Sugar Waltz

84/99: Quail Egg Cake

2012-02-24T18:08:00.003-06:00

Out of all of the crazy things that I have done for this little baking adventure of mine, I think quail eggs makes the top ten. Usually its just me annoying the grocery store workers with some crazy request or complaining to the manager that they don't carry castor sugar, muscovado sugar, etc.

But honestly, who orders quail eggs? But then I guess another fair question is who decides to bake 99 cakes in a year? Oh yeah, that's me.

The quail eggs came in today so I decided to put of studying for an hour and make the cake. It only has eight ingredients: quail egg yolks, heavy cream, vanilla extract, flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and butter.

But as soon as I started cracking eggs, Elizabeth burst in the front door and exclaims, "guess what!??!? I found a dog!!!"

My other roommate Elise's response was, "I'm sorry.. what?"

Liz said she was just driving up our street and found this beautiful dog trotting along with the leash still attached to the collar. She went to all of the surrounding streets to ask if anyone knew the dog. No luck.

So cake making interrupted, we both hopped in the car to go knock on doors. No luck. I think I scared one lady at the park- she didn't seem too pleased to be spoken to by a stranger.

So with the dog tied up in our yard (we are planning on making signs) I continued with the baking.

I start with the quail eggs. Rose said that the shells are really hard so if you use them a lot you need to buy a quail egg decapitator from France. After reading that I was really intimidated by this whole egg cracking ordeal. I envisioned it to be like cracking a coconut since you need a whole decapitator. She said to get a sharp knife and make a crack in the shell.

So I got my knife and put some pressure on the shell:

Oops.

Apparently I misunderstood what she meant by this warning because I ended up with a mess and egg white all over my shirt. What she really meant is that underneath the shell is a thick sticky membrane. I think that you are supposed to delicately cut the membrane once peeling off the shell. Oops. I ended up just tearing it open with my hands after the knife thing went wrong. It was an absolute mess.

Meanwhile, I started to hear some barking and lots of screaming. I began to imagine that the dog bit Elizabeth and that she is bleeding to death outside or that the dog itself was dying of some horrible attack. I threw the eggs down and ran outside to the rescue.

What's actually going on is that the dog got loose from its leash and Liz was outside in a towel, wet from being straight out of the shower, running around trying to catch the thing. It was hilarious. I really have no idea how he untied himself because this is what we used to tie the leash up:

But back to the cake.

Its just a typical process of combining the wet ingredients and them mixing them into the dry ones.

When I finished I realized that I didn't have the right pan. It seemed to be really important too because it didn't make very much batter... I think it would have made a cookie if I used an 8" pan. She said to use a heart shaped pan or a 6x2 round. I didn't have either of those but I did have the spherical pan that was 6 inches wide that I used for the booty cake. I decided that would have to work.

When I finally got it out of the oven it smelled really great. It stood for 10 minutes and then I carefully put it on the greased cooling rack.

I was in a hurry because I was trying to get back to studying since the whole dog thing pushed my day back a little bit. Here's my fatal mistake: I wasn't careful when I moved the cooling rack.... Can you guess what happened?

Flop.

Shiza.

I looked at it in disbelief. Not only did I actually order quail eggs for this cake but it took up valuable study time. And then it ended up in a lump on the stove.

I found a part of it that was salvageable, cut a slice, and stuck it on a plate. Viola. One piece is still good.

I ate that piece and, confession, I ate most of the rest too.

Rose said, "this cake is melt in your mouth moist and buttery with an exceptionally velvety-fine crumb and crispy crunchy top crust." I think I have to agree with her description. But at the same time, that description might give it a little too much praise. It was great but it wasn't that much better than a normal cake.

Liz said she liked it but it really freaked her out that it had quail eggs in it. Love it.

Hoping for a Green Thumb

2012-02-22T17:17:00.013-06:00

I get in these phases where I think I can do anything. One day its making 99 cakes in a year, another its cheese making, and the next its gardening.

So for I'm 1 for 2 in the cakes/cheese making ventures but hopefully this venture will up my record. I planted a few seeds about a month ago (basil, mint, and parsley) and they finally started sprouting in the past few weeks. It was incredibly exciting to discover that I didn't kill them and that they could actually grow.

So then my plans expanded to flowers, fruits, and vegetables. You name it and I wanted to grow it (well maybe not weed). This past weekend, I got sick of studying, drove to Walmart, and now my patio is covered with flower pots.

So here's what I have going on now:

Basil
Mint
Parsley
Rosemary
Strawberries
Chives
Brocolli
Red Tulips
Lavendar

Pretty impressive, right? But keep in mind that I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing.

I've heard that my grandmother on my Dad's side used to have an excellent green thumb and was great friends with and inspired by the lady who planted Mynelle Gardens in Jackson. Apparently Mynelle's entire yard was filled with daylilies and a dozen other types of flowers. She sounds pretty hardcore because she even had a greenhouse in the yard. My grandmother gardened with her and apparently had tons of daylilies in her own yard; she also cross pollinated them and named the new ones as she went along. I called my dad to ask him about it and he said her garden was beautiful. I would love to have seen it. I wonder if it looked anything like her friend Mynelle's. For those of you who haven't been to Mynelle Gardens, this is what it looks like:

(this image is released to the public domain for any purpose)

When she died my dad dug up all of her beautiful daylilies and re-planted them at our house. They're still there today and that was over twenty something years ago.

But I'm not sure if having a green thumb is hereditary and if it is, I'm almost positive that I didn't get the gene. The only thing I've ever kept alive long term is my aloe plant that my roommate and I bought freshman year of college and named Vera. Vera's still doing well and comes to my rescue whenever I get a sunburn.

Needless to say, I don't think my garden will ever look like her's but if I get one piece of broccoli or one strawberry from the deal then I will be happy.

83/99: Orange Glow Chiffon Layer Cake

2012-02-20T18:35:00.000-06:00

This cake is the same recipe as the bostini recipe, except for the fact that it has all purpose flour and is baked in an ungreased springform pan. Rose said to put a rose nail in the middle of it so that it cooks evenly but I couldn't find mine... (note the foreshadowing).

