Caramel Pastry Cream Cake

Last Thursday I forgot to record Bake with Anna Olsen. Dun dun dunnnn.

Something must’ve been really wrong with me because I NEVER forget about my favourite Thursday show. I can bet all my chocolate that I was abducted by brainwashing aliens. 

I usually set the recording the night before so that when I come home tired from work, I can sit back, relax and watch desserts be made. 

I didn’t realize that I had forgotten until the second I got home. Right when I opened the door, I screamed, “OH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.” It was a horrible horrible feeling.

My sister came running down the stairs and asked, “Oh my gosh, what happened?!?!”

I stared blankly into her face and tried to speak as calmly as I could, “I forgot to record Anna Olsen.”

My sister finally relaxed and said, “Geez, I thought it was something serious.” Then she started up the stairs again, leaving me in shock still.

“IT IS SERIOUS, BECKS!” I screamed after her. 

Even though I couldn’t watch the new episodes, I needed my fix of desserts! So I watched a previous recording whilst eating an entire tub of ice cream! I wish I was kidding about the ice cream part.

I watched the pastry cream episode because it is one of my favourite ones! Anna made cakes and souffles with pastry cream which surprised me because my limited creativity only allows me to relate pastry cream with cream puffs. 

This cake is the exact same one that she made on her show except I had mess ups and Anna didn’t 😛

My pastry cream wouldn’t thicken and my caramel was wayyyy too thick. Luckily my friends didn’t seem to care or notice. The caramel pastry cream filling was everyone’s favourite part of the cake! 

If you’re a caramel fan like I am, you must must make this cake! Just a warning though, this is a super long recipe with lots of different steps to make!

Caramel Pastry Cream Cake

Vanilla Cake

 3/4 cup butter
1 1/3 cup sugar
3 whole eggs
2 tsp vanilla
2 1/4 cup cake and pastry flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup buttermilk

1. Preheat oven to 350F

2. Cream butter and sugar together until light in colour and fluffy.

3. Add in the eggs one at a time, beat until increased in volume.

4. Add in vanilla.

5. Sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.

6. Alternate adding flour and buttermilk into the butter mixture. Begin and end with flour.

7. Bake in 8in pans for 25-35 mins. Allow cake to cool in pans for 20 mins. Then remove cake from pans to complete the cooling.

Pastry Cream

1 cup milk (not skim)
1 1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste (I left this out because I couldn’t find any, but I highly recommend that this be added!)
3 egg yolks
2 tbsp cornstarch
3 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp butter 

1. Bring milk and vanilla paste to a simmer in a pot.

2. In bowl, whisk egg yolks, cornstarch and sugar together.

3. Gradually add the hot milk to the egg mixture and whisk constantly to prevent cooking of the eggs.

4.  Add the entire mixture back into the pot over medium heat. Whisk constantly until thickened to get pastry cream.

5. Place 2 tbsp butter into a bowl. Strain the pastry cream into the bowl. Stir until butter is melted and place saran wrap directly on surface of pastry cream to prevent a skin from forming.

6. Allow to cool at room temperature.

Vanilla Buttercream

3/4 cup butter
4 cups icing sugar, divided
6 tbsp milk
1 1/2 tsp vanilla

1. Cream butter and 2 cups of icing sugar together

2. Add milk and vanilla. Beat in the rest of the icing sugar 

Caramel Sauce

1 cup cream
3 tbsp water
1 cup sugar
1 tbsp corn syrup

1. In a pot, add in water, sugar and corn syrup. Cook over med-high heat.

2. Do not stir !!! Let the mixture just cook until it reaches a nice amber colour.

3. Add cream and using a LONG handled whisk, stir to combine.

4. Set off heat to cool at room temperature.

Assembly 

1. Level off cakes if there are uneven surfaces.

2. Combine some caramel sauce into the pastry. I can’t give  you exact measurements, just make sure the mixture doesn’t get too runny, you need structure in your caramel pastry cream.

3. Place one layer of cake on a cake board. Pipe a ring of buttercream along the outside edge to create a dam.

4. Fill the space inside the buttercream ring with caramel pastry cream. 

5. Place the next cake layer on top. Pipe a buttercream dam again. Fill with caramel pastry cream. You should still have some caramel pastry cream left.

6. Place final cake layer on top. 

7. Spread buttercream on all surfaces of the cake. 

8. Pipe a decorative border on the top which is supposed to act as a dam as well.

9. Combine the rest of the caramel and caramel pastry cream and pour on the top. Ta-da! Now that wasn’t too bad was it 😉