White Chocolate Grand Marnier Cake

First made for Chris' birthday, 29-Jan-2011, inspiration provided by Hunter1

For the story behind this cake adventure, check out It's all about flavour ... Yum!

White Chocolate Cake

Beat until fluffy
	1 pkg (8 oz) cream cheese
	1 c sugar
Beat in
	2 eggs
	1 tsp vanilla
Stir until blended
	1 1/2 c all-purpose flour
	2 tsp baking powder
	1/2 c grated white chocolate

Bake at 350 F for approximately 45 minutes.  The top should be lightly golden and pick inserted in the centre should come out clean.  The bake time is approximate.  For the cake pictured in the "It's all about flavour" post, we made a double batch, filled 6 cupcakes and baked the rest of the batter in a 9 x 3 inch round pan.

Orange Mango Grand Marnier Filling

Combine in a saucepan
	2 1/2 c mandarin orange segments (3 small tins, packed in juice, drain and reserve juice)
	1/2 c frozen mango, medium diced
	3/4 c sugar
	3 tbsp cornstarch
	2 tbsp reserved juice
	1 tbsp Grand Marnier

Bring to a boil; boil for 2 minutes, stirring constantly.  Mixture will thicken.  Set aside to cool.

Grand Marnier Buttercream

Cream
	1/2 c shortening
	1/2 c margarine
	1 tsp pure vanilla extract
Gradually add	4 c icing sugar
	2 tbsp milk
	1 tbsp Grand Marnier

Beat until fluffy.

To assemble cake:

Once cooled, slice cake in half and scoop out a thin layer from the centre of the top and bottom of the cake to allow extra filling without it spilling out.  For the cupcakes, I cut in to them like I was coring a tomato and then scooped out a bit of the bottom of the cupcake to give space for filling.

Add filling and replace the cake top.

Ice the cake with the Grand Marnier Buttercream.  If you want to ensure a clean circle of filling on top of the cake, you should probably pipe an outside ring.  I didn’t and there was a small issue with the filling running down the side of the frosting.

Distribute a thin layer of the filling in the centre of the frosted cake.  Sprinkle more grated white chocolate around the outside edge.  For the cupcakes, we sprinkled grated white chocolate on the icing and then added a tiny dollop of the filling to tie things all together.

It’s all about the flavour … Yum!

Surprise birthday parties can be a lot of fun and this cake adventures included a great one.  Not only did we manage to pull off a perfect surprise without giving anything away, but my friend and I managed to come up with an amazing flavour combination for the birthday cake.

The idea started out knowing two things about the type of cake the birthday guy liked, white cake and jelly filling.  My friend who was throwing the party suggested we could make something with an orange, Grand Marnier filling.  I immediately thought of the White Chocolate cake recipe that has become one of my favourites and we were pretty sure we had a winning idea.

The end result was our White Chocolate Grand Marnier Cake.  We made our own orange filling with mandarin oranges, a little frozen mango and about a tablespoon of Grand Marnier.  We also substituted one tablespoon of Grand Marnier for some of the milk in the butter cream frosting.  With some of the filling spread on top of the icing and grated white chocolate around the edge, we had a lovely outside to go with the fabulous flavours inside.

Since our story to have time for baking was that we were trying out cupcake recipes that I might use for their wedding next spring, we made matching cupcakes.  I pretended I was coring a tomato and then scooped out a bit of the cupcake so there was extra space for the orange filling.  There were more of them but I forgot to take a picture until after we eaten the first round. =)

Because we had some extra time,  I  tried out a new recipe for Cookies ‘n’ Cream Cupcakes that I couldn’t resist.  The recipe was easy as could be and really just added some crushed Oreo cookies to a vanilla cupcake and the buttercream. While they might not be quite as pretty, the taste and texture was just right and they have a great chance of making the final cut for wedding cupcakes.

If you want to try it for yourself, you can find my recipe for the White Chocolate Grand Marnier Cake here.  It was yummy enough to deserve it’s own post for the recipe =)