To make the cake you combine flour sugar, baking powder, salt, oil, yolks, orange zest, orange juice, and vanilla. Sounds good so far.

Then you make a meringue.

And if you read my blog or bake many cakes, you can guess what happens next: you fold the meringue into the batter.

When it comes out of the oven, the recipe gets a bit peculiar. I had to put the cake upside down on a wire rack elevated about 4 inches or higher above the work surface. It had to cool there for an hour before I could see the results.

In the mean time, Elise and Ryan kept me company.

It felt like a long time... we turned on a movie.

And finally I lifted it off. If you can't tell there is a CRATER in the middle of the cake plus the fact that the whole thing leans right. Rose said "don't worry if it dips slightly at the top" but I don't think this is slight dipping. This is major crater dipping.

I inverted it onto a serving plate and went with it anyway. Frosting fixes everything, right?

The final cake looked just fine and it tasted alright too. It wasn't our favorite, especially with the lemon almond cake sitting right next to it. It doesn't stand out. It's not that it's not good but I just don't think its worth the calories.

I ordered quail eggs on Amazon this week... get ready for the quail egg cake next!

82/99: Golden Lemon Almond Cake

2012-02-19T14:56:00.001-06:00

I feel really behind on my cakes.

After this one, I have another one that I haven't posted yet so that means I have 16 cakes to make in the next 48 days. I'm getting a little worried because I'll be gone for spring break and I have midterms coming up. But I am going to make it. I am determined. I set a goal and I am going to meet it- no extension or exceptions.

I think my problem is that I'm getting a little sick of it. I absolutely love it when I'm doing it but I think it's the planning part that I don't like- grocery store trips, prepping, mixing, baking, cooling, cleaning, photographing, blogging. Add that to 18 hours of upper level courses and my to do list gets pretty long. But i'll stop complaining... no one wants to hear that. On to the cake:

The golden lemon almond cake was delicious and easy enough. I had to make a few substitutions because I didn't want to go to the grocery store.

1. It called for lemon zest and I only had oranges so it has a little orange under taste.

2. I ran out of turbinado sugar so for the syrup had to use brown sugar.

3. I didn't have lemon oil so I used walnut oil since it was a nutty cake anyway.

I don't know what it was supposed to taste like but the result was fantastic. Rose said that she wraps hers up and gives them out as Christmas gifts and I don't blame her. The cake was incredibly moist which Rose says is compliments of the ground almonds.

So all in all, great recipe!

81/99: Double Chocolate Valentine

2012-02-14T22:52:00.002-06:00

Happy Valentines Day!!

Tonight, my friends and I celebrated my dear friend Anna's birthday AND Valentines Day at our favorite restaurant in Oxford, Snack Bar. We were definitely that table on Valentines night with eleven girls making all the noise. The rest of the restaurant was littered with couples so we may have stood out a little bit.

I had the Rabbit au Vin with a side of Parmesan Truffle Fries. I think if I could eat there every day I would.

To top off the night, we had the double chocolate valentine cake. I made the cake yesterday but it ended up taking forever because we were all watching the Bachelor and hating on Courtney the whole time.

But in the end the cake got finished and actually turned out OK! I didn't have a heart shaped cake pan like Rose but Elizabeth suggested just arranging the raspberries into a heart. Great idea!

I think the cake was a hit. Only one piece was left and when I got home, one of my roommate's boyfriend seriously ate the rest with his hands-- it was hilarious. Then Liz and I got forks and licked the plate clean. Yum.

Liz said that its in her top three favorites.

I think most people really liked the fact that raspberries are all over the cake. I didn't realize how many people were such big fans of raspberries. And I also discovered from Catherine (who is an expert in the field) that raspberries have some incredible health benefits.

On the flip side, I did think that it was a bit dry in the middle. To make the cake you have to poke holes all through it and then pour chocolate ganache into it so that it gains the extra moisture. The ganache was wonderful but I think that I didn't poke enough holes for it to seep through. Better luck next time.

To celebrate Valentines Day, here are little snapshots of the day:

This is Liz and her boyfriend Jared (who we all LOVE!). They made heart shaped ravioli (thanks to wonderful ideas on pinterest) this afternoon for their dinner:

Then here are all of us girls at dinner:

Anna (birthday girl) and Katy. I just realized that Catherine was sitting on the other side of Katy so she should have been in the picture too. I don't know how she skipped out on me.

Allie and me:

Liz, Elise, Marianna, and Betsy:

Elizabeth and Sarah:

And finally Elise's beautiful flower arrangement that she got from her sweet boyfriend Ryan (who we also LOVE!!).

Happy Valentines Day everyone!!

79/99: White Velvet Butter Cupcakes and 80/99: Golden Neoclassic Buttercream

2012-02-05T20:12:00.001-06:00

Happy Super Bowl!

Honestly, I'm not a huge super bowl person. The only one I've ever watched fully was the Saints game and that rocked. I asked today who was playing and I was told that we're rooting for the Giants. Of course we go for any team with a Manning (go Rebs) so go Giants!

These cupcakes were really good. They are really light and easy to eat (maybe that's a bad thing). They went over really well.

Note: There are two recipes in the book for white velvet butter cakes but one is a cake and one is for the cupcakes. I already made the white velvet butter cake but I made it in a cupcake pan- this is the actual cupcake recipe so that's why it counts as two different recipes.

Tasting:

Katy: they were nice and light and fluffy

Anna: I like how you can see part of the cupcake

Sarah: I liked that they turned my teeth blue

Allie: It was good for a social with other food

Marinna: That recipe wouldn't be good for a birthday party but its good when you have a lot of foods to choose from. It didn't make you feel sick because of the amount of food.

So overall they went pretty well!

Go Giants!

