Cake among Friends

I'd like to take this chance to throw some confetti in the air and introduce my personal friend and a talented baker: The Charming Martha! We met a couple years back in my old stomping ground- a kitchen, of course. I was senior staff (by about six months) when she came in, bright eyed and full of dreams. I left to pursue adult life (whatever that means) while she stayed and further perfected our craft. Some of the things she whips up now blow me away.
We get together these days as our schedules allow and have baking challenges. Our most recent collaboration was a beautiful Princess Cake.

She'll give you the recipe over on her blog, A Girl of Twists and Turns.

I have so much fun working with this lady. We researched recipes for a month before finally cracking down to bake. The recipe we settled on was from Donal Skehan, despite the confusing UK ingredient names. A note for all our fellow ignorant Americans: What we call 'corn starch,' folks in the UK call 'cornflour.' We made a couple of minor adjustments to the recipe (forgive us, Donal) which you can read about over on Martha's post.

Like I said, I had fun with this recipe. We trotted out in the morning to hunt down marzipan; we sang old songs of the South while beating cream; we cooed at the adorableness that was our mini princess cakes; I stared in fascination as Martha made about a dozen little rose buds to top each cake.

Princess cake is oddly easy to make. It's a delicate sponge cake cut and layered with custard and raspberries or jam. The whole cake is then topped with a mounded heap of whipped cream and a thin sheet of marzipan. There are some tedious details, and you can expect your whole kitchen to be devoted to this one cake for several hours, but it's otherwise simple. So, head on over to A Girl of Twists and Turns and give my friend a visit. Tell her I sent you.