Whenever Grandma Everett came to visit on my mom's birthday, this would be the only cake my mom would want for her birthday. The topping was originally put on a sponge cake, but we've since changed the recipe to go on an angel food cake. The results are indeed, heavenly.
Sometimes the sea foam candy doesn't turn out so well on the first try. It's good to have enough ingredients and the time to be able to try again if that should happen. The ingredients are cheap, anyway. The recipe makes more seam foam candy than you need for one cake. I recommend using the leftovers to store and sprinkle on other desserts. We always sprinkled it on ice cream for the next week after making the cake.
You can also save big chunks of sea foam and coat them with melted milk chocolate. You often see that confection in candy stores along the Oregon coast.
When you make the cake, don't put the sea foam on until just before serving. The cream "melts" the sea foam a bit.
Seam Foam
- 1½ cups sugar
- ¼ cup brewed coffee (or espresso)
- ¼ cup light corn syrup
- 1 tablespoon baking soda.
Combine the sugar, coffee and corn syrup in a large pot. The contents will bubble up considerably, so use as big a pot as you can while being able to get an accurate read on the temperature.
Stir the mixture until all the ingredients are melted, then turn up the heat. Bring it to a boil over med-high heat. Without stirring, continue to cook the coffee-caramel to 310º.
Remove from the heat, and add in the baking soda. The mixture will foam quite a bit. Keep stirring. Once it stops foaming (about a minute), immediately pour the mixture onto a non-greased cookie sheet with sides. Let it cool completely.
When the coffee mixture is cool, take a sharp knife or bench scraper and break the foam into smaller pieces.
The Cake
- 1 angel food cake, cut into three layers
- 8 ounces cream cheese , room temperature
- ½ cup sugar (3½ ounces)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ⅛ teaspoon table salt
- 2 cups heavy cream
When cake has cooled, place cream cheese, sugar, vanilla, and salt in bowl of standing mixer fitted with whisk attachment. Whisk at medium-high speed until light and fluffy, 1 to 2 minutes, scraping down bowl with rubber spatula as needed.
Reduce speed to low and add heavy cream in slow, steady stream. When almost fully combined, increase speed to medium-high and beat until mixture holds stiff peaks, 2 to 2 1/2 minutes more, scraping bowl as needed (you should have about 4 1/2 cups).
Cut the cake into three layers. Spread the whip cream between the layers and around the entire outside of the angel food cake. Sprinkle some of the powder from the sea foam in between the layers. That will flavor the inner frosting.
Press the pieces of the sea foam into the sides of the cake. Serve within a couple of hours, or the sea foam starts to melt in the whip cream.