78/99: Hungarian Jancsi Torta: A slice and a scandal

2012-02-04T18:37:00.000-06:00

Belgians, Royalty, Gypsies, Hungarians, Scandal, Chocolate, Walnuts: the words that come to mind when describing this cake. I love that the cake comes with a story... and I also love that the two are equally as good.

I ran into this great story on a blog called Night Train to Detroit. Check it out:

Clara Ward, born in 1873, was the youngest child of Eber Brock Ward, multi-millionaire captain of pretty much every pre-automotive industry in Detroit and the midwest, and an actual captain, too. He died when Clara was two years old, leaving her all of his lumber fortune. (He also left behind: steel fortune, railroad fortune, silver and salt mine fortune, shipping fortune, real estate fortune, fortune — misc.)

When she was 17 years old, Clara married the Belgian Prince de Caraman-Chimay and became one of Detroit’s elite contingent of gilded age celebrity princesses. It was the ultimate status move for wealthy industrialists: marry your pretty young daughter off to a minor European monarch, who was probably broke and needed some cash for repairs on the moldy old chateau. Bam! You were royalty.
Detroit had finally come of age.

Courtly types weren’t too fond of Clara — because, rumor had it, King Leopold was a little too fond of her. Clara and the Prince left for Paris in 1894 when they got tired of dealing with the scandalous royal gossip.

Paris in 1894! Music! Bohemians! The Moulin Rouge! Absinthe! Cafés! I bet it was fun. Somewhere in partyland, Clara met a Hungarian violinist named Rigó Jancsi and, to the bafflement of the general public and the panting delight of tabloid reporters, fell in love and ran away with him.

The Prince de Caraman-Chimay sought a divorce. Meanwhile, gossip rags followed Clara and Rigo all over Europe. Toulouse-Lautrec painted them. Clara, inspired by Rigó’s artsy free-wheeling ways, performed at cabarets and salons an art she called poses plastique (basically: wearing something titillating and standing still, in a pose, for a long time).

For a few years they were the toast of the continent. And Hungarians, proud of their hometown boy made good, invented a cake to celebrate.

See? Isn't that juicy?

So here's the process of the cake. It was pretty easy but it took awhile to complete because I had the NCIS marathon playing in the background. But here goes:

1. Toast the walnuts and then remove the skins by rubbing them in a kitchen towel:

2. Combine the egg yolks with sugar and whip on high speed for 5 minutes:

3. Combine the grated chocolate and walnuts with the yolk mixture:

4. Fold in meringue:

5. Bake for about 40 minutes then let cool in the pan:

6. Remove from the pan and serve hot or cold:

The torta is actually one of the best cakes in the book. Here's what my friends had to say about it:

Elizabeth tried it and said three times that it was seriously her favorite.

Katy: "It really is my favorite. I love how moist it is and I love how every bite is really chocolatly."

Anna: "It has a really great texture."

Betsy: "The story behind it is almost as good as the way that it awakens my senses." (we laughed at her)

Rose's Heavenly Cakes- page 279

77/99: Sicilian Pistachio Cake

2012-02-01T17:56:00.004-06:00

Surprise of my day: I actually like this cake. I'm getting down to the cakes that I am not incredibly excited about (fruitcake, quail egg cake, etc) and this one was no exception. But I think I wasn't as excited about this cake because of this confession: I've never had a pistachio before this. I am a recovering picky eater so in the past, I looked at them and thought "strange looking green vegetable looking nut" and so I've never been tempted to try it. As a curious baker and an adventurous eater though, I tried one as I was shelling them and surprise surprise, they were tasty.

One of my friends commented as I was making the cake that she heard that pistachios are the most unhealthy nut that you can eat. But, thankfully, she was wrong (sorry to whoever said that but fear not, I won't name you). I looked it up and according to my extra-credible source, Shape.com (I hope that you're catching my sarcasm here), pistachios are actually one of the top five most healthy nuts that you can eat. They are high in cholesterol-lowering plant sterols (I don't know what that means but I like it) and have more potassium than most nuts. Hooray!

Making the cake wasn't much different than making a normal butter cake except that you process pistachios with the sugar. The cake turned out to be incredibly soft and moist so I think I can give a shout out to the sour cream and to the butter for that.

The icing was a bit more tricky. The "golden neoclassic buttercream" is basically a halved version of Rose's "neoclassic buttercream" that is in The Cake Bible. I made this neoclassic version last year while I was living in Chattanooga and I wrote in the book next to the recipe, "I tried this but the syrup mixture hardened in the blender- YUCK!" I think I threw it away and turned to Irma (The Joy of Cooking) for my buttercream up until I started this little adventure.

This time it was much easier because I've gotten a little bit more experience under my belt and the steady stream of hot sugar syrup went straight into the icing rather than hardening onto the sides of the bowl or into clumps. The difficult part was the heated discussion about feminism and its relationship with Christianity that was going on all around me with my housemates and friends. I really don't know how the icing came out in one piece.

All in all, the cake was a success. I think my mom would have even liked it because it was sweet and soft (she only likes the Kroger white cakes because they are really sweet). It was nice because of the extra flavor and the tiny bit of crunch of pistachios that went into every bite. It's definitely a unique cake and it is one that I would be happy and proud to share.

Rose's Heavenly Cakes- page 65

P.S. If you would like the recipe to this cake, Rose kindly put it on NPR: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120742534

76/99: Fruitcake Wreath

2012-01-27T11:38:00.000-06:00

Yeah, so the best part of the picture is the fruit. And by fruit I mean the kind that is not in the cake.

When I started with the fruit filling my dad walked in and asked what I was making. I told him a fruit cake. This was his response (I wrote it down):

"You're making a fruitcake? That's not something someone your age would do... That's something my grandmother would do. Oh, she was a teetotaler. She didn't drink a drop in her life but we all knew there was somethin' in that fruitcake. When she died we found a big bottle of rum hidden behind a door. I guess that's why she made so much fruitcake..."

Oh dad.

So this is my fruitcake. Mine didn't have quite as much alcohol in it as my great grandmother's apparently did but it was still good.

