Whipped Cream Cake
An event with baking OG, Rose Levy Beranbaum, & a book giveaway!
In 1998 I sat next to Rose Levy Beranbaum on a panel of bakers at a Barnes & Noble for a “Celebrity Cook Book Club.” I was freshly out of culinary school and working as a pastry chef at a fine dining restaurant. I was neither a “celebrity” nor a cookbook author, so how I ended up on that panel was a complete mystery. I just wanted to meet my baking hero in person. I was so nervous I could barely speak, felt like a world class imposter and must have blacked out because I recall NOTHING! Hahaha. I do remember Rose being kind and welcoming. I am so happy to get a redo (more on that in a moment).
I baked my way through Rose’s original Cake Bible in an attempt to fill the gaps left in my instruction at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA). Rose’s recipes are an education! The way she structures her books is so unique and the recipes ironclad—there is nothing left to chance. I can say with complete confidence that they ALL work flawlessly. Every pastry kitchen has a copy of The Cake Bible. I had two copies when I was running a pastry kitchen. I left one behind as a gift to my staff when I had my boys and decided to leave the restaurant world. It was the right thing to do, but I regret not taking that treasure home, which was filled with all my notes and splattered with so many years of baking memories.
Since that first encounter at B&N I have had the great fortune of seeing Rose at events and getting to meet her husband, Woody. They met over their love of baking cakes and have gone on to build a partnership and eventually create this 35th Anniversary edition of The Cake Bible together. In my view, the original book was perfection but now it is even better! I am so thrilled to consider them friends and mentors. I am also honored to get the opportunity to sit with them both at Barnes & Noble, 27 years after my first attempt, to talk to them about this incredible book and their journey! I hope you will join us if you are in Minnesota. Details below.
Rose and Woody have generously shared the Whipped Cream Cake recipe from the book (link below for everyone!), and are giving away TWO copies of The Cake Bible (details below).
In Person Event: Join Rose, Woody and me to celebrate the 35th anniversary edition of The Cake Bible!
Rose and her husband and co-author, Woody, will be hosting a baking talk and book signing for The Cake Bible’s 35th anniversary edition. We’ll be discussing what’s new in the expanded edition, why they revised the classic Cake Bible (1988), baking tips, and techniques. I am delighted to be moderating the discussion. Below, I got a little preview interview for those who can’t make it to the live event.
Bring your copies of Rose’s many books for signing! After the bookstore event, they will walk over to McCormick & Schmick's Seafood & Steaks in Edina to meet and chat.
Details: Wednesday, June 18 from 6 to 7:30 p.m. CST
Barnes & Noble at Edina Galleria
Q&A: Rose Levy Beranbaum
Q: What was the most exciting aspect of creating a fully revised and updated edition of your iconic book, The Cake Bible, after 35 years?
The most exciting part was the full support of our editor Cassie Jones. She said these golden words: “Whatever Rose wants I want!” This led to the best publishing experience of my 14 cookbooks. And true to her word, she gave us 100 more pages and a larger color section. She also gave us a large enough font to make reading the recipes a pleasure.
It was also exciting to address all the new technology, changes to ingredients, and being able to streamline the recipes. Now that home bakers have begun to embrace weighing rather than measuring ingredients it meant there was such potential for increased success. We were able to eliminate ounces in favor of just grams.
Q: How did you pick the new cakes that you added to the collection and what determined if one of the original cakes would be updated? They all seemed so perfect to me!
Thank you dearest Zöe! Not everyone will like every cake but even with the first Cake Bible, I read the entire thousand-page manuscript into a tape recorder to play back against the final stage of the book to make sure there were no errors. With this revision, Woody did the same with me and proofed many times religiously. We included new cakes we love from Rose’s Heavenly Cakes and Rose’s Baking Basics.
Over the years new ideas kept evolving and several times Woody had ideas that I, at first, said wouldn’t work and was proven wrong, such as the Chocolate Comfort Cake, which is one of my top favorite cakes. Woody folded chocolate chip cookies pieces into my favorite “Chocolate Domingo!” I thought that cake was perfect until he persuaded me to replace a few tablespoons of the sour cream with boiling water to hydrate the cocoa, which I had learned to do with other chocolate cakes that used all water. Also, layer cake pans are now 2 inches high compared to the 1-1/2 inches from when I first wrote Cake Bible. This meant revisiting the recipes and changing the leavening because higher pans require less.
Q: Do you have one piece of advice for novice bakers who are intimidated by cakes? Obviously, buying your book is the first step . . .
That is so sweet!!! It’s hard to stick to one so here are my top three:
No substitutions of ingredients the first time you make a recipe.
Weigh the ingredients.
Check your oven temperature, either with an accurate oven thermometer, or the time it takes to bake a recipe ensuring that if, for example, a recipe says between 25 and 35 minutes it falls into that range.
Q: I know Woody was instrumental in helping this new edition of The Cake Bible come to life, can you tell us about your shared cake journey?
Julia Child once told me that she would not be writing any more books because it was so lonely. Having Woody along for the ride kept this from happening. After about 20 years of working together, he 100% understood my thinking and approach and was also able to offer his invaluable point of view and tested recipes. We were given permission to cut apart the pages in the design stage and Woody reorganized them having two page recipes on opposing pages.
Q: Do you have a favorite kitchen tool for baking cakes?
There are many favorites, but there are two indispensable ones: Number one is an accurate scale. We recommend the Escali and Oxo. Number two is the Thermapen One.
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Whipped Cream Cake + Giveaway!
FREE RECIPE: I’m so thrilled that Rose has shared this Whipped Cream Cake recipe with all of you. When I asked my husband which cake he’d like for Father’s Day, this was his immediate choice. Simply perfect and made a touch fancy just by the Bundt pan. The cake uses whipped cream instead of butter, resulting in a cake that is somewhere between a pound cake and sponge cake. This is Rose’s brilliance, she understands the ingredients so well that she can manipulate them into the texture she desires and we all benefit from it. I went with a mountain of whipped cream to play on the name of the cake, but “Whipped Cream Cake” is a reference to the ingredient list and not the pile on top. A few fresh berries and a cherry on top and this is an ideal Father’s Day or party cake!
GIVEAWAY: We’re also giving away TWO copies of The Cake Bible 35th anniversary edition. Simply leave a comment on the recipe post on my website (link button below) by Sunday, June 15, 2025 at 11:59 p.m. and you’ll be entered to win! We’ll randomly select winners early next week and notify them via email. US addresses only.
Thank you for sharing this recipe!
Being the daugter of a hungarian cook I adore whipping cream!
Zoë you are my heroe!
I have always been intimidated by Rose’s recipes….but I am going to try this one!