Celebrating Bigger Bolder Baking's 4th birthday with a Neapolitan cake

Hi Bold Bakers, you're not going to believe this but it is our 4th birthday. We have made over 300 videos, have over 150 million lifetime views, and best of all we have created one of the largest baking communities online and that is all thanks to you. So to celebrate we are going to make a 3 layered Neapolitan cake, it's absolutely gorgeous. Also great news, today you get a bonus video thanks to my partnership with GoodCook. So after this, I want you to head over to the GoodCook YouTube channel, subscribe, and check out how you can make an over-the-top, decadent, three-layer chocolate and peanut butter cake. As always, the recipe can be found on BiggerBolderBaking.com, along with Amazon links for all of the GoodCook products that I use. Okay, let's get started on our cake. I'm using my stand mixer to make my cake, but you can also use an electric hand mixer and that will work well too. First things first, we're going to add in our room temperature butter. Now you want to make sure it's room temperature so it whips up so much better. Now this is the first step in making our sponge cake. So what you want to do is turn your machine on a medium high speed and let these whip up until they're light and pale in color. So now this step just takes around 3-4 minutes. This is a traditional sponge cake, it's really lovely and soft. I grew up with these in Ireland and we would traditionally have them with jam and cream and they are so good. Every Irish mammy knows how to make a good sponge. Okay so this is looking good, it's nice and pale in color. So now I'm going to crack in our eggs one by one. I always find it helpful as well if you have it on a high speed. Now you want to add them in one at a time, let it mix in, fully incorporate and then add in your next one. You want to do this slowly so your mix doesn't curdle. So at this stage I like to add in a pinch of salt because you know I'm not shy about using salt. And then a little bit of vanilla extract. If you don't have it, feel free to leave it out. Just adds extra flavor. Okay so now I'm going to turn my machine off and next I'm going to add in self raising flour. I know in a lot of countries you can't buy self raising flour but that's why I've got you covered. I have a recipe on Bigger Bolder Baking of how you can make your own. This is simply flour and baking powder mixed together. So add in your flour and all you want to do is mix it up until it's just combined. Then we're going to add in a splash of milk just to lighten up the batter. Okay so it's all mixed up, this used to be my favorite part when my mom used to make it. I'm going to taste the raw batter. Oh, yum. Mmm. I'm going to take this off the machine and we're going to divide it evenly between three bowls. Okay so here's what we're working with, a Neapolitan cake is chocolate, strawberry and vanilla. So here's what we're going to do, into one bowl we're going to add a little bit of strawberry puree and then mix that in. This will turn a nice red color but if you wanted a little bit more red add in a touch of food dye, you can use all natural or good quality store bought. Okay that's that one, now into this one we're going to add in some cocoa powder and this is going to make it lovely and rich and dark in color, and just give that a good mix up. So here's a fun fact about Neapolitan cake, it actually is of Italian origin, it came over to America with the Italian immigrants from Naples and they were big fans of frozen desserts and they tried to create something that looked like the Italian flag but over the years flavors changed and colors and all that stuff so they ended up with the best combination which was chocolate, vanilla and strawberry. Those are our three layers, now we're gonna get them into our prepared tins. As a professional chef I get asked on a daily basis what tools do I use. Now I love GoodCook because it is good quality and also they make things for all ranges whether you're a beginner baker or advanced. From sieves to cake pans, cookie sheets, anything that you might need to get baking in the kitchen. So next step is to add your cake batter into each tin. Now as you can see I have greased and lined them to get our cakes out more easily. Then next do your chocolate batter, oh man that looks good. And then strawberry, in you go. This cake looks so beautiful when it's done. I know it seems like a few steps but actually once it comes together it's really simple. Just give them a quick little smooth down on the top to get them as even as you can. And that's it, our cakes are ready to go into the oven. Bake your cakes off at 350 degrees Fahrenheit or 180 degrees Celsius for roughly 25-30 minutes or until they're firm on