I've never had a fruitcake before so I didn't really know what to expect. It turned out fine for the most part and the fruit filling worked as desired. Here's what it looked like inside:

I still can't decide what I think about the cake. I like that it has FOUR cups of pecans and TWO cups of walnuts. The fruit part is not my favorite but it's overshadowed by the nuts so its not that big of a deal in the cake. I liked it for the most part- it was pretty moist and definitely unique. It's probably not something that I would make again though because I would rather make other things. My roommate Elise said that she thinks that it's good.. It's just not something that you'd want to eat a whole piece of.

Next cake: Pistachio cake! Now I'm back on track since I'm back in the swing of school and everything else!

Rose's Heavenly Cakes- page 79

a little bit of everything

2012-01-17T15:20:00.001-06:00

Last night I got a bit more bold and ordered five desserts for dinner. It was an Italian themed dinner so the feature for dessert was of course the tiramisu. Sorry, Royal Caribbean, I think I’ve had better. The raspberry jelly looking thing was probably the best!

Other than trying different kinds of dessert, I’ve also been attending every wine tasting that the ship offers. Yesterday was a French tasting featuring LaFite reserve from the Bordeaux, Medoc, and Pauillac regions. We had several cheeses to try with each pairing in order to see which one we liked the best. It was appropriate for yesterday because sadly it rained all day long.

Right now we are in St. Thomas and for some reason there is a man playing the bagpipe right outside of my window…. I think that means its time for me to go somewhere else. More details on the trip later!

I'll have all of them please

2012-01-16T10:58:00.001-06:00

Strawberry Cheesecake

Cherry Cake

No, I didn't make these desserts.

But if you go on a cruise any time soon and see the sentence "One dessert per guest please" on a menu, I might be the customer who ruined it for everyone. I would say sorry about that to you but I'm really not. Here's why:

One of my new years resolutions can be summarized in the question, “why not?” It’s been a great resolution so far as its gotten me to Memphis for New Years and Chicago for a good time with friends (hence my lack of posting lately). This week, my “why not” resolution manifests itself in a different way.

This week is my family’s “last” (it sounds horrible but it really means last one for awhile) family vacation all together because one of my sisters is about to move to South America for an unknown number of years. Because of all of the kids under age 5 that we have running around, my parents opted to go on a cruise in the Caribbean.

I’ll be honest- I wasn’t that excited because I had a combination of the immobile lazy people on Wall*e and Bourdrillard’s ideas on hyperreality going through my head. It didn’t sound too great. But the boat is gigantic (seriously, it’s the biggest one in the world) and of course it offers plenty of things like wine tasting courses that I love.

If you’ve never cruised before, know that almost all the food on the boat is free. It’s wonderful except for the fact that you have to wake up the next day and put on a bathing suit. As part of my “why not” philosophy though, I’ve decided to try as much of the dessert as possible. So why not order almost every dessert on the menu each night at dinner?? I think I just might do that.

So these are the three desserts for tonight. I ate two of them- one is Jane Bradley’s. Personally I prefer Rose's stuff but the fact that I can bring these about with a magic word is pretty great too. We'll see what the next dinner has in store for me!

75/99: Swedish Pear and Almond Cream Cake

2012-01-06T12:37:00.001-06:00

I love foreign food and the fact that this recipe is Swedish made it even more exciting. Rose says that "the pear adds luscious moisture to the crumb; the almond cream imbues it with lovely flavor." I think that she very eloquently and accurately described the cake. It wasn't an overwhelming flavor nor was it bland. It was a simple, sweet taste that was enhanced by the moisture in the cake.

I don't plan ahead very well when it comes to making cakes. I just open the book, pick a recipe, and open the pantry or the groery store. This one called for almond paste. Almond paste is $15.99 from Amazon and no telling how much at the grocery store, if they even carry it. Noooo thankyou.

So with my hefty stash of nuts (whole, sliced, and slivered almonds, pistachios, walnuts, pecans, etc) I pulled out a bag of slivered almonds and got busy making the almond paste. Since I had all the ingredients handy, I like to think that I saved 16 bucks. Totally worth it. I got the recipe from allrecipes.com so if you need some almond cream, take an extra five minutes and save yourself some cash. Here's the recipe:

Almond paste: (yields 4 servings)

5 ounces blanched almonds
3/8 (16 ounce) package confectioners' sugar
1 egg white
1/4 teaspoon almond extract

Grind almonds in a blender. Thoroughly mix in confectioners sugar. Beat egg whites slightly, then stir into the almond mixture. Add almond extract, using your hands to blend the heavy mixture.

The recipe wasn't too difficult.

Then the almond cream filling could be made entirely in the food processor which was wonderful. It's always nice to have a few less dishes. You basically grind the paste and the sugar together and then add butter.

Then pulse in an egg, vanilla, and flour:

And voila: almond cream!

Then for the cake: also pretty basic. First you make your liquid mixture: eggs, sour cream, and vanilla.

Then mix your flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt with the remaining butter and sour cream.

Pour in your egg mixture:

Fill the pan and then make a little furrow in a circle to pour in the almond cream.

Top with pears and your done!

I tried to take a picture last night of the cake but I couldn't get a good one. I decided to wait until this morning and use natural lighting to see if it would be any better. Guys- the change in the photo was incredible. Natural light makes the picture much more clear. So from now on- I'm going to try to stay away from overhead lighting. Check it out:

Rose's Heavenly Cakes- page 58

74/99: Chocolate Layer Cake with Caramel Ganache

2012-01-04T23:18:00.001-06:00

I've been looking forward to this cake and at the same time dreading this cake. I love caramel and I love dark chocolate but, as I've mentioned many many times before, I DETEST making caramel. My caramel batting average usually fits into the "third time's a charm" category. I can never get it right on the first try.

The cake itself was simple. Melt the chocolate in boiling water. Cool. Combine dry ingredients and then add the chocolate and the egg mixture. No brain required.

The caramel ganache was a different story.

