thickened with a little gelatin, pectin or agar.  Whole or halved strawberries on top make a gorgeous cake!

Decide on which cake and pan size you want and we’ll help you with scaling the recipe.

Thank you Julie! I am looking for an upscale strawberry shortcake! Something that still has strawberry flavor but more upscale which is why i was thinking the lemon cake with strawberry cloud cream and the white chocolate vanilla bean frosting. I appreciate the suggestions. I own 6,9,12 in round pans and 11 x 18 sheet pans. I am not tied down to one specific size i just need it to feed appx 40. I also don’t have time to try and experiment. I work full time and have to try to do this when my husband is not home! So I am open to suggestions of size.

Will the white chocolate vanilla bean frosting work with non- dairy white chocolate. I found out that a family member cannot have nuts or smell anything dairy. I tasted the chocolate that i found at a gourmet specialty shop and it tastes almost as good as real thing. but will it work? i know it might not be quite as tasty but will i have soup or frosting?

Thanks. i really appreciate all the help.

What about all the butter?  Butter is dairy.  (If the “non-dairy” white chocolate has cocoa butter in it, it should work- I would think)...but what about all the butter?

OK, if you don’t want to mess with testing, go for the lemon cake in 6” and 9” or else the downy yellow in a 12” (Cake Bible, wedding section).  The 12” will give a few more servings.  Sorry, I’m not really experienced enough with larger crowds to advise you on serving size, but if you start out with smaller pieces cut in concentric circles you’ll probably be fine.

To scale Woody’s Lemon Lux cake, the maximum I came up with was 1.46x, so if you go to 1.5x (multiply everything by 1.5), perhaps make a cupcake or two.  According to the pan capacities, you only need to go up about 1.1x, but in the Cake Bible it says you can scale up by a third for 2” high pans, and then adding another 10% for the 6” pan gives the figure I mention.  You may need to extend baking time to account for the deeper layer, be sure to check doneness before removing the cakes from the oven.  And check to see that the pans will all fit in your oven in one go.  If not, you could put the larger pans (filled, don’t leave the batter in the bowl) in the refrigerator while the smaller pans bake.

For the strawberry cloud cream, you’ll need to have a minimum of 1.5 cups for one layer of filling between the two layers of both the 6” and 9” cakes, triple that if you’re going to torte the cakes.

For the buttercream, I would not chance it with non-dairy white chocolate.  Not sure what to say as most every cake frosting has dairy, especially any that would be appropriate for an upscale strawberry shortcake!  Perhaps you could bring something else for the dairy-intolerant partygoer.  I also would not chance the cake without real white chocolate and real butter.

The only cake that doesn’t have dairy is the biscuit de savoie or the chiffon.  You could make the lemon version of the orange chiffon layer from RHC in place of the butter cake.  But if it were me I would just bring something else rather than mess with dairy substitutions.

The only sub I can think of would be coconut milk (full fat, not light) in a ganache rather than cream.  Maybe you can make chocolate oil (rather than butter) cake with a ganache made with coconut milk and fill it with strawberries conserve? 

Doesn’t the cloud cream have dairy?  I.e., heavy cream?

Is coconut a nut?

Thank you everyone for your suggestions. I have made many of the cakes from the cake bible with margarine instead of butter. While not as tasty the cakes are still so delicious. No one even asks if butter was omitted. I have used non dairy whip topping instead of heavy cream at times again because this family member is highly allergic to nuts and dairy.
It is not really an option to bring a dairy cake because if he smells it he will break out in hives!  Coconut is not a nut it is actually considered a fruit like dates. He is not allergic to that so I think that is good idea. But maybe for a different time my husband does not like coconut.

Any other suggestions would be very helpful!