Naked Birthday Cake

4.75 from 4 votes

I’ve been dying to make a naked birthday cake forever – basically one that’s barely frosted on the outside so you can see all those glorious layers on the inside!!

Prep Time30

Cook Time35

Total Time1 5

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Servings: servings

Author: Gaby Dalkin

Ingredients

For the cake layers:

4 cups cake flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 ½ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter room temp
2 cups sugar
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
4 eggs
2 cups buttermilk

For the Swiss Buttercream:

2 ¼ cups sugar
9 large egg whites
1 teaspoon lemon juice
pinch of salt
1 ¼ pounds butter room temp, cut into small pieces

For frosting layers

Lemon curd
crumbled meringue cookies

Optional toppings

Sparkler Candles
Fresh Fruit
Flowers
Meringue cookies

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour three 9-inch cake pans.
Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
In a electric mixer with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar together for 3 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, Beat in the vanilla. Reduce speed to low and add half the flour mixture. Add 1 cup of buttermilk and mix until combined. add remaining flour mixture and beat. Add remaining buttermilk and beat. Remove from the mixer and finish mixing by hand if needed. Divide the batter amongst the 3 prepped cake pans.
Bake until golden brown and done, about 30-35 minutes. Let cakes cool for a few minutes and then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.
Bring a few inches of water to a boil in a saucepan that can hold a standing mixer's bowl above the water. Whisk the sugar, the egg whites, lemon juice, and salt in the bowl by hand. Set the bowl above the boiling water and continue whisking until the mixture is hot to the touch and the sugar dissolves, about 1 to 2 minutes. Transfer the bowl to a standing mixer fitted with the whisk attachment and beat the egg whites at medium-high speed until they almost hold a stiff peak and are fully cooled, about 10 minutes. Beat in the butter, a little at a time, until the icing is smooth and spreadable.
To assemble the cake, place one layer of the cake on a cake stand. Spread 3 tablespoons of lemon curd on top of the cake and sprinkle with some of the crushed meringue cookies. Spread a ½ inch layer of the Swiss Buttercream on top and carefully place the 2nd layer of cake on top. Repeat the process with additional lemon curd, sprinkled meringues and more Swiss Buttercream. Add the last layer of cake of top. Frost the top of the cake with more of the Swiss Buttercream and add a super thin layer of the Swiss Buttercream to the sides of the cake. Frost until smooth. Decorate with any desired toppings and serve as needed.

Notes

Bring all dairy to room temp before mixing. Butter, eggs, and buttermilk straight from the fridge make a lumpy, broken batter. Pull everything 1 hour before you start.
Cream the butter and sugar for 5 full minutes. Set a timer. Properly creamed butter looks pale and fluffy and is what gives the cake its lift. Stopping at "looks mixed" gives you a denser, sadder cake.
Alternate dry and wet additions, three turns each. Dry, wet, dry, wet, dry. Adding everything at once breaks the emulsion. Three alternations keeps the batter smooth.
Weigh your flour, don't scoop it. A cup of scooped flour can vary by 30%. Use a scale: 1 cup cake flour = 120g. The cake's texture lives or dies here.
Use cake strips around the pans. Damp Wilton cake strips (or wet, folded paper towels secured with foil) keep the pan edges cooler so the cakes rise flat instead of doming.
Cool layers completely before assembling. Warm cake melts buttercream in 30 seconds. Cool to room temp on a rack, then refrigerate or freeze for 30 minutes before stacking; the layers handle better cold.
Level the layers with a long serrated knife. Domed layers stack crooked. Slice the dome off with a sawing motion until each layer is flat. Eat the trimmings, that's the chef's tax.
Pipe a buttercream dam before adding the curd. Pipe a ring of buttercream around the edge of each layer. Fill the inside of the dam with lemon curd. Without the dam, curd squeezes out the sides and ruins the naked-cake look.
Apply a thin crumb coat first. A barely-there layer of buttercream all over the cake, then chill 20 minutes. The crumb coat traps loose crumbs so the final coat looks clean.
For the naked finish, scrape the sides with an offset spatula. Apply buttercream, then drag a bench scraper or offset spatula around the cake to remove the excess. The goal is "I can see the layers" not "I forgot to frost."
Add fresh flowers right before serving, never the day before. Real flowers wilt fast against buttercream. Wash, pat dry, and stick stems into the cake within an hour of serving.
Light sparklers just outside the room. Sparklers fire-up dramatically. Light them in the kitchen, walk the cake into the room, then sing happy birthday before they burn out (about 30 seconds).

Nutrition