Tuesdays with Dorie: Gemma Cakes from Dorie’s Anytime Cakes

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe comes from Dorie’s latest book, Dorie’s Anytime Cakes.  I chose this recipe because I thought it would be a great one to make to celebrate my birthday with friends and when it’s your birthday month on Tuesdays with Dorie you get to pick the recipes!

Gemma Cakes are mini cupcakes that Dorie created to celebrate her granddaughter, Gemma’s first birthday – tiny so they are able to be held by tiny hands – there’s just something special about having your very own cake, as opposed to a slice, right?

These are special as they ‘re made not only with vanilla but white chocolate, giving them an even more vanilla-y flavour. Dorie’s recipe calls for rose water but I didn’t use as I didn’t want to purchase for just this recipe (just finished cleaning out my pandemic pantry of all sorts of items like this that I bought “just for one recipe”!) and I think they were lovely without. Of course, if you have it, go for it but it’s not a deal breaker, I don’t think! I did use small chunks of strawberry per the recipe but found myself wanting more strawberry – one or two tiny (because of the size of the cake) pieces didn’t feel enough and when I was eating them I wished I had made regular size cupcakes! Not the point for this particular recipe but noted for another time!

These cakes are easy enough to make but fiddly – I usually use a cookie scoop to get the batter into mini muffin tins but because you need to place the piece of strawberry in the middle, that was too fiddly to put HALF a scoop in (the batter is sticky). I ended up piping the batter into the cupcake liners and that worked well (batter is still sticky but this was cleaner). It was easy enough to put the strawberry in the middle them pipe the rest of the batter on top but definitely fiddly! They are iced with a white chocolate/ neutral oil mix then sprinkled (of COURSE!) with sprinkles!. The icing never quite gets too hard which I like.

The sign of a great recipe is when you have ONE photo of them – I served these to friends at a barbecue and they went down a treat – they are incredibly more-ish and we easily ate 3-4 of them each! I loved the texture of the cake (made with GF flour to accommodate guests and it was perfect) – cakey and moist with a hint of something (the white chocolate in the batter). A delightful bite leaving you wanting more! Yay for Gemma!

Get the recipe for Gemma Cakes on p 215 of Dorie’s Anytime Cakes.

Buy Dorie’s Anytime Cakes and join us baking through the book!

Buy Dorie’s Anytime Cakes on Amazon (this link should bring you to the Amazon store geographically closest to you). For free worldwide shipping, buy it on Blackwell’s. To support your local Indie bookstore, purchase on Bookshop.org.

Then join us over on Tuesdays with Dorie and bake your way through the book!

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Please note: I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. This post also contains affiliate links from Blackwell’s and Bookshop.org. This means that if you click over and purchase something, I will receive a very small percentage of the purchase price (at no extra cost to you). Thank you in advance!

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Disclosure: I was provided with a copy of “Anytime Cakes” for review purposes. I was not asked to write about the book, nor am I being compensated for doing so. All opinions are 100% my own.

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Buy my books! In the French kitchen with kids and French Food for Everyone: le goûter  (after school snacks), le dîner (dinner) and le petit déjeuner (breakfast) are out now!

Click here for details and how to order!

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