- Hey, I'm John Kanell. And today on Preppy Kitchen, we're making a delicious
Italian cream cake. So let's get started. first off, we're doing some prep work. This recipe calls for pecans
and coconut in the cake but tastes so much better
when the pecans are toasted. Get six ounces or 170 grams of pecans and they can be chopped or whatever. And now these are gonna go into the oven, 350, for maybe eight minutes or until they're fragrant,
make sure you move them around. Not with your fingers though because the outside toasts first. Into the oven. While the pecans are toasting, I'm buttering and flouring
three eight-inch pans. This cake is so good. And the nice thing is, it
actually releases pretty easily. You don't have to do
parchment paper rounds in your baking pans. If you wanted to, you could
definitely use baking spray but I actually do prefer
buttering and flouring. Just get some good coverage. You see here, a tablespoon or two of flour is all you need to get
these pans nice and prepped. Few things are as disappointing as a cake that's stuck in the pan. So the prep work is
actually really important. Setting these aside, and now it's time for the dry ingredients. In a large bowl, I want two and 1/3rd cups
of all purpose flour. Ooh, that's 280 grams. 3/4 of a teaspoon of salt. If you're using a fine salt, use less, because that means it's gonna be saltier. 1/4 teaspoon of baking powder, and 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda. (upbeat music) Thank you, scale. We're gonna give this a good whisk. In case you're wondering,
Italian cream cake isn't actually an Italian cake. It's a Southern recipe. The first mention of it was
in Texas in the thirties, and it's just thought that it was an Italian baker who invented it. And it is mind blowingly delicious. I developed this recipe because
some viewers requested it and I was like, oh my gosh, this is one of the best things ever. The coconut and pecans with the cream cheese frosting
is like, ah, Chef's kiss. Now we're ready for the wet ingredients. Starting off with 2/3rds
of a cup of butter. That's 152 grams, along with 1/2 a cup of
vegetable shortening, that's 96 grams. We're using vegetable
shortening in this cake, one, because that's the
traditional way you do it in Italian cream cakes and two, because using vegetable
shortening is gonna give us a fluffier more tender crumb. The cake's gonna rise and just have a little bit better texture. If you don't like vegetable shortening, just use 1/2 a cup of butter extra. Lock that off. (mixer mixing) We're gonna mix this up for a little bit just so it's really well combined. And in the meantime, we'll
be separating out six eggs. We're gonna use both the
whites and the yolks. It's like I'm diffusing a
bomb right now, careful. So the best way to do this
is to have three bowls. I just can't do any more dishes. I gotta put me first. Just dump each white out
into a separate bowl, in case a yolk breaks. If a yolk did break, just try and act fast and get it all out. My eggs are separated. The shortening and the
butter are combined, and now we're gonna add 400 grams or two cups of granulated sugar. It's a big cake, lots of portions. So you use a lot of ingredients. Now we're going to mix this on medium, medium high for three minutes
until it's light and fluffy. Have those yolks ready
because they go in next. We can definitely scrape
the bowl down at least once. Yeah, I rarely use
shortening, but it's true. It does give you like a
really fluffy tender crumb. It's because of the
different way it melts, it melts at a higher temperature and it also traps more air than butter but you can make this
cake with all butter. (mixer mixing) I'm adding the yokes in one at a time, just make sure they mix up
before you add the next. And we're all done. So if you look down,
beautiful golden yellow color, you see very pale butter colors
just because it's not mixed. So one last scrape down. I was like, is there
two teaspoons in here? Okay, two teaspoons of vanilla extract. I have more in the pantry, don't worry. And 3/4 of a teaspoon of almond extract. I love almond extract. I hope you have it in your pantry, too. It's so good, but it's very powerful. So use it sparingly. This cake is funny because
now we're gonna add the flour and the buttermilk in alternating batches. But what about those egg whites? They get folded in last
and they totally change the consistency of the batter. So with the mixer running
on its lowest setting, I'm adding in the flour
mixture and alternating with the buttermilk, it's like
three flour, two buttermilks. It didn't mix in all the way. I don't want it to mix in all the way because I'm sure it needs one scrape down. It totally does. Come take a look at this, totally unmixed. It said use of spatula
