Happy birthday Liz!

It was a night that had been carefully orchestrated for weeks - a surprise (early) birthday dinner for a friend! My contribution was as driver of the unknowing birthday girl and supplier of cake. Mmmm cake. If you're wondering - it all worked out beautifully! It was so wonderful to see such genuine emotion for the guest of honor and friends - true joy, surprise, and happiness on everyone's faces! :D We had a delicious dinner (go team Left-Side-of-Table!!) and it was topped off with a surprise birthday trifle.

I'm not sure what comprises a 'true' trifle, mine was more like cake-in-a-bowl. I think I may try this concept again as it was:
1) Extremely easy to transport.
2) Saved me the trouble of icing & decorating the sides.
3) If layered well - extremely beautiful.
4) Scooping is fun!

I made additional berry sauce to top off the cake - apologies in advance for the blurry photos - I was in a bit of a rush and took it whilst sitting on my living room floor!

I kept in mind that Liz adores my zuccotto - so the 'white' filling is comprised of whipped cream with fresh raspberries, toffee candy bits, and whole toasted hazelnuts folded in. The over-powering brown layer is an orange chocolate mousse (I didn't realize I had made so much & didn't want leftovers!). The layers are alternated with dark chocolate and vanilla cake. The whole shebang is topped with more whipped cream filling, raspberries & some decorative writing.

I had some great feedback from the writing - and here is my secret: it's candy melts. Dark chocolate flavoured.
Candy melts are amazing to use in an aesthetic setting - it flows like chocolate, tastes like chocolate and hardens in a flash. Also - it's much less sensitive to temperature! So while it does melt in your hand, it's not going to disintegrate or sweat at the thought of hot lights. Even though they are an amazing medium to use - do not use them in cookies! Let me rephrase that - they are not suitable for cakes or cookies or to melt to be used in brownies (or cake). There is a reason why they are called 'candy melts'! They are not chocolate! So if you need to make some decorations for cakes or pastries, I highly recommend candy melts. They also come in a variety of colours too (you can tint the white candy melts, but sometimes they come out a bit chalky, so if it matters to you - try and source the coloured melts).

First Birthday Cake of the Season!

I think I mentioned a few posts ago about ramping up for the fall, or in my life, "birthday cake baking season". It's a long, long season - very sweet, of course - and very rewarding! It's also a great opportunity for me to put some new recipes to use and rethink old classics. Sometimes, it doesn't work out - but hey, even the scraps are delicious!

I was a bit squeezed for time for this particular cake, but it all managed to turn out. Kind of. At least I didn't drop it! :P (if that is any clue as to who the recipient was) The cake itself turned out great, but I didn't plan very well in terms of transporting the cake throughout the various steps of preparation. Basically - once you bake, cool & trim the cake, get it on the final base/plate. Don't move it around like I did! I think for me, I didn't have a premade board ready nor was my cake stand small enough to fit in my fridge! Looks like I'm in the market for a cake plate! (I'd love to get an antique glass one!!)

The cake: Yellow Butter Cake c/o Martha Stewart (I added in the chocolate chips)

The filling: Seven Minute Frosting

The icing: Whipped Dark Chocolate Ganache

The decorations: Novelty Marbled M&Ms

Lessons Learned:
- Cake, although rich and butter was too dense for the filling - a sponge would have been more appropriate.
- The filling would ooze out at the slightest pressure, in retrospect, I would have used the ganache as a filling instead.
- The ganache was too sturdy! It spread too thin and crumbled during cutting in a really unattractive way.
- I think I would have switched the filling and icing - the Frosting would have added a lot of drama and volume and the richness of the ganache would have been a nice contrast.

The decorations were some marbled M&Ms I received a while ago from my brother. I think you can buy them in some stores now, but aren't they beautiful? I actually wanted to tile the entire outside with the candies, but I'm not sure I would have had enough. I decided to go with a freeform pattern on top and on the sides. Although the final product lacked that polish, I am still pretty pleased with the results. There are definitely lessons I learned here that will probably come in handy for the rest of the season!

Stay tuned for the next cake!

Happy 30th Anniversary Spoon Parents!

It was the 'Pearl' Anniversary of this Spoon's parents! Yes, yes, I know. Spoons can't exactly have 'parents' now, can they? But let's just play along.

