My Flowery Cake (or, Cake Decorating Part 2)

Decorating cakes has got to be the most frustrating thing in the world when it comes to baking. I can bake the cake and whip up the icing and manage to get the two to taste delicious in concert, but putting it all together into some kind of cohesive decorative centre piece... Not so much. If it were up to me, I would leave that to the professionals who actually have the skillz.

But I am practicing. My goal is a bold one: to be able to produce a decent looking cake that people will be eager to inhale as soon as they see it. I was going to say that my goal was to be able to create a cake that people would be reluctant to eat because they would be unwilling to ruin the fine art that... no. Too bold. I know my limits.

For the cake, I used the white cake recipe from Martha Stewart (the same one I've used for a princess cake) and the italian meringue buttercream recipe from Baking, by James Peterson infused with lemon and key lime zest. I made these elements yesterday and let them sit in the fridge for me to use today. Unoftunately, when I pulled the buttercream out of the fridge today it was all curdled and gross looking. I guess this is completely normal for italian meringue buttercream after it's been cooled for a while. To fix it, I put the metal bowl on a gas burner and let it sit over the low flame for about 20 seconds, then whipped it up in the mixer for a few minutes. Perfect! I was stunned to tell you the truth. I tried this trick fulling expecting to have to make a whole new batch of icing.

I guess you could say that flowers (roses in particular) were the focus of today, but really it was the crumb coat and the basic layer of icing because that's the part that I most struggle with. All in all, I think it turned out better than last weeks... I just hope it doesn't fall apart before we get to eat it.

Belated Birthday Cake

My birthday is in December, right smack in the middle of final exams and term papers and insomnia and binging on Red Bull. This year was special. Like always, I had an exam (at 8:00 am but that's not what made it special), but that exam would be my last. Ever. Seriously. After handing that paper in, I would be done. Praise the baby Jesus.

I'm pretty sure that I spent the whole two hours writing with a smile on my face.

When I got home I was on a mission. My birthday gift to myself was going to be a Hot Chocolate Cake (recipe)--the same one that was on that month's cover of Fine Cooking. It was going to be glorious. Milk chocolate cake with dark chocolate ganache topped with homemade marshmallows. It was going to be colossal. It was going to be decadent. It was going to give us all diabetes within the first two bites.

Making the cake itself was an odyssey. Whether due to exhaustion or brain overload or simply not reading the whole recipe through before I started, the cake was not available for consumption until well after 11:00pm. My timing was completely wrong. I washed dishes and made a snack while the cakes were in the oven when I should have been making the ganache (that was supposed to sit in the fridge for a couple hours). I took a break while the cakes cooled and should have been making the marshmallows. Both these elements needed time to set or rest before they could be used, so it took way longer than necessary to get things done. I mean, it felt like eons. Lessons learned. I promise.

When it was all done, the cake was definitely the biggest I've made to date. My sister said it looked like the chocolate cake in the movie Matilda (you know, the one that the evil headmistress gets the chubby boy to eat in front of the whole school). I'll be completely honest here, and say that I was unable to finish my piece. And I really tried.

Another thing I learned when undertaking this great cake odyssey is that you should thoroughly cool the cake first before serving it. It tasted a lot better the next day after sitting in the cold porch overnight. Less dense and more airy.

This all being said, I don't think I'll be making a huge chocolatey chocolate cake anytime in the near future. My pancreas needs a break.

My Very First Decorated Cake

I've enrolled myself in an introductory cake decorating course. This was done for obvious reasons, the first being that I would like my cakes to look almost as good as they taste... or edible at very least! The other reasons ranging from, I'm bored to tears to I would like a challenge after I'm done work.

I knew the first class would not end with me being the star pupil. My artistic skills are often surpassed by third graders with crayons, so I went in with an open mind and a desire to learn as much as I could.

We covered basic piping in the two hour class and at the end we were left with the confidence to ice our own little cakes. So this morning I baked my own cake (from a helpful betty crocker box) and whipped up my own icing (using lard and a handy mix) and printed up a picture from a coloring book to decorate my cake. The cake is edible and the frosting is admittedly questionable, but it was practice. All in the name of FOOD! Or something.

This is the result.

As you can see, I still need work. The face is a bit... scary. And the hands are kind of demonic, but other than that I can see a promising start in this field of culinary artistry.

Maybe.

By the way, it's supposed to be Cinderella. I've used (plenty) artistic license in this edible rendering of the Disney Princess.

Pomegranates, Pistachios, and Those Teeny Little Oranges

I've never been overly concerned with the presentation of the food that I make. Creating artwork that will make people ooh and ahh when they see it has never been the goal. Instead, I've always preferred to make people's eyes roll back in their heads after they take their first bite. I do, however, realize the value in being able to make mouths salivate and eyes dilate when people see something that looks like edible paradise.