to finish batters off, and we're gonna be adding
the egg whites in here. So it doesn't have to be totally great. Just mostly there. I really wanna make sure
there's no big pockets of butter or big pockets of flour. Just a couple streaks. This gets set aside. Our egg whites are gonna get whisked up until they are so fluffy
they look like little clouds. Now I'm adding my six egg whites right into this clean bowl with my clean whisk. I'm gonna mix this up
until we have really stiff beautiful white peaks. While that happens, those toasted pecans are nice and cool so they can get a good chop right now. Just like a nice medium chop. Not super tiny, not super big. You want some good crunch in this cake. It's so melt in your mouth. The play of textures is
really nice and pecans are like a million times
better when they're toasted. They are so fragrant and delicious. Oh, perfect timing. You can tell it's stiff because it'll stick to
the beater in the bowl. It'll look like this. Like that is a stiff cloud of egg white. There's a problem though. This fairly like thick, dense-ish batter, this is super light. So what we have to do
is lighten the batter with 1/3 of the egg
whites, just like that. You're gonna fold this in, understanding that many of
these bubbles will burst, but in the process the batter will get lighter and easier to fold the rest of that in. You can see here, the streaks
are starting to disappear, and this batter looks much lighter now. That looks nice. Now we can add the rest
of this in two batches. You got to be patient and gentle when you're
folding in egg whites because the whole point is
to make a fluffy light melt in your mouth amazing cake. And if you can crush them all,
it's not gonna do anything. And when I fold, it's not like a mix. What I'm doing is
scraping down the bottom, bringing it up and cutting down. So you're making like a
figure eight almost inside. It does take a little bit of time but it is so worthwhile. All gone, now it's time for
our magical ingredients. That is those toasted crushed pecans. Hmm, well, they're chopped, not crushed. And this coconut. I just started my recipe and these were supposed to go in earlier but it's gonna be fine don't worry. One cup of those chopped pecans, and one cup of this
sweetened coconut flakes. I'm just gonna fold this in. We're just distributing
the nuts and coconut. We're gonna divide this between our three pans evenly. If you want, you can break your scale out or just eyeball it. Let's get that batter in there. I feel like renaming this,
John's Friendship Cake. I made this for a friend
of mine and she was like, ah, this is my new favorite cake. And I was like, yes. And don't you dare waste
any of this batter. It's so delicious. So in each pan, it's
about a kilo of batter. Let's give it a little bit of a level. Cakes will level in the oven but you just don't wanna risk it when it's a layer cake. You want that layer cake to be
nice and even, not lopsided. This is optional, but I'm
popping my cake strips on to give you a really nice even bake with layers that aren't burnt on the edge. These guys go into the oven, 350 degrees, for about 1/2 an hour or until the edges are pulling away from the pan. And they have a little
spring in the center. Cakes are out of the oven. You can see, they're
pulling away from the edge. We're gonna let these
sit here for 15 minutes. It's time to unmount them. This could be stressful but I wanna gonna show you how to get them out with more ease. Get a little knife and just run it around the
edge, in case any bit is stuck. We don't like that. Then give it a little tap on the side. This will help the cake just get unstuck. If it is stuck. And once you see it moving around, it's time to flip it over Get the rest of the layers out. And in the meantime,
while they finish cooling, we're gonna be toasting up some coconut and making our frosting. About maybe like 1/2 a cup or even a cup of coconut can get toasted. Just break it up into little
pieces, spread it out. And 350 for like five
minutes, check it up. You're gonna mix it a couple
of times, the edge will burn. The center will be white. You want it uniformly
toasted and golden brown. So just, you know, keep an eye on it, shift it around every few minutes. I'm adding a little bit more 'cause I'll be sneaking a bite. Into the oven and now we
can make the frosting. My cake layers are just about cool. So now it's time to make a luscious, amazing cream cheese frosting. So one and a 1/2 cups
of butter, 340 grams. This should be room temperature and I'm using unsalted butter. I'm also using two eight
