I made cake boss vanilla cake recipe out of his new book i got for Christmas, i sooo wanted this to be awesome! IT WAS NOT. It had ok texture but he flavor was like a walmart cake, not impressed...

I also have tasted one slice of his cake from his store brought to me by a friend that ordered his cake for christmas, again i was not impressed, it was half vanilla and half chocolate with ganach in the middle (ganach was to die for though)..

I LOOOVEEE his chocolate ganach!!! Yummm yumm!

I think his specialty is more about desserts like cannolis , and the looks and decor of the cakes vs how the cake tastes.. Thanks for sharing! Good to know!

Jenifer

I also received the book for Christmas and made the vanilla cake for New Years. [I did not add the optional custard.] I thought it was great, and loved the texture and taste. It was a bit sweet but nobody minded. I'm not usually a vanilla fan (prefer chocolate). Maybe add a 1/4 to 1/2 tsp of almond extract or some other flavoring if that's more what you want a vanilla cake to taste like.
I want to try some of the fillings next.

He mentioned in one episode that he would never give out his recipes he uses in the bakery since they are family recipes. I would imagine the recipes in his book are not the same as he uses in the bakery.

I made the vanilla cake in his book and added the custard. I thought it was wonderful, and the people that ate it told me how wonderful it was. Maybe the custard makes a difference in the taste?

Good to know..I receieved his book also but haven't had a chance to try anything..I so want his sponge cake recipe but I know he will never give it out.

hmmm i will have to add the custard.. then. i mean no one at my house would even eat it, not even my child! was more like a muffin taste with vanilla

I was thinking of trying the chocolate cake recipe this weekend.

Was the vanilla cake sturdy enough for stacking and carving?

I made the custard cream tonight and plan on making the vanilla cake (with the custard) tomorrow. I'll post my report on it as well. I'm hoping I did the custard creme right... I was expecting it to be thicker, I guess, but even with whipping it as long as he said, it just looked like I put air bubbles into it, and it was still liquidy. Maybe it "sets" overnight since it has to refrigerate for at least 6 hours? Because when I got done making it, my thought was "there is NO way I could use this as a filling..."
Thoughts?

O YES its very sturdy! no problems with it except the taste... hope other post there results

Ganache is ganache, recipes for it don't vary much and all taste the same...YUMMY. You would have to be pretty bad to mess up the taste of ganache.

I don't care for his cakes or frosting....but I am used to box cake mix...maybe thats why...but his canolli are OMG

Reporting in on the Cake Boss book Vanilla cake WITH the Italian custard. OH MY GOODNESS.

YUM.

Best vanilla cake ever. I don't even really like eating cake all that much anymore, since I make it every week, but I went back for seconds on this one.
I've been bemoaning my lack of good, moist scratch vanilla cake recipes. I have a chocolate scratch that's to die for, but even my good vanilla cakes needed the addition of a vanilla bean syrup added to moisten them up to American box-cake accustomed palates.
Not this one. So incredibly moist. A beautiful off white/light yellow color. Even crumb, no air bubbles. Very sturdy -- it will make a great wedding cake. Amazing flavor, not a bland vanilla at all.


Now for my only negative on it -- and it's likely mostly my own fault. The book specifies to make sure the batter is at at least 74 degrees before putting in the oven. I thought I had gotten my cold ingredients to room temp before mixing, but apparently it wasn't because when I tested the temp after mixing, it was at about 65 degrees. I let it sit out and wait for about 10 minutes, temp tested it again, and it was still at about 65 degrees. I had to get it in the oven because I had an errand I had to get to later, so I went ahead and put it in the oven. The cake didn't crack like the book said it would if it was too cold, but it did crown a LOT, even with my usual method of inserting a flower nail in the center. So if I would have had to level the cake (this cake was not for an order, it was just a test), I would have had to shave off a lot of cake and ended up with a short tier. Next time I will make sure that it's at 74 degrees before baking.

I also think I'll bake it in an 8 inch pan instead of the 9 inch layers the recipe calls for. Some of it is just because of the over-crowning, but it didn't seem to fill the 9 inch pans at all.

Also, the batter is really runny - not thick like my usual scratch vanilla cakes. So much so that I feared I'd done something wrong and I half expected to open the oven at the end time and find liquid still in there. But nope, it cooked just fine.