For the longest time I considered this element of food-- the aesthetics element-- to be overrated and unnecessary. If the food tasted like delicious perfection, than shouldn't that be enough? There are probably people who believe the exact opposite about food presentation, that if the food looks like sweet bliss, than it's alright if it tastes mediocre.

Since Christmas though, I've been wanting to try and create food that looks as tantalizing as it tastes. I've gotten inspiration from the MANY cookbooks that I received for Christmas as well as other blogs that emphasize the beauty and artistry in any kind of food you try to put together. One of my favorite blogs for this is Cannelle et Vanille, and that is where I got the inspiration to make these pistachio pavlovas with colorful seasonal fruit and lemon curd.

I had a bunch of leftover eggwhites in the fridge from a (failed) attempt at creme brulee the night before and knew that meringues would be eaten up fast no matter what. It was also an excuse to make lemon curd, something I will eat by the spoonful if given the chance.

Overall, the pavlovas themselves turned out to be quite good. The crushed pistachios gave them a subtle flavor that went really well with the pomegranates and the honey oranges. However, the intense citrus sweetness of the lemon curd combined with the sugary meringue was too overpowering for me. If I were to make these again, I would use a custard or creme anglaise instead of the lemon curd just to balance out the sweetness.
All said, however, they did turn out to be very pretty little desserts that made the table ohh and ahh.

Gifts and Some Pasta

For my Birthday last month I got a great big food processor from my mom. The very first time I used it, I put it to work pulverizing pistachios, sugar, flour, and butter into a struesel for inside an apple strudel I made for my grandmother for Christmas Eve. In the process of figuring out how to work this new piece of heavy machinery, my brother and I both ended up with sliced fingers and hands from the slick sharp new blades. We were in a rush to get the strudel into the oven so I worked one-handed while my little brother bandaged my fingers (and then carefully cut away small layers of dough where some blood may or may not have dripped... but no one was the wiser!).

The second time I (carefully) pulled out my sparkly new food processor was yesterday--when I endeavoured to make my own pasta from scratch with another new toy I got for Christmas: a pasta maker. I went into this thinking it would not only be difficult, but also time consuming and messy. So you can imagine my surprise when, less than 30 minutes later, I was sitting at the table eating my freshly cooked fresh pasta in an ozzy cheese sauce (courtesy of Jamie Oliver). However, the huge pile of dishes and the flour that ended up all over my kitchen meant that I was at least right about one thing. But I'll blame myself and not the pasta for that one.


As for the pasta, it tasted fantastic, so much better than the dried kind you get in a box at Safeway. It actually had nice salty flavor that could almost stand on its own. It cooked so quickly and had a lovely texture that didn't resemble over or undercooked pasta, but the perfect al dente. I liked the taste of the pasta on its own so much that I might try and make it with only melted butter, some sugar, and cinamon for a dessert. The creamy cheese sauce was good, but next time I would go for something a little less cheesy and a little more creamy, as the parmesean was a bit on the pungent side and made the whole house smell like vomit. However, I didn't mind the taste of the guyere and the creme fraiche was an interesting alternative to actual cream and gave the sauce a nice little zing of flavor. I'll also add that this meal was a bit... heavy. I didn't have to eat much at all to feel stuffed. This could either be due to the cheesy-creamy ratio or the fact that I didn't run the pasta through the rollers enough times, so it was a bit on the thick side. Either way, I am more than willing to try making my own pasta again in the near future.







Jamie Oliver's Pasta with Oozy Cheese Sauce
adapted from Jamie at Home

1. Crack 4 eggs into a food processor with 2 cups of flour. Process. The dough should be a bit crumbly looking, if it's sticky, add a bit more flour.
2. Dump pasta dough onto a floured work surface and press into a ball. Knead a few times to get it together well (this should be pretty easy). Divide the dough into four pieces.
3. Take a piece of dough and run it through your pasta machine on its widest setting. Jamie says to run it through a couple times on each setting until it's about the "width of a CD". I would say a little thinner than that because otherwise your pasta is going to be very thick after it's cooked.
4. Liberally flour both sides of your sheet of dough then fold it together and cut it into strips. Seperate the strips and add more flour to coat. Repeat with the remaining dough.
5. For the cheese sauce, you want to place a bowl over a pot of boiling water (the pot should be big enough to cook all your fresh pasta in when your sauce is done) and mix together 1 cup of creme fraiche, and about a handful of parmesean and guyere (although you can use any "good melting cheese"). When it's all melted, add salt and pepper to taste.
6. Throw your pasta into the pot of boiling water and cook for about 2-3 minutes. Drain and mix with the sauce. Voila!