I couldn't find the electronic candy thermometer in the drawer so I settled for the 1920's style thermometer (to be more fair it was probably from the 70's) that was definitely not digital. Rose said to let the caramel boil up and then to take it off once it gets to 370 degrees Fahrenheit. I did everything she said. I stopped stirring after it started boiling and then stood there and stared at the numbers and the color of the sugar. It went slowlyyyy.

When It got up to 250 (after a good 5 minutes) I decided to run into the other room to get something since it still had to rise another 120 degrees. As soon as I was walking back into the room, I noticed the thick gray smoke that was quickly billowing out from the pot on the stove. I ran up to it and discovered that my caramel was blacker than the chocolate sitting next to it. It smelled horrible! But when I looked at the thermometer, the temperature read 290.... I guess age really did it's work on that old thing.

I took the pot outside so that the fire alarm wouldn't go off and asked myself if I'll ever conquer caramel... probably not. But that's ok. I'll just keep at it anyway.

The second try was much better and I was able to pour in the heavy cream, butter, vanilla, and chocolate! YUM! The ganache was probably the best ganache that I've tried from this book. You couldn't really taste the caramel part unless you knew that it was there but it definitely gave the ganache a delicious spin.

I think it was even worth having to make the caramel twice <insert gasp here>.

By the end of the night, every plate had been cleaned except mine. I loved it but for some reason I just don't have the appetite for a lot of cake anymore. Maybe it's the fact that this is my 74th cake in the book?

Rose's Heavenly Cakes- page 104

Candied Fruit

2011-12-30T21:35:00.000-06:00

I decided to make the fruitcake wreath yesterday and opened up the recipe to see if I could put it together really quickly. Lo and behold, the first step is to soak the fruit in vodka for a week before starting the cake. I looked at what type of fruit I needed:

"Glacéed mixed fruit, preferably lemon and orange peel" and "glacéed red cherries."

I had to idea what "glacéed" meant but soon discovered that it means candied fruit. Then I read Rose's blurb and it said that she recommended high quality glacéed fruit from France because it tastes the best. I'm impatient and cheap so I decided to make my own candied fruit.

I kept telling myself that I was silly for taking this much time to make candied fruit when its really not that expensive to buy it anyway. What was that in economics... opportunity cost? Is my time or my money more valuable? I kept thinking that my time is but then I remembered that I have a 6 week Christmas vacation with no job and no real responsibilities. So I guess my opportunity cost is pretty low at this point. If it had been any other time in the year, or in my life, I probably would have not have taken the time.

I used the recipes from Maddie Rudd on Hub Pages and they turned out pretty great. I've included the recipes for the Glace Cherries and the Candied Peel (oranges and lemons).

Glace Cherries
Ingredients

2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup water
1 pound fresh cherries
1/2 fresh lemon, washed
1 cup unsweetened apple juice

Instructions
Wash, stem, and pit cherries. Combine sugar and water with wire whisk in large saucepan over medium heat and bring to a boil, stirring regularly. Add cherries and lemon half, reduce heat to low and simmer about 20 minutes, until syrup is red and thickening. Remove from heat, transfer to covered, airtight container, and let stand several hours (or overnight). Strain cherries, reserving syrup, and discard lemon half. Combine syrup and apple juice in large (clean) saucepan and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Boil 5 minutes, add cherries, then reduce heat to low and cook until syrup is thick, around 220 degrees Fahrenheit on a candy thermometer.

(the corn on the cob holder worked great for coring the cherries)

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Candied Peel

Ingredients

6 large citrus fruits (orange, lemon, and/or grapefruit), peels of
1 tsp salt
4 1/2 cups granulated sugar, plus extra
1 ½ cups water, plus extra

Instructions
Cut tops and bottoms off of fruit, then use a knife to score into quarters and remove peel. Cut into 1/4 inch-wide strips, place in large saucepan and cover with cold water. Bring to a boil over high heat, drain, then cover with cold water and bring to a boil a second time. Repeat twice more with fresh water. In new saucepan, combine 4 ½ cups sugar and 1 ½ cups water with wire whisk over medium heat. Bring to a boil and simmer 8 or 9 minutes, around 230 degrees Fahrenheit on a candy thermometer. Reduce heat and add peels, simmering gently 45 minutes or until peels turn clear-ish, without stirring. (Swirl pan by handle to move peels around, if absolutely necessary.) Drain and roll in sugar, dry 4 to 5 hours before storing or using to cook.

(yes... 4.5 cups of sugar)

73/99: The Bostini

2011-12-28T23:11:00.003-06:00

Yum.

I've been waiting to make this one for awhile. I really wanted to use a similar cup to Rose's because hers has a cool handle but I haven't come across one. Tonight I had some friends over for dinner and decided to finish with the Bostini despite the lack of a custard or cappuccino cup. In the end, I think my cups turned out just fine. They had some pretty drawings of the side of them that had been etched in glass that I thought would look nice. You can't really see them in the picture though.

For dinner I decided to make Dorie Greenspan's "my go-to beef duabe" (beef stew slow roasted in red wine, brandy, and herbs) from her book "Around My French Table." Note to readers- the book is fabulous. There was recently a Julie and Julia style blog community going on around it called Tuesdays with Dorie that I followed... it definitely inspired me to put the book on my Christmas list. Now that the group has finished they are starting a new book called "Baking with Julia" in February. I have twenty something cakes left so I'm seriously considering joining up with the group. I would love to finish this one before I take on another project but I don't know if I can get that many cakes done by FEBRUARY!! We'll see...

Anyway, the Bostini was wonderful. The chocolate sauce was dark and the cake was tender. It was especially delicious after it was soaked in the vanilla bean pastry cream sauce that is at the bottom.

The only problem that I ran into was that I was so ambitious about keeping the kitchen clean while I was cooking that I forgot about the cream on the stove. It ended up boiling (almost over the pot) and in the end it never got thick enough. Maybe I didn't whisk long enough, maybe the boiling messed it up, or maybe it was just fine and I had custardy expectations that were incorrect from the beginning. Who knows...

