Comments on: Neapolitan Layer Cake

By: Corinne

Corinne — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 00:32:45 +0000

I have made several Donny Hay cake recipes for my childrens birthday cake, and they always turn out heavy and dense. Just this morning I thought I would make the easy mix cupcakes for his party this afternoon and they have turned out heavy and dense as well. I will not make another Donny Hay cake, I glad I’m not the only one, I did think what am I doing wrong!

By: astracho

astracho — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 12:06:10 +0000

hmmm okay well my 3 cakes turned out dense as well….. is this right??

By: astracho

astracho — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 21:33:26 +0000

Well I have just made 3 cakes in 28cm pans to cater for 35 children and funnily enough mine feel very heavy and dense….. not feeling very confident about beating the icing….. my party is on sunday and am considering icing today (saturday) and leaving overnight outside of fridge?

By: elizabeth

elizabeth — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 18:10:49 +0000

you could just buy white, chocolate, and strawberry cake mix from the grocery store and make it that way. This is what I dod for my BF’s Birthday and it turned out beautiful and delicious! I decorated it with white frosting and sprinkles. I am going to be making it very often. Its so yummy. Oh and I also served it with neopolitan ice cream. Yumm!

By: Jamieanne

Jamieanne — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 03:46:24 +0000

I’m glad it wasn’t just me too! Thank you so much for letting me know!

By: Laura

Laura — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 10:44:25 +0000

I’m so glad it wasn’t just me! I tried the plain vanilla cake from the exact same issue and I had all the same problems. Heavy, stodgy and greasy. I was going to trim the top off to taste it and then ice the rest. I didn’t even bother to ice it and my son – the cake lover – let it fall out of his mouth. Beautiful to look at, but that’s about it. I thought maybe if I cream the butter and sugar next time instead of melting it all, but then I figured bugger it, I have plenty of other nice cake recipes. The brownies from that issue were nice though – instead of icing them I put in white and dark choc bits – brownies should require no icing! But once again, it was a little bit too buttery (50grams less would have been good).

By: Tammy Simpson

Tammy Simpson — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 08:32:11 +0000

Hi have just read your post…
I make buttercream icing all the time (check Tams Cakes -facebook fan page) and i have never ever put milk OR vanilla in it… the Vanilla would send it yellow and not let it keep the whiteness… and the recipe doesnt seem to have enough icing sugar to butter ratio? But thats just my assumption by looking at the recipe list and your remarks on butter greasiness..
I would def write to the magazine and ask Donna Hay… just doesnt sound right… and if you do get a reply from them please post it up… Just a thought would love to know as their cake looks perfect… and judjing by your page your a cake expert…

By: Miss Kitty Creations

Miss Kitty Creations — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 16:37:35 +0000

All of your treats always look sooo delectable I am sure that it was not you and simply the recipe.

Nonetheless, I was inspired by your creation and came up with a scented charm based off your cake ~ you can see the charm on my blog:

http://misskittycupcakes.blogspot.com/

Thank you for the inspiration!

By: Shannyn

Shannyn — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 14:51:08 +0000

Everything Xiaolu at 6Bittersweet said – ie. the original cake’s crumb looks pretty heavy to me as well, so I doubt you messed it up. Just a weird recipe – maybe designed to get non-bakers, or people used to box mixes, into doing it from scratch…?
But the frosting sounds like a fairly standard buttercream to me, too… Mind you, I’ve never seen an all-butter buttercream that white before…hmm…
Anyway, you know what? With DIY cupcakes on offer, your cake could have been the best one in the world, and I bet the kids would still have gone for the cuppies!

By: AshleaG

AshleaG — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 10:00:39 +0000

Ah yes. The old ‘Beautiful looking Donna Hay cake that turns into a complete disaster’ trick. I think you hit the nail on the head by saying that she is a food stylist. Although in Donna’s defence, every savoury Donna Hay recipe I have made has worked perfectly and been delicious. But baking is tricky and takes more skill than just ‘melt this huge amount of butter and chuck everything else in with it’. My attempted Donna Hay cake was very similar to this one except it also had about 12 eggs in it. So even though I was super careful about gently folding everything together, it turned out more like a dense, heavy, eggy buttery mess than a pretty white three layered ‘rainbow’ cake with frothy white icing. It was a disappointing (and expensive) experience.
Nice to know someone else feels my pain though.