It was also their combined birthday parties - with the event being fairly spaced between their respective birthdates. The Mothership took it upon herself to cook for the entire crowd - something that even I would not undertake!

An occasion like this of course, calls for a special dessert; a special challenge fit for 30 years of marriage. A coworker suggested, "why don't you make them a 3-tiered cake? One for each celebration!" Yes! Genius! Why hadn't I thought of that?

Cake Assembly - On the Fly!

A baker's best asset, other than a Kitchen-Aid stand mixer, is the ability to improvise.

I can't tell you how many times I've had to think of how to rework a dessert at the "drop of a cake" (hee hee hee). But it's an important skill to have; I say "skill" on purpose - I believe that it is in part natural sense but also something that can be developed over time, with experience. Whether it's a separating buttercream or meringues that don't quite work, it's important to keep everything in check, breathe, and think. Think. "What would bring this buttercream together?" "What can I add to this ice cream to make it unforgettable?" In my case, it was "how can I pull together a birthday cake, at work, during lunch?"

I was pretty limited on time and didn't have too much in terms of pre-preparation, so I had to think of a dessert concept that I could pull together last minute, but still with amazing results. My pick? Ice cream-filled profiteroles topped with chocolate sauce.

Profiteroles (cream puffs) are super-easy to make. REALLY. They are! I know I tend to repeat that phrase quite often, but profiteroles are something anyone can do. They are also very versatile - they lend well to both savory and sweet fillings.

The quick method:

Heat 1 cup of milk and 1 stick of butter in a saucepan until the butter is melted and the liquid is just below boiling. Add 1 cup of all-purpose flour and stir quickly until no dry bits remain and the dough is roughly in one ball-shaped form. Take off the heat and add in 4 eggs. One at a time. The finished dough should be thick, sticky, but still pliable. Fill a pastry bag and pipe into mounds on a cookie sheet. (I used a small cookie scoop, feel free to use two spoons as well) Bake in a HOT oven (400F) for 20 minutes until puffed and golden. Reduce heat to 225F and cook a further 15 minutes until the puffs are 'dry' and sound hollow when tapped. I have cracked the door open a smidge at this step to prevent burning. One tip to prevent deflation - quickly pierce each puff on the bottom or side to further dry out the inside.

I made the puffs a day in advance, but everything else would have to be assembled day of.
The plan? Chocolate wafers would be the base for each puff and then topped with chocolate sauce. These wafer-puff-sauce mounds would then be stacked pyramid style on a plate, topped with a sparkler candle.

The results?


Not bad, eh? The chocolate sauce was cobbled together with chocolate chips (from home), cream (coffee cream @ work), honey (@work), and coffee(@work!)! I only had about 30 seconds to take pictures - the brief period of time in between taking the cake out of the freezer (they were filled with ice cream) and the presentation. The wafer base (store bought) was a great touch - they added a much needed crunch and rich chocolate flavour to each bite. Not to mention a terrific platform for the puff itself! And it made it that much easier to serve!

I should take this opportunity to mention that I did a guest post for a lovely coworker of mine on her fashion-themed blog, Being High Maintenance, Not Bitchy, (amen, sista!).

Check out my post here - and explore her blog while you're at it, it's full of great ideas and inspiration!

http://highmaintenancewoman.blogspot.com/

Caaaake!

Yes, if you noticed in the previous post, I mentioned the "c-word". Cake. Delicious, delicious cake. By the way - the ice cream sandwiches? Other than for a bit of freezer burn, not bad! I used the Tovolo ice cream sandwich maker gadget, which worked out pretty well. It's a little complicated to explain - so maybe next time I will photo-document to explain how it worked.

So yes, I had some cake tops (levelled off cake....'tops') leftover from a project I had last week - my very first "paid-for" cake! Granted, it was for a co-worker's birthday - but it was my first paid-for cake! That wasn't paid for by a relative! Ha!

They didn't have a specific cake in mind, "something chocolate", they requested, and of course I obliged. I went with a multi-layered chocolate mousse cake enveloped (rhymes with 'developed') in a white chocolate ganache-buttercream frosting (kind of an oxymoron, I know, but I'll explain later). A pic of the goods, c/o a coworker's camera (but taken by me):

How many layers would you say that cake is? 3? 5? Does the mousse filling count as a layer? Or simply the sandwich glue that holds it all together? I didn't tell them, but this cake was booze-heavy! (say it with me "boooooze heavy!") Kahlua and Frangelico in the mousse and Amaretto keeping the cake layers nice and moist. Trust me, it makes a difference.