I look forward to making another one later this week. What I'm trying to decide is if I will be making it for an order for vanilla cake this week, or if this will be another "test" for me.

Yes, it's a cooked custard. Next time I'll try to cook it longer -- I was following everything exactly by the book this time, because I wanted to see if the recipe worked out EXACTLY as written.
But even with it being runny, it worked just great in the recipe. It would not have held up as a filling, though.

I can't imagine the cake would taste good without the addition of the custard. I can't imagine why he said it's optional. In my opinion, it REALLY made the cake. I can't wait to make it again.

I was "on the fence" about buying the book because he said he would never give out his recipes...
But sounds like its worth buying, maybe it might be my next cookbook
thanks for the reviews from everyone,
Jodi

I had a thought about the cake pan sizes. He specifies in the book that it's not quite his shop recipes -- he says they have been modified for home cooking. (So that's where I can see him not going back on the "never give out my recipes" thing.) So when he says the cake makes 2 - 9 inch layers, I'm thinking he's likely figuring on the home cook using those cheapy 9 inch cake pans, which aren't really anywhere close to 9 inch in reality..

That would account for why I felt it didn't nearly fill my (ACTUAL) 9 inch pans.
So maybe, if you use the grocery store cake pans, it would work with the "9 inch" size. But if you use Wilton/Fat Daddio/Magic Line, I'd say it's going to work out better with 8 inch pans.

I SO wanna try his cannoli's too!!
Does anyone have his custard recipe? (could you post it?! pretty please!!!) I think I should get this book!!

i always see DDA on all his boxes in the bakery on his show..thats dawn food products....if that is what he uses in his bakery then nothing is recipes...its no different than walmart ingredients..

Well, if that's the case, he's modified it nicely for the home baker without the "dump in a cake mix and add some pudding or flavor bottles for "gourmet" flavor" usual thing. The vanilla cake with custard cream is a scratch recipe that rocks.

I made Cake Boss vanilla cake last night and it is not like any other cake I have ever made or tasted. It is exceptionally good. It is very moist, but holds its shape. When you cut it, it bounces back to the original shape and cuts perfectly clean. This, to me, tastes and looks like a perfect scratch wedding cake.

I made the custard and thickened it a little more than it called for... maybe one or two minutes. Don't try to make this by hand, it will separate. I have never made a custard with a mixer, but with the amount of flour, I can see why this is necessary. After chilling for the requisite six hours, the custard was so dense that, when spooned out, it completely held its cut shape. To make things easier, my ingredients, including the custard, were brought to 70 degrees. I used parchment in the pans and wrapped them with bake even strips. I believe , because of the strips, it took the whole time to cook in my convection oven. The cake looked undone, so I felt it and it was firm. Even though it appeared undercooked, the toothpick came out clean. I completely cooled it in the pan, as directed. The color was the lightest color for a yellow cake,and the color was the same on top and sides throughout. The consensus is that the taste was amazing. As Buddy promised, the cake layers were perfectly even and flat. The batter rose to the top of the 2 inch deep pans.

The only change I made was to use vanilla bean. I usually play with recipes and change them around. But with this cake, I would not attempt it.

I do bake all of my 8, 9, and 10 inch cake in Williams-Sonoma goldtouch pans, which accounts for the perfect color. I left the cake on the counter wrapped in press-n-seal and it has lost nothing.

Do you think this recipe would be good for cupcakes? I must find the time to try this recipe out! Actually there are quite a few in his book I want to try.

Did anyone get the custard cream to NOT be runny? I left mine overnight in the fridge and it's still completely runny, like heavy cream. Just read the recipe again and it says the longer you cook it, the thicker it will get.

I wonder if I could cook it in a pot now until it gets thicker? Maybe I'll just ruin it! Someone said they put it in the batter runny and the cake came out good, but I'm afraid mine is too liquidy.

Wouldn't that throw off the balance of liquid to dry and make the cake burn while the inside is cooking? What to do, what to do. . .

ok, i just reheated my italian custard cream that i made yesterday and was still runny after being left overnight in fridge.

it came out great!!! i guess that must have been the trick. you have to keep heating it until it thickens. he only says to heat for about a total of 4 minutes, but it took me much longer than that, about 12-15 minutes to get it to a thick consistency. keep whisking it, too, so the bottom doesn't overcook.

it is delicious, and my husband keeps eating it! i hope i have enough left to use for the cake recipe!