But in the end, it really didn't matter because with a combination of the cake, the chocolate, and the pastry cream sauce, it was delicious. I halved the recipe and made 6 instead of 12 and I think that was the perfect amount. Plus I don't have 12 pretty cups.

So here's the process:

First, the cupcakes:

Mix the cake flour, sugar, and salt. Then make a hole in the middle to pour in the liquid ingredients. I always like doing this. I have no idea why it is necessary or how it helps baking but it feels so organized and neat.

Then the egg yolks and whole egg along with orange juice (and orange zest that I didn't have any of), oil, and vanilla.

Mix it all together to make it fluffy.

Then I had to switch bowls to make the meringue because I don't have two stand mixer bowls...

Next the meringue:

Fold them together:

And voila. Cupcake batter.

Then for the Vanilla Bean Pastry Cream Sauce. I didn't actually use a vanilla bean because I didn't have one and Rose said vanilla would work just fine.

So first you mix the eggs, milk, and cornstarch:

This is when I realized how messy I am and decided to try to clean up more along the way. New years resolution maybe?

Then you mix Sugar, salt, and vanilla.

And bring the heavy cream to a boiling point--- this does not mean boiling over the top of the pan. But of course I got distracted and turned into a neat freak absent minded chef. I guess that's really nothing new though.

Once the cream was done, I tried to whisk it fluffy but it remained pretty liquidy. I hoped its time in the fridge would give it some strength but it was a bit disappointing. The good news is that despite the strangely liquid consistency, it still tasted great.

Next came the chocolate butter glaze. The title says it all: butter + chocolate = glaze. Easy as pie.

I'd vote this recipe a success. Not too difficult, absolutely delicious, and visually impressive. Hats off to Rose for this one.

Rose's Heavenly Cakes- page 351

72/99: Heavenly Coconut Seduction Cake

2011-12-26T19:12:00.000-06:00

I had a special request from my Aunt Mary this year for Christmas: coconut cake. I looked through the book and found that this cake is my last coconut flavored cake in the book. It didn't look as exciting as the Southern (Manhattan) Coconut Cake with Silk Meringue Buttercream or as the Coconut Cheesecake but it's coconut and so it seemed like it would be good nonetheless.

My mom and I made a long list of everything that we would need to make for parties and family get togethers each day of the week leading up to Christmas. Since there was so much to do, I decided to make the cake on Thursday and stick it in the refrigerator till Christmas. Sadly, that wasn't the best idea.

I pulled the cake out to come to room temperature on Christmas morning and then looked at the recipe for the icing. I thought it was going to take some time but I was relived when I saw that all I had to do was whip up some whipped cream and throw some coconut on top!

I finished the cake up and my dad said, "that looks interesting..."

Interesting is usually an adjective you use to sugar coat "that looks horrible."

I asked him what he meant. He said that cakes normally had icing all the way around them. I corrected him but then got overly self conscious because I thought the rest of my family would think that I had lost my mind since everyone seemed to think that cakes had icing all the way around them. They definitely don't--some cakes don't even have icing on top of them at all!-- but I caved. I spread the cream all the way around it right before we left (no photo of that).

The final taste testing was a bit of a disappointment. I think that if I had eaten it right when I made it then it would have been absolutely divine. But of course, as I look at the recipe to type out this blog post, I realize that Rose knew this all along. She writes, "Although the cake still has a wonderful, albiet denser, texture when made ahead, it is at its moth ethereal when prepared à la minute. In other words: Bake it, cool it, top it with whipped cream and coconut, call the neighbors, and eat it." No wonder I wasn't impressed.... I waited too long.

I guess I'll have to try again for Aunt Mary another day.

Rose's Heavenly Cakes- page 20

Buck-eyes (peanut butter balls)

2011-12-25T00:12:00.000-06:00

One of our Christmas traditions is the Travis family Christmas questionnaire. It's basically a Christmas list that asks sizes, store preferences, etc. but also includes general life questions. For example, this year included "What's the best thing that's happened this year?" and "What is your favorite holiday food?"

My brother in law put Mom's famous buck-eyes as his favorite holiday food item. Their family is moving to Costa Rica this year so it seemed fitting to make Nate's favorite holiday food item since he won't be around for awhile.

Buck eyes are pretty easy. I used the Kitchen Aid and it might have been a mistake because the mixture barely fit in there by the end but it worked anyways. Here's my mom's famous recipe that she's used to use at the annual Christmas Party so if anybody gets hungry for some Reeses type snacks, try this one out:

Ingredients:

4 sticks margarine, softened

2 lb peanut butter

3 lb powdered sugar

lots of dipping chocolate

Directions:

1. In a large bowl, combine the margarine and peanut butter.

2. Slowly add the powdered sugar

3. Roll walnut sized balls.

4. Melt the chocolate in the microwave, stirring every 30 seconds

5. Dip the peanut butter balls in the chocolate and set on wax paper to cool.

Merry Christmas Eve

2011-12-24T13:51:00.003-06:00

I really shouldn't be on my computer right now because I have a list of about 20 things to make before the Christmas Eve service tonight, but I got a new camera for Christmas and I've been snapping photos all day. And seriously--what kid wouldn't want to play with her new toy at Christmas before doing the grown up stuff?

Part of the Travis family tradition is to open one gift on Christmas eve. The gift is always pajamas and that way we get to wake up in Christmas morning with our new pajamas already on. I'm all upset this year because we're doing Santa after church since my sister has to do Santa at her own house on Christmas morning. I announced this afternoon that everyone was going to have to change back into their Christmas pajamas after we get back from church but my family wasn't quite as enthusiastic as I am about it. So much is different this year. For instance, now that we're all grown up, my nieces and nephews can't stay up late enough on Christmas eve after our Christmas eve party so we've switched to a Christmas eve breakfast. But I secretly kind of like it that way--good food all day for 2 days straight.

Anyway, my pajamas this year said "I majored in wine tasting" (hah funny mom... but yes true). And, as I already mentioned, I got a new camera that my mom let me open today so that the whole event could be properly documented! Yay! Now my pictures will look much better.