ounce blocks of cream cheese. That's 226 grams. Basically, I'm adding
everything into the mixing bowl that's not sugar and
we're gonna cream it up. So it's really nice and homogenous. I don't want any pockets of butter or pockets of cream cheese. It should be all the way mixed through. The three layer eight-inch
cake is a big cake for a lot of people. So we need a good amount
of frosting for that. All right, plop a paddle attachment on. While it mixes, I'm gonna add one and a 1/2
teaspoons up a nice vanilla. This should be on medium, low speed. You don't wanna mix too
much air into the frosting. Scrape that bowl down. We wanna have no pockets of butter or cream cheese before
we add our sugar in. And right now it's gonna
look a little bit cheesy, if you will, it has like a almost cottage cheese texture to it. Don't worry about that. The sugar is gonna fix everything. So for the frosting, I'm using seven cups or 840
grams of powdered sugar. You could add this in in a few batches and today I will not
be sifting it out just because this is a brand new bag. Doesn't look like it's lumpy. Mix it on low. Once it looks like it's
mostly incorporated, we're gonna add more and then do that until all the sugar is mixed in. I'll increase the speed every
once in a while for a second just to like throw some of the frosting off of the beater. Right now I'm gonna walk
away, do a couple dishes. The key to a nice silky
frosting is to go low and slow. So don't go on high for
long periods of time. That's just gonna beat a lot of air into it and your frosting's
gonna be full of bubbles. We want a creamy, beautiful,
delicious frosting with a great mouth feel. Just giving it a quick scrape down. And then we're gonna add our
last bit of powdered sugar in. If you're worried about
the decoration, don't be. I'm gonna guide you through
it and give you all the tips to make your cake look super
pretty with almost no effort. A few minutes later, and this cheesy mess became silky and amazing. Look at this texture. It's so nice. This is the lusciousness you want from a cream cheese frosting. Now comes the fun part, assembling and decorating your cake. So first off, grab a dollop
of frosting and spread it on the bottom. That's the glue to hold everything. So it doesn't slide around. Your first layer goes on, center it up. And now we want about 1/4 of a cup to a 1/3rd of a cup of
frosting in between each layer. So spread it out. Maybe a little bit more. I like a lot of frosting. Continue building the cake. Last piece goes on. This cake is so tender and amazing. I'm gonna have to like try not
eat the whole thing myself. Now for the fun part. We're just gonna scoop
more frosting on top and smooth it onto the
sides and get a nice base. I wanna tell you, do not worry about getting
a perfectly smooth cake because we're covering
almost the entire cake with various things. So if it doesn't look
perfect, that's fine. Splat it on the sides. It's often easier to
apply a lot of frosting on top and then smooth it over
and work it out to the edge where you can work it down. Right now my cake's covered. I'm gonna use a bench scraper and just finish the side off,
offset scrape for the top. If it looks a little bit thin on the side, you can add more but really
it's gonna get covered up with nuts and things. So don't worry about it. To get a nice edge for your cake, use your offset spatula and
pull in as you turn slowly and then wipe off in between each stroke. This looks nice. I have about a cup of frosting
left over for dollops on top but first, let's get that coconut. This toasted up really nicely. It's most golden brown and
it looks and tastes amazing. The coconut goes right on top. The bottom edge or skirt of the cake is getting more decoration and that's the rest of our
chopped toasted pecans. So just add that onto the
bottom and turn the cake. Adding a skirt onto
your cake is a great way to let people know what's inside of it and give it a finished look. So it doesn't look so bare. It also hides any mistakes. Finish your skirt off just by taking a couple pieces
and adding them up higher. It gives you the look of a gradient which makes it just look
a little bit more pretty. Finish the cake off with
the remaining frosting. I'm using an 846 tip, but
you could use any star tip or do whatever you want. A little wriggley dollop, just like that. And it looks great. If you're running low on frosting, just do the dollops further apart. I went conservative on the edge so I could have more for the top. I love the way that looks and it took less than 20 minutes to
decorate, start to finish. Mm, this cake is truly a must bake recipe. I hope you get a chance to make it. And if you like this video,
check out my cake playlist.
