A Gilmore Gimlet Wedding Cake 5.13 Wedding Bell Blues

“Oh, you cannot keep a room full of Anglo-Saxons waiting for cake this long! They start to form more clubs.”

Ingredients:

The following recipe is to make one layer of cake. If you wish to make a full tier, you will need to multiply these ingredients by 4.

For the cake:

• 1 cup granulated sugar

• 1 ½ sticks of butter, softened

• 3 eggs

• ¼ cup lime juice

• 1 tbsp lime zest

• 1 cup flour

• ½ tsp baking powder

• ¼ tsp salt

For the gin syrup:

• ¼ cup granulated sugar

• ¼ cup water

• 1 tbsp gin

For the buttercream:

• 1 egg white

• ½ cup sugar

• ⅛ tsp cream of tartar

• ⅛ tsp salt

• 1 tsp lime juice

• ½ tbsp lime zest

• ½ tbsp gin

• 1 ½ sticks of butter, room temperature

For the decoration (optional):

• 1 dozen edible roses

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

2. Cream together the sugar and butter in a large mixing bowl.

3. Mix in the eggs, one at a time.

4. Add in the lime juice and zest and mix until smooth.

5. Sift in the flour, baking powder, and salt and mix until smooth.

6. Grease a 9 inch cake tin and line with parchment paper. (If you are making more than one layer of cake, prepare enough cake tins).

7. Transfer the batter to the prepared cake tin and bake at 350 F for 30-33 minutes or until golden brown and an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

8. Allow cake to cool in the tin before carefully removing.

9. While the cake cools, prepare the simple syrup by combining the sugar and water in a small saucepan.

10. Place the saucepan over medium heat and allow to reach a simmer. Remove from heat once the sugar has dissolved.

11. Stir in the gin and allow the syrup to cool.

12. Once both the cake and the syrup have cooled to room temperature, brush a thin layer of the syrup over the top of the cake. You will likely have extra. It’s important not to add too much syrup, otherwise the cake will crumble!

13. Wrap the cake with plastic wrap and allow to chill in the fridge for at least an hour.

14. While the cake chills, prepare the buttercream by filling a large pot with water and placing over medium high heat.

15. Once the water reaches a simmer, place a large mixing bowl over the steam. Add the egg whites, sugar, cream of tartar, and salt.

16. Constantly whisk the egg mixture of the double boiler until it reaches 160 degrees F. Be careful that the mixing bowl doesn’t touch the water.

17. Transfer the mixing bowl to your mixer and whip the mixture until it’s doubled in size and soft peaks form. The bowl should also have cooled down to room temperature.

18. Add in the lime juice, zest, and gin and mix until just combined.

19. Mix in the butter one tablespoon at a time. A light and fluffy buttercream will begin to form. If at any time, the buttercream seems too thin, you can add another tablespoon of butter or chill it in the fridge for a few minutes. If the buttercream is ever too thick, you can thin it with a little bit of milk.

20. To frost the cake, first spread a thin crumb coat of the buttercream over the top and sides of the cake. If you are creating a layered cake, spread buttercream between each layer of cake.

21. Wrap the cake again and allow the crumb coat to set for 30 minutes in the fridge.

22. Remove the cake from the plastic wrap and fully frost the cake with the buttercream, using an offset spatula or knife.

23. If decorating with edible flowers, be sure to gently swirl them in cool water to remove any dirt and bugs before pressing into the cake.

Summer is the perfect time to make a lime cake!

Ahhh! I can’t believe we’ve made it through 100 episodes of Gilmore Girls already! It’s been such a fun journey so far. Thank you if you’ve been here since the very beginning, and thank you if you’ve just stumbled across my page. When I started my page, I wrote about having lifelong anxiety, so despite having the idea for this page during the summer of 2020, it took me 6 months to work up the courage to actually start. I’m really excited to keep cooking my way through a TV show that so many of you love as much as I do. I have some fun things coming up, and I can’t wait to tell you about them!

Now to the cake at hand. I knew I wanted to make something really special for the 100th episode. I decided to attempt to make the Gilmores’ wedding cake, but I knew I wouldn’t make the full cake with all those tiers (I don’t know THAT many people), but I figured I could at least make one tier! I don’t have a lot of experience with cake making, let alone cake decorating. Luckily, the cake on the show has tiers with beautiful roses, so I ordered some edible roses from Gourmet Sweet Botanicals. They came through for me when I was trying to find squash blossoms in the middle of winter during season 1.

When I tell you my freezer is full of cake…

For the flavor of the cake, I went back and forth on what I wanted to make. Ultimately, I decided on making a gimlet inspired cake because one of my favorite Emily moments is the iconic line, “Richard, I need a gimlet!” Even though that line is not in this episode, it just felt like the perfect way to celebrate Richard and Emily’s relationship. I made a lime cake and soaked it in a simple syrup infused with gin, and the buttercream is flavored with lime and gin.

Again, thank you so much for supporting me thus far! As always,

Happy Cooking from the Hollow!

If you missed what I made last episode, catch up here!

Cheers to 100 episodes!