But before I go crazy putting tons of pictures for you to look at, check out this video in celebration of Christmas. Some kids from New Zealand (?) made their own version of the Christmas story and it is the cutest thing you will ever see:

But if you're ready for some more pictures (and since I haven't made any cakes that are ready to be photographed) here are some pictures of my lovely family during our little Christmas Eve traditions:

71/99: Holiday Pinecone Cake

2011-12-23T20:34:00.000-06:00

I've been really nervous about making this cake. My mom volunteered me to make a cake for our family's yearly Christmas get together so I figured that would be a good time to make it.

I read the other RHB blogs about it and it looked like a mess. At first I was just worried that it was going to look like poop. But then while I was making the cake (before I made the pine cone parts stick out) my uncle Will came in the room and said he was worried because it looked like an inappropriately shaped cake. You can use your imagination there. By that time I was ready to just leave it at home.

But in the end, it (shockingly) worked out ok! It tastes like a flourless chocolate torte to me because it is so incredibly dense and chocolately.

The only problem that I ran into is that since the cake is so fragile, it seemed to be crushed between the ganache so that it was a very thin layer. I don't really know what to do about that.

In all the cake didn't take long at all. It consists of a chocolate cake that you make in a sheet pan. Then you roll it up in a towel to let it cool--I've never done anything like this before so I was immediately skeptical. Then you make a dark chocolate ganache with amaretto and almonds (yum) and a fondant that tastes like a tootsie roll (yum again). It's definitely a mouthful of chocolate.

I've left my camera at my house in Oxford so I had to tell my sister to bring hers for the party. Sadly there are no pictures to accompany the process because of this sad little fact.

Merry Christmas everyone!

PS. We didn't eat the berries on top... they may or may not be poisonous. =)

Cinnamon Apple Cake

2011-12-14T18:28:00.000-06:00

My niece is the sweetest, most adorable little girl that you will ever meet. I came over to my sister's house this afternoon and my niece attacked me out in the driveway. She was so excited to see me and said that she had a HUGE surprise for me. She brought me inside and gave me a foil wrapped package and said in her cutest 5 year old little girl voice that she wanted to make a cake for me because I make so many cakes for people but nobody ever makes a cake for me. I know, don't cry too hard.

She definitely wins the favorite niece card (I the rest of them are boys so I can say that).

And that of course made my day.

She and my sister made it yesterday so she's been waiting to give it to me. Here are the two bakers:

And it was goooooddddd. I had multiple pieces and I have a feeling that the rest will be gone tonight.

I think JB was pretty proud of her work:

After we finished eating we had a lot of fun playing around. I may be a bad influence:

She didn't quite master the spoon on the nose thing the normal way but I think her way is better.

Anyway, here is the recipe from way back when if you're interested. This one is on MyRecipes.com but it's pretty similar to my moms. It is fantastic:

Yield: 12 Servings

Ingredients

1 3/4 cups sugar, divided
3/4 cup (6 ounces) block-style fat-free cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup butter or stick margarine, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3 cups chopped peeled Rome apple (about 2 large)
Cooking spray

Preheat oven to 350°.
Beat 1 1/2 cups sugar, cream cheese, butter, and vanilla at medium speed of a mixer until well-blended (about 4 minutes). Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition; set aside.
Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Add flour mixture to creamed mixture, and beat at low speed until blended. Combine 1/4 cup sugar and cinnamon. Combine 2 tablespoons of the cinnamon mixture and apple in a bowl; stir apple mixture into batter. Pour batter into an 8-inch springform pan coated with cooking spray, and sprinkle with remaining cinnamon mixture.
Bake at 350° for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until cake pulls away from the sides of pan. Cool cake completely on a wire rack, and cut using a serrated knife.
Note: You can also make this cake in a 9-inch square cake pan or a 9-inch springform pan; just reduce the baking time by 5 minutes.

70/99: English Gingerbread Cake

2011-12-07T22:41:00.003-06:00

Well, Ladies and Gents, I am over half way through finals: 3 down and 2 to go. I studied all day yesterday for my English final that was scheduled for today. Then last night, my roommate asked me if I was ready for my Social Stratification final scheduled for today since I have that class at the same time that she has another class. I told her that she was confused--my English final was scheduled for today and my Social Stratification final was scheduled for Thursday.

Well, the good news is that she wasn't mistaken. The bad news is that I was. I had studied all day long for the wrong final.

I complained for a couple minutes before collecting myself. I made a pot of coffee and went to my room to study. The coffee definitely didn't work. Since I get my best studying done in the morning I resolved to go straight to bed so that I could be rested and ready to study hard in the morning. I set 5 alarms to go off every 10 minutes starting at 6:30.

And guess what happened? I slept through them.

That's when I decided that my final was doomed and gave up. Don't get me wrong, I studied for a few hours at Lusa and then decided that going into my final cheerfully was more important than stressing over pages of information that probably weren't going to stick in my head anyway. What's done is done.

So I went home and made a cake.

Tonight was the Ladies Christmas party for my Church here in Oxford. I signed up about a month ago to bring a dessert and this past week I was reminded of my commitment. Looking through Rose's Heavenly Cakes, I decided that I needed one that was quick (I did have a final in 2 hours after all), festive, and delicious. I finally decided on the gingerbread because it seemed to fit my requirements.

----Side note: just in case you're wondering, (or if you're my parents and are freaking out reading this because I should have been studying) I did excellently on my exam. Out of 83 questions I think I only doubted myself on about 3.-----

The only problem that I ran into was that I accidentally misread the recipe and put too much baking soda in the cake. Long story short: I tripled the baking soda.

Last semester a friend of mine, John Denver, who teaches classes at Mia Cucina in Chattanooga told me about his baking experiences when he was in culinary school. He said that one time he accidentally put in way too much baking soda and the whole cake exploded. After that he swore off baking.