top. These cakes look and smell amazing, now you can tell that they're baked because if you push down in the middle of them it's firm underneath your finger, so just give them all a little push, these are fantastic. So I'm gonna set these aside, let them cool down completely and then we can decorate them. So my cakes are cooled, now it's time to frost them. Now last week I made a video called Crazy Frosting, which was one frosting, endless flavor possibilities. In that video I showed you how you can make strawberry frosting and chocolate frosting just so we can make this cake, so you should have them ready to go. So here's mine right now, it's at room temperature, and I'm just going to get some chocolate frosting and spread my first layer on my chocolate layer of cake. I chose this to be the base because we're going to build up strawberry and then vanilla on top. So just do a nice layer all around, and just note if you find any knobbly bumpy bits on your cake, feel free to take a knife and just slice them right off. Ok perfect. Now next is my strawberry layer. Now to this I'm going to add my strawberry frosting. Look at that gorgeous color, it's really really beautiful. This cake is definitely a show stopper, there's no doubt about it. Beautiful. Nice thin layer. Lastly on with our vanilla. Now from here I'm actually going to do a crumb coat before we get into the real technical part of the decorating. So I'm going to take some vanilla frosting and then just spread it over the top and down the sides. Now you guys know, you've seen me do this a million times, this layer is just to catch the crumbs, it is not pretty, it is more practical than anything. So just spread a thin layer of buttercream all around your cake, just to catch any loose crumbs, cover it all, lovely. This is perfect, looking good. Okay now I'm gonna pop this into the fridge for a minimum of half an hour, let this layer set and then we're gonna get to the really fun part of decorating this cake. So my crumb layer is set, so it's time to start decorating. Now I know you saw the thumbnail and you're thinking I can't create that cake, which yes you can because if I can do it, you can do it. It's really really simple. So I've got three different frostings here all in my piping bags with a circle nozzle or no nozzle at all. And all I'm going to do is I'm going to take my chocolate one first and I'm going to do two dots for the chocolate layer of cake. Nice big dots. Then I'm going to take my strawberry and do two strawberry dots for that layer. And then I'm going to go up with the white layer and do two white dots. Then what I'm going to do with a little spatula or even a butter knife if you don't have one of these, halfway through the dot, drag. Go ahead and drag and drag and you start to get this lovely kind of a wave effect. It looks really pretty. Now this is only the first line so now what we're going to do is build on top of this. So we're going to go again with the exact same thing, two dots of frosting and we're going to put it where we dragged the first bit. Go again with all of your colors, dotting them along. So what we're doing is dragging and then piping. And then dragging and piping. And you want to pipe kind of halfway on the drag, you know what I mean? So all you want to do is continue the whole way around your cake. It's really fast to do and it's so simple. Once you start decorating you'll see how easy this technique is and it just gives an absolute over the top effect to your cake. So once you're done all the way around we're gonna take our white frosting and just cover the top with your white frosting. So So dot and pull, dot and pull, dot and pull, dot and pull, you're gonna be saying this in your sleep. Dot and pull. Really really easy, beautiful, all the way around. Now just take a step back and look at what you just created, it's absolutely amazing. And for somebody who says they're not a great cake decorator, which I'm not, I have to say, this is a pretty impressive cake. So yes it does look beautiful but we're going to have to cut it. So go ahead, look at the size of this thing. This is a huge cake, cut a nice big slice, and then just check out all of those layers. I know it seemed like a lot of hard work, but just look at that payoff. Chocolate, strawberry, vanilla, this is a seriously impressive cake. This cake is perfect for our 4th birthday, but you can enjoy it for any celebration. Happy birthday to me. Mmmm. Oh that is so yummy. What a winning combo, chocolate, strawberry and vanilla. Absolutely delicious. So right now I want you to head over with me to the Good Cook YouTube channel and check out my bonus video for a chocolate and peanut butter cake. And I'll see you back here really soon for more Bigger Bolder Baking.