The only specific instruction I received was to keep the top white. I'm not the best at cake decorating, so I opted to do an all-white frost and let them decorate the rest. Oh, did I mention that this was for the Art Team? Ha ha - I knew they would appreciate a little more white space. I found a recipe for white chocolate ganache, but once I made it...it didn't really coat as nicely as hoped. I did halve the recipe - but still, the chocolate cake was so dark, the effect wasn't great. I decided do mix things up by integrating it into a moderated buttercream (butter, cream, icing sugar) and it was really, really good. Really creamy, perfect amount of sweetness and went on like a dream. I'm going to try and duplicate it in the future!

(a snippet of their fantastic decorating! I missed the candles and cutting, but managed to secure myself a slice :)

So there ends another week. And next week - another cake. I have something quite unique up my sleeve...or rather, my apron. Which would mean, I have something quite unique under my skirt? ;P

Last night a cardboard-cake-base saved my life

Well...not really. And it wasn't last night either. The long awaited pictures of H-izzo's cake! Isn't it lovely? I admit, the side frosting job was a little shoddy - but by the time I got around to frosting it, I had run out of ideas.

The "deets":
-yellow butter cake layers doused with liquer
-sandwiching layers of whipped cream and local blackberries
-topped with a dark chocolate ganache and more whipped cream

Yum.

But let me explain this whole "saving my life" story. This is a pretty small cake - probably smaller than a catalogue envelope (5" by 9"), I wanted to keep it small, but dense and full of flavour (success!). Handily, it fit on my lovely Epicurean "Handy" cutting board (picture a thin, flat, wood-composite cutting board about the size of a catalogue envelope with a 4" handle on one end - like a small rectangular pizza peel) and I had been steadily shuttling it in and out of my fridge while assembling. I had put together all the layers and had inserted a few skewers for support (wow! what a hidden lifesaver) and was JUST about to frost - when the unthinkable happened.

I dropped it. On the floor.

I think I was being too cavalier in the kitchen; whirling around my small space with cutting board in hand - when I looked away for a split second when I heard it.

*splat*

I looked down, and all I could see was the top of my cake and a ring of whipped cream around it. My heart stopped.
But it started beating again when I realized - "hey, it's still upright!" It had landed as perfectly as a dropped cake could. The impact caused some of the filling to spurt out, but otherwise, it was intact. Thanks to that cardboard base and, I suppose, the skewers.
With a shaking hand and beating heart, I quickly finished decorating the cake and let it rest in the fridge until presentation time.


There's really nothing like a cake with fresh fruit - it's so underrated! I'd be tempted to make a traditional mango cake - but I don't trust myself around ripe mangoes. They'd never make it to the cake stage.

Happy Birthday T!

It was the ??th birthday of one half of my dynamic cooking buddies, T & J. This month - it was T's birthday - but I have J's ??th birthday coming up in a mere two months! That's two whole months to sketch out a cake!

I suppose it's become a bit of a tradition of mine to present my friend with a custom birthday cake for the occasion. I think in the years between school and family - we tend to overlook the tradition of presenting an actual cake! It sort of disintegrates into a birthday dessert at a restaurant or, *gasp* a birthday drink. Not that I am opposed to a birthday drink - but hey! I want to slice a cake!

I had two cake presentations this week - the H-izzo's birthday was earlier this week, so I had to schedule my week strategically so I could get both of them done. I didn't bring my camera to H-izzo's house, so I'll publish T's cake this post.

It was an unintentionally dense coconut cake baked in a round cake mold, 'filled' with sweet lemon curd and topped with seven minute frosting. Yes, it was quite an undertaking. I had no idea coconut cakes were so....rich! All the recipes I looked at contained a sinful amount of butter and eggs, so I opted for a buttermilk-style cake and added coconut and coconut milk (instead of buttermilk). It was baked in a round, Bundt-style cake mold and then I carved out a ring on the top, scooped out some cake, doused the whole thing in a Malibu-syrup, filled it with lemon, replaced the top cake ring and then frosted that mo-fo.

Good times.