Pink Vanilla Pocky Cake

Sometimes when you’re stressed you need cake. Just a little 6-inch personal-size cake with flecks of vanilla bean throughout, and possibly surrounded with your favorite guilty pleasure – strawberry pocky.

It helps you forget that you’re making a wedding cake and a groom’s cake next week.

And the fact that you’ll have to transport it in 592 degree weather.

And that somehow you’ll have to manage all this while looking fresh-as-a-daisy in your bridesmaid’s dress.

Clearly, I needed a cake.

This is a straight-forward yellow cake recipe with an American buttercream from the SprinkleBakes book.  I used cake flour instead of all-purpose and vanilla bean paste instead of extract. Both cake and icing have the taste and texture of the birthday cakes I remember as child.

Dress it in pocky– or don’t.  It’s delicious either way!

Pink Vanilla Pocky Cake

Yield: One six-inch cake, or one slightly shorter 8-inch cake                              [click for printable recipe]

Note: Cake flour is recommended for this recipe.

Yellow cake:

2 ¼ cups cake flour

1 tbsp. baking powder

¼ tsp. salt

¾ cup unsalted butter, softened

¾ cup sugar

1 tsp. vanilla bean paste

3 eggs

¾ cup whole milk, room temperature

1. Preheat oven to 350F. 
2. Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt.
3. In a standing mixer, beat butter using the paddle attachment until creamy and lightened. Add the sugar gradually; scrape down the sides of the bowl and then beat in the vanilla.
4. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well with each addition. Add the flour mixture alternately with the milk, beginning and ending with flour.
5. Divide batter between pans and bake approximately 22 minutes for 6-inch layers, 24 minutes for 8-inch layers. Cool cakes in pans for 5 minutes, unmold and cool completely on wire racks. 

Pink vanilla bean frosting:

Note: if making an 8-inch version, increase the frosting recipe by 1/2

1 cup of unsalted butter, softened

2 ½ cups confectioners’ sugar – the finest you can find (usually 10x)

1 tsp vanilla bean paste

Pink gel food coloring

* Milk or heavy cream, optional

1. In a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, mix together the butter and confectioners sugar.  Begin mixing on low speed until crumbly, and then increase to high and beat for 3 minutes. 
2. Add vanilla bean paste and beat again for another minute until light and fluffy. Beat in food coloring a little at a time until the desired color is achieved.

*Note: If you find the buttercream is too stiff, you may add milk or heavy cream 1 tablespoon at a time until the mixture is spreading consistency.

Assembly:

6-inch cake: Fifteen 6 quantity packets (90 pcs.) of strawberry cream pocky

8-inch cake: Seventeen-Eighteen 6 quantity packets         ”          “

1. Frost cooled cakes with an off-set spatula and transfer remaining frosting to a piping bag fitted with a large plain tip (a zip-top bag with the corner snipped would probably work also).
2. Pipe icing in strait lines across the top of the cake. When finished, smooth the edges with an off-set spatula.  Press the strawberry pocky dipped-side down into the sides of the cake until completely covered.
3. The finished cake slices easily if you place the knife between pieces of pocky.