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.

link Pink Vanilla Pocky Cake By Heather Baird Published: Wednesday, June 27, 2012 Wednesday, June 27, 2012 Pink Vanilla Pocky Cake Recipe