But with that story in mind, my baking soda mistake really freaked me out. I had visions of a 5th grade science project volcano erupting in my oven. It wouldn't be catastrophic but I really didn't want to have to clean my oven later on. Just to be safe, I decided to turn to google for some help. I looked it up and found that if you were to substitute them then you would triple the amount of baking powder to get baking soda. So if 1 teaspoon baking soda = 3 teaspoons of baking powder then I technically just have one extra teaspoon rather than two. I finally omitted the baking powder and prayed over the extra teaspoon of baking soda.

In the end, it turned out to be delicious. I might even keep the recipe with the baking soda mistake though I don't know how much of a difference it actually made. It was incredibly moist and the lemon butter glaze gave it the perfect edge.

I had a few ladies ask me for the recipe at the Christmas party and I promised to share. Since Jodi Rhoden said that it was perfectly legal to post recipes from books online as long as it's just one or two rather than the whole book, I decided that this would be my one recipe to share since it's wonderful for the holidays. I use the metric system when I bake so I've also included those measurements for anyone else who prefers it:

Cake Batter Ingredients:
8 tablespoons (113 grams) unsalted butter (65-75 degrees F)
1 1/4 cups (425 grams) golden syrup or light corn syrup
1/4 cup, firmly packed (60 grams) dark brown sugar, preferable Muscovado
1 heaping tablespoon (40 grams) orange marmalade
2 large eggs, at room temperature (100 grams)
2/3 cup (160 grams) whole milk
1 cup + 2 tablespoons (115 grams) cake flour
1 cup minus 1 tablespoon (115 grams) whole wheat flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
pinch of salt

Lemon Butter Syrup ingredients
3 tablespoons of sugar (38 grams)
2 tablespoons lemon juice (31 grams)
2 tablespoons of unsalted butter (65-75 degrees F) (28 grams)

Batter:

Special Equipment:
One 8 by 2 inch square cake pan or 9 by 2 inch round pan, wrapped with a cake strip, bottom coated with shortening, topped with a parchment square (or round), then coated with baking spray with flour. (Since I was in a hurry I didn't do the shortening and parchment part and it turned out just fine)

Preheat the oven:
20 minutes before baking, set an oven rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat the oven to 325F/160C

Mix the Liquid Ingredients:
In a small heavy saucepan, stir together the butter, golden syrup, sugar, and marmalade over medium low heat until melted and uniform in color. Set aside uncovered until just barely warm, about 20 minutes. Whisk in the eggs and milk.

Make the batter:

In a large bowl, whisk together the cake flour, whole wheat flour, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, baking soda, and salt. Add the butter mixture, stirring with a large silicone spatula or spoon just until smooth and the consistency of thick soup. Using the silicone spatula, scrape the batter into the prepared pan.

Bake the Cake

Bake for 50 to 60 minutes, or until a wire cake tester inserted in the corner comes out clean and the cake springs back when lightly pressed in the center. The cake should start to shrink from the sides of the pan only after removal from the oven.

Cool the cake:

Let the cake cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes. While the cake is cooling, make the syrup.

Lemon Butter Syrup:

In a small pan, stir together sugar, lemon juice, and butter. Heat over medium-low heat, stirring, until the butter is melted and the sugar is dissolved.

Apply:

Brush half the syrup over the top of the cake. Run a small metal spatula between the sides of the pan and the cake, pressing firmly against the pan, and invert the cake onto a wire rack that has been coated lightly with non-stick cooking spray. Brush the bottom with the remaining syrup. To prevent splitting, reinvert the cake onto a serving plate so that the top is up. For extra moistness, cover the cake with plastic wrap while still hot and allow it to cool. (Rose says to wrap airtight for 24 hours before serving but I definitely didn't do that and it was still great)

After putting the syrup on it, it needed some holiday cheer so I set out to make the powdered sugar Christmas trees as rose suggested in a note. After drawing a tree on wax paper, I cut out my design and then placed it on top of a piece of cake. After sprinkling the powdered sugar on top, I carefully removed the stencil and voila!

I thought they turned out to be pretty cute.

But back to studying. Only 2 left and then I'm home for the holidays!

Rose's Heavenly Cakes, English Gingerbread Cake, page 75

69/99: Caramelized Pineapple Pudding Cakes

2011-12-05T11:15:00.002-06:00

Either my baking skills are rapidly declining or these little things were just mean. I started making these back in August when I made the Brioche that goes in it. I made the Creme Anglaise that the brioche cubes have to sit in and never got around to making the rest of it.

Ever since then, the recipe has been staring at me from the index. The thing is, I didn't want to make another brioche. A few months ago I called several bakeries in town and one of them had brioche. I went to grab one but when I got there I was told that someone had just come and they bought the rest of them. All that to say, these have been cursed since the first time I opened the book.

This past week, I've started studying at Lusa, a Lebanese Bakery in town, and discovered that they make brioche! I special ordered one (it was only $6 for a huge loaf! That's probably cheaper than making it myself) and happily picked it up yesterday. I cut it, let it dry out, made the creme anglaise, and then let it soak up the creamy goodness.

Last night around 10:30 I started making the rest of it. Finals are this week so I wanted to go ahead and get it over with so I could spend all day today studying.

Here's where I suck. I didn't have a digital candy food thermometer so I used the old fashioned kind. I think this one is so old that it doesn't register the temperature quite right. Needless to say, on my fourth batch of caramel I finally got it right. I HATE making caramel. It's official. The final batch was still not totally normal. My roommate kindly suggested that I watch some tutorials online and then pulled up some pictures for me. That's how bad it was. But in the pictures online, they aren't putting water in their caramel. I'm convinced that the water is just not normal. I'll blame the recipe.

But about 10 minutes later it obviously wasn't the recipe because I had to make a second batch using turbinado sugar. Attempt 1: burned. Thankfully this one only took me two attempts.

It finally went in the oven and was ready (because of all the caramel issues) a little before 1. Should I mention again that I have finals this week?

I wasn't up for eating it last night so I woke up this morning and stuck them back in the oven to re-heat them.

I don't know if they really didn't taste that great, if somewhere along