I'm not sure why this particular recipe caught my eye. It's probably because the folks at King Arthur Flour and facebook kept bombarding me with images of this cake and the advertisement for the King Arthur Flour Bake Along. Wish they had done so earlier because now I will be going back through the past months challenges!
I really love fresh berries and this recipe requires a variety. I lucked up and found every berry I needed at Aldi. If they look a little past there best by date in the pictures that's my fault. I forgot about them in my fridge. Sadness. Lucky for me they still taste fine!
I'll be honest. This recipe is a little strange and has quite a few steps. Some you can make ahead and some that require some advanced baking know how. This recipe requires a pastry cream, a meringue and a sponge cake! I sort of felt like I was on an episode of The Great British Baking Show. I kept looking over my shoulders for Merry Berry and Paul Hollywood but, alas, I was alone.
The King Arthur blog post for this bake along challenge provided step by step photos and very detailed instructions. I couldn't imagine successfully completing this cake by just looking at written recipe with no pictures. I've never seen anything like it!
I didn't take very many pictures of the step-by-step because it's not my recipe. I made no changes and a much better tutorial can be found on the King Arthur Flour Blog post. When I did snap a picture it was because it was just so darn pretty and really to document to myself what I had accomplished.
I think the biggest challenge of this recipe is getting over the fact that the meringue and sponge cake are bakes on top of each other. It just doesn't seem right for some reason. The other challenge is trying to put all the pastry cream and whipped cream and berries on the layers without it looking like a 2 year old helped!
The end result is totally worth it though! It's so pretty! It has a very slight cinnamon flavor and the nuts get a little crunchy and it just looks so fancy! I can't believe this came out of my kitchen.
If you want to give this recipe a try head on over the King Arthur Flour website: http://blog.kingarthurflour.com/2017/05/01/berry-blitz-torte-bakealong/
Let me know in the comments or on my facebook page if you try it out. I'd love to see you're pictures too!
