jasmine blues, a cake that tastes like perfume
inspired by the notes of Orebella's newest fragrance
hey hi hello,
Welcome back to bake chats xx
If it wasn’t obvious by the subject line, we’re back with another perfume cake ♡ if you’re new here, I make cakes that taste like perfume by taking the edible scent notes of a perfume and applying those flavors to my go-to cake formula.
And this one is for all the girlies in my comment section hoping a fragrance brand would reach out to have me make a cake for a fragrance launch event cause baby that day is today!! Well, it was 2 weeks ago when I got the request and 4 days ago when I actually made the cakes for the event but but but I digress- that’s not the POINT. The mf POINT, is that I got to make my little perfume cakes to celebrate Orebella’s newest fragrance Jasmine Blues. And I’ve been in my feels about this because, y’all this was such a major milestone in this passion project of mine- and it quite literally would not be possible without you and your support. I wake up every morning so grateful for every opportunity I have and even more grateful for each and every one of you. #ilyilyily
My daily bout of sappy gratitude aside, let’s get into this mf CAKE. The notes we’re working with today are jasmine, rose, bergamot, clove and patchouli.
And by now, I hope y’all have a pretty good feeling about where and how bergamot is showing up in one of these cakes (which tbh, means it’s probably time to take a step away from bergamot scents for these cakes). But, that of course of course of COURSE is using Agrumto bergamot oil in the chiffon.
Jasmine is the star of the show today and that means we’re doing a a jasmine tea infused bavarian cream. Which once again by now, you know is my vanilla pastry cream, cold infused with Jasmine flowers and lightened with whipped cream. For infusing for pastry creams, I will increase the amount of milk by 20-25% to account for what gets soaked up by the tea, and by weight i’ll do 2-4% of tea into the amount of milk. EX. 100 grams of milk=4 grams of tea. period.
To soak the cake, we’re hitting the layers with a soak made from patchouli tea, and a hint- nay, a whisper of rose water and clove. And honestly, I think this is my favorite component of the cake, the way these ingredient’s flavors blend together creates this note that I can only describe as playfully woody.
The final piece to any of my cakes is of course the buttercream, today rose makes another appearance in the swiss, just to bring a touch more of a floral edge to the cake.
While this one doesn’t taste exactly as the perfume smells, omg boy does it taste like the most indulgent tea party. Every component is essentially some version of tea so it makes sense: bergamot= earl grey, patchouli steeped soaker = sweet tea, jasmine infused pastry cream = milk tea pastry cream.
Today’s post will include recipes for the patchouli soaker and the jasmine tea custard. The bergamot chiffon recipe lives alone now, and will be a point of reference anytime it’s used in a future recipe. The rose water swiss buttercream will just have a note on adapting and flavoring my classic swiss buttercream.
*This post has a few affiliate links, which if you click and purchase from I receive compensation at no additional cost to you*
Now, for the event I made a two tier cake 10”+7”, but as per usual the recipe shared here will be for an 8” cake (4 layers of cake, 3 layers of filling). But, I do want to share some of the context of how I went about scaling my recipes up and down for each new cake size.
So, something I learned from this King Arthur article written by Bronwen Wyatt is that a 9” cake pan can take 26.6% more cake batter than an 8”cake to yield the same height in the baked cake layers. So using that and uhh kinda just guessing and hoping for the best, I assumed a 10” cake is 26.6% more than a 9” cake pan, meaning it holds 53.2% more batter than an 8” pan. Mind you, MIND YOU, this is still just an educated guess assuming for that for every inch you increase in pan size you’ll experience a 26.6% increase (or decrease) in batter amount. RIGHT and I’m not gonna do the actual math to fact check that… because I already had to do so much other math for scaling, but ya know, it all worked out in the end and all the cakes baked perfectly so, I’m rolling with it. So, what I took that to mean is that if when I bake an 8” cake, and I fill the pan with 400 grams of batter, to fill a 10” pan I would need (400x.532)+400, so 612.8 grams of chiffon batter. THANKFULLyyy my holy grail scaling sheet does the math of scaling that for me and populates the new recipe weights for me <3333
In reverse though, to get the right amount of batter for a 7” cake pan, I do the math in reverse to decrease from 8”. Since we’re only going down an inch, we do 400-(400 x .266) which gives up 293 grams.
Each 2” tall cake pan, no matter the size gives me 2 layers of cake after torting. I made 2 of these baddies so in total I needed 6 layers of each size cake, so 3x of each size. Meaning in total I needed 2,715 grams of batter, which was one nice big ole batch in a commercial mixer (you can’t do this batch size in a kitchen aid sorrry pals). Though, for batters I will round up to the nearest whole egg btw!!
Then it was essentially the same math for the filling, for my 8” cakes with 3 layers of filling I use a total of 720 grams of bavarian/creme legere, which averages out to 240 grams of filling per layer. Since these cakes only had 2 layers of filling each, the is based off multiplying 480 by .532 and .266 to figure the total amount of filling needed.
For the 10 inchers, that’s a total of 1470 grams, for 367 grams per layer. While the 7 inchers is a total of 704 grams, with 176 per layer. In total, I was going to need 2174 grams of filling, though here I do round up to 2500 just to be in the safe side.
Hennyyyyways, that’s just how I go about doing the math to limit waste and make sure I have juuuust enough to get the job done. Always, always, always factor in a little extra as your fail rate, cause ya never freakin know. right.
