apartment café: cake picnic

8 cakes, 1 apartment.

I think by this point we’ve all see the jaw-dropping videos of the cake picnic tour. This year’s Super Bowl-sized San Francisco cake picnic broke the internet IMO (or at least the baking side of the internet, but isn’t that all that matters).

November of last year I had the honor and the privilege to attend New York’s first cake picnic. For reminders, I supersized my “stolen” funfetti cake into a towering, titanic 3-tier behemoth, adorned with chrysanthemums, sprinkle cookies, and—of course—toasted Swiss meringue. That was actually the first time I had ever made a tiered cake of any sort(!). With a man’s sense of confidence that all would go well, I placed my three tiers on cake rounds, hammered in some dowels, teetered the tiers on top of one another, hopped in an uber with the cake, and scurried off to Soho for the event.

I had no idea what to expect. I don’t think human brains have evolved to picture what 150 cakes lined up side-by-side actually looks like. It was jaw-dropping to say the least. And the event was a blur. My adrenaline I don’t think has ever been higher (especially after the traumatic uber ride with my cake). I barely remember even eating the cakes, let alone talking to anyone.

So when the founder of cake picnic

Elisa | saltedrye

(a hero in my eyes) said she was coming to New York in early June, my friend

Christine

and I scrambled together our cake-artist friends to put together the apartment cafè: cake picnic. Elisa became our guest of honor, a guest of honor we forced to fly with a homemade cake across the country (she lives in SF). No cake, no entry. Her rule, not mine.

We had 8 incredible cakes (recipe below):

• me - matcha mango princess cake

• Elisa | saltedrye
  - mulberry cake with vanilla pastry cream filling (flown in from San Francisco!)

• Christine
  - sourdough cinnamon roll tiered cake with strawberry cream cheese frosting

• Dana King
  - 20 layer peach russian honey cake

• Maya (@dolcetta.baking) - black and white cookie tiered cake

• Erika - strawberry battenberg cake

• Deepika (@thedeeperlivingeats) - chocolate cake with pistachio tiramisu filling and white chocoalte frosting

• Lauren (@atinykitchennyc) - stone fruit olive oil cake

Seeing all the cakes lined up on my counter made my month. Beforehand we had barely coordinated flavors or aesthetics. So I was shook to see such an evenly distributed array of colors: 2 green, 1 blue, 1 orange, 2 pink, 1 black & white, 1 brown. It looked like a buffet of Lucky Charms marshmallows blown up in scale.

The dedication was unreal, too. Dana aligned what looked like 1000 perfectly cut nectarine slices into a rosette for the top of her Russian honey cake. Erika created a circular Battenberg cake, a checkerboard pattern revealed upon slicing into her strawberry-scented cake layers. Lauren brought out her spray gun. Christine proofed her sourdough cinnamon rolls for 8 hours. And of course, the biggest honor to Elisa for flying a layer cake (filled with pastry cream!) across the entire contiguous United States.

If I were to hand out my top three cakes it would probably be:

1. Maya’s black and white cookie cake

2. Deepika’s chocolate pistachio tiramisu cake

3. Christine’s sourdough cinnamon roll cake

But if you asked any other attendee, I think they would have a completely different ranking. All the cakes were fantastic. Interesting, too, upon eating my cake leftovers over several days, I noticed most of the cakes developing in flavor and richness, especially my cake and the honey cake. If you’d like to create my matcha mango Swedish princess cake, the recipe is below, along with all the recipe components.

Cheers to cake,

Ryan

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the recipes

crack-free marzipan

ingredients

• 2 cups almond flour (240g)

• 2 cups powdered sugar (240g)

• 2 tsp almond extract

• 1 tsp rose water (optional)

• 1 egg white (35g)

• 1-2 tsp water, as needed

• 1 drop green food dye

instructions

1. In a food processor, add the almond flour and powdered sugar. Pulse to combine.

2. With the processor running, stream in the almond extract, rose water, and egg white. Add additional 1-2 tsp water until marzipan gathers into a ball around the blade. Add food dye to dye the marzipan.

3. Transfer to plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to use (within 1-2 days).

matcha mango princess cake

adapted from the NYT/Nicola Lamb

ingredients

for the matcha cake

• 3 large eggs

• 1/2 cup sugar, separated (100g)

• 2 tbsp neutral oil (30g)

• 3 tbsp milk (45g)

• 1/2 tsp kosher salt

• 2-3 tbsp high-quality matcha powder

• 1/2 tsp baking powder

• 1 cup all-purpose flour (125g)

for the mango jam (or just use 2/3 cup of your favorite jam)

• 2 large ripe mangos, cubed

• 1/4 cup sugar (50g)

• Juice from 1 lime

• 1/2 tsp kosher salt

for the coconut pastry cream

• 1 can full-fat coconut milk

• 1/4 cup sugar (50g)

• 2 tbsp cornstarch (30g)

• 1/2 tsp kosher salt

• 2 egg yolks (30g)

for the assembly

• 1 recipe marzipan from above (or 450g store-bought)

• 2 cups heavy cream (480g)

• 8 oz mascarpone (226g)

• 1/4 cup powdered sugar (30g), plus more for rolling out marzipan and dusting

• 1/2 tsp kosher salt

• 1/2 tsp almond extract

instructions

for the matcha cake

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Grease an 8” round cake pan with a little oil. Line the bottom with parchment paper and set aside.

2. Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites. Add the egg yolks to a large bowl with the oil, milk, 1/4 cup sugar, and salt. Stir with a spatula to combine. Sift over the matcha, baking powder, and flour. Stir until just combined.

3. Add egg whites to a medium bowl. Whip with an electric hand mixer on high speed, streaming in remaining 1/4 cup sugar, until it forms stiff peaks.

4. Mix 1/3 of the whipped egg whites into the matcha batter to lighten it. Then fold in remaining egg whites in two additions. Dump into prepared cake pan. Bake for 20 minutes. Then let cool for 5 minutes, and turn out to cool completely.

for the mango jam

1. Add mango, sugar, salt, and 3 tbsp water to a small saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until mango breaks down and turns jammy, about 15 minutes. Add lime juice and dump into a small bowl to cool completely in the refrigerator.

for the coconut pastry cream

1. Reduce coconut milk over medium heat in a small saucepan until reduced to 1 cup, about 15 minutes. Let cool slightly.

2. In a medium saucepan, add cornstarch, salt, and sugar. Whisk to combine and remove lumps. Then stir in the egg yolks, followed by 3/4 cup of the reduced coconut milk (save remaining 1/4 cup). Bring pan to the stove and heat over medium heat, whisking constantly, until considerably thickened, about 5 minutes.

3. Dump into a bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let cool in the refrigerator completely.

for the assembly

1. In a large bowl, add the heavy cream, mascarpone, salt, powdered sugar, and almond extract. Whisk with an electric hand mixer until it forms stiff peaks.

2. Fold 1 cup of the whipped cream into the cooled coconut pastry cream. Set both creams back in the fridge.

3. Split matcha cake in half using a serrated knife so you have 2 cake rounds.

4. Obtain a bowl with a 9” diameter opening.

5. Remove marzipan from the fridge. Roll out the marzipan using a rolling pin and plenty of powdered sugar until it measures 14” in diameter. Then heavily dust marzipan with powdered sugar on both sides. Fold marzipan sheet in half and then elegantly place it into the bowl. Unfurl marzipan and coax it into the shape of the bowl. Press around the bowl so marzipan fits the shape of the bowl. (If your marzipan cracks significantly, you can just gather it into a ball and roll out again.)

6. Remove mascarpone cream from the fridge. Add 2 cups of the cream into the bottom of the bowl and spread out evenly. Then take 1 cup of the cream and frost up the sides of the marzipan to create a layer of cream all around the sides and up to the top rim.

7. Place one of the cake rounds into the bowl (if need be, trim the cake slightly so it fits nicely into the bowl) (if you’d like, take remaining 1/4 cup coconut milk and dab some over each cake round as you place them into the bowl). Then top with the mango jam, spread into a thin layer. Followed by the coconut pastry cream, spread into a thin layer.

8. Top with the other cake layer. Then spread over remaining mascarpone cream to seal in the cake, up to the marzipan edge. Trim excess marzipan to about 1/2”, then fold all the edges over the mascarpone cream.

9. Place a 9” or 10” cake board over the bowl. Confidently flip the bowl over and coax cake out of the bowl and onto the board. Tada!

10. With a pastry brush, dust off the cake. If you’d like to decorate, feel free to use royal icing, fresh flowers like pink roses (please tape the stems), and powdered sugar. Cake can be left covered or uncovered in the fridge for up to a few days.