JASMINE BLUES CAKE
INCLUDED RECIPES: PATCHOULI CLOVE SOAKER + JASMINE TEA CUSTARD, PAID SUBSCRIBERS GET ACCESS TO DOWNLOADED PDF RECIPES FOR EASY VIEWING + PRINTING
TOOLS:
Mixing bowls
Rubber spatula
2-8” aluminum cake pans- none of that non stick coated shit
Thin serrated knife
Whisk
Piping bags + tips
JASMINE TEA BAVARIAN
INGREDIENTS:
375 grams whole milk
20 grams jasmine tea
60 grams granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon diamond crystal kosher salt
17 grams cornstarch
80 grams yolks (approx 4 large egg yolks)
45 grams unsalted butter, cold and cubed
optional 1 teaspoon powdered gelatin + 1 tablespoon ice cold water to bloom
200 grams heavy cream, cold
DIRECTIONS
In a medium saucepan over a low flame, heat 375 grams of whole milk to 120F, just warm enough to take the chill off. Add the 20 grams of jasmine tea to the warmed milk and remove from the heat. Swirl to ensure the tea is evenly saturated. Allow to steep for 30 minutes.
Once steeped, strain the milk through a fine mesh sieve to remove the tea leaves.
Reweigh your infused milk to 300 grams into a medium saucepan. Place over medium heat and bring to just before a simmer.
If you want a more stable filling- you’ll want to set it with gelatin. While your milk heats up, now’s the time to bloom your 1 teaspoon of powdered gelatin into 1 tablespoon of ice cold water. This is just adding the powder to cod water and agitating until the powder is evenly hydrated- set this aside.
In a medium bowl combine 60 grams of granulated sugar with 17 grams of cornstarch and 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt, whisking to break up any clumps. To this you’ll add 80 grams of egg yolks, whisking to combine and gently aerate the mixture.
Once the milk is warmed, temper into the yolk mixture by slowly ladling some of warm milk to the bowl with the yolks. Whisking to combine and slowly bring up the egg temp. Repeat this until about half of the milk has been added before returning the yolk mixture to the saucepan with the remainder of the milk.
Continue to cook your custard until it thickens, while whisking constantly to avoid curdling. Once the custard is thickened, it should produce a few slow popping bubbles, remove from heat and add in 45 grams of cold cubed unsalted butter and the bloomed gelatin from earlier should you be using it. Whisk until homogenous, taking care to scrape down the sides of the saucepan.
Strain the custard through a fine mesh sieve into a heatproof storage container. Cover directly with plastic wrap and store in the fridge to set up. A minimum of about 4 hours, but as per usual, preferably overnight.
When ready to use: Use a spatula or whisk to loosen the set custard, this’ll make it easier to fold whipped cream into. Whip the 200 grams of cold heavy cream to medium stiff peaks. Once achieved, gently fold the whipped cream into the pastry cream 1/2 of the whipped cream at a time. Use immediately to fill your cakes.
PATCHOULI ROSE SOAKER
INGREDIENTS
375 grams water
18 grams patchouli tea
150 grams sugar
pinch o’ kosher salt
1 tablespoon rose water
ground cloves, to taste
DIRECTIONS
Heat the 375 grams water to no hotter than 165F. You don’t want your patchouli to bitter out now.
Off heat add 18 grams of patchouli tea to the water, allow to steep covered for 30-45 minutes.
Strain the tea through a fine mesh sieve into a medium saucepan.
To the tea add 150 grams sugar and a pinch of kosher salt. Bring this mixture to a boil over medium heat.
Once boiling and all the sugar has dissolved, remove from heat and add the tablespoon of rose water and literally a whisper of ground cloves. What one might call 1/16th of a teaspoon or less. A shake and a half. CLOVE IS STRONG AS HELL AND YOU DO NOT WANT TO GET TOO HEAVY HERE NOW.
Allow to cool before moving to a squeeze bottle for easy soaking.
ROSE WATER SWISS BUTTERCREAM
For this, you’ll make a 1.5x batch of my classic swiss buttercream.
Once you’ve made your swiss goo, before you start whipping your buttercream you’ll add 12 grams of diamond crystal kosher salt and 60 grams of rose water. You’ll turn the mixer on high as per usual and whip to stiff peaks. Once stiff you’ll add the butter. et voila, rose water swiss.
You want to add the rose water into the hot swiss goo before whipping, since a lot of moisture evaporates off during this process giving you a better emulsion than if you added it after the swiss has already come together.
ASSEMBLY
YOU’LL NEED
8” Bergamot chiffon layers
Prepared jasmine bavarian cream
Patchouli soaker
Rose water swiss buttercream
Small offset spatula
DIRECTIONS
Place your cake board/plate on your turntable. Pipe a small dollop of buttercream to help secure the cake to.
Place the first layer of cake on the board.
Give the layer an even squirt of the patchouli clove soaker. Just enough to moisten the layers, not to where it’s sopping wet. Anywhere from 50-75 grams of soaking liquid should be plenty.
Using the piping bag create a dam of rose water buttercream round the outer edge of the cake layer.
Fill the center of the dam with just shy of 1/3 of the jasmine bavarian, about 200-250 grams of filling per layer, you will have some bavarian left over and that’s the snack that’s gonna tide you over until yo actually get to eat the cake. Use a small offset spatula to evenly spread the bavarian over the cake layer.
Place the next layer of cake over the bavarian. Repeat soaking, creating a dam, layering down bavarian and spreading evenly for all remaining layers.
Once you’ve topped the cake with the final layer— cover the cake with a thin layer of buttercream, this is your crumb coat.
Place the cake in the fridge for a minimum of 1 hour for the crumb coat to set- preferably overnight to give all the components a chance to mingle.
Once the buttercream crumb coat has firmed up, decorate the cake however you’d like.
Store the cake in the fridge until an hour and a half to two hours before serving. Pull the cake and let it come to room temp before slicing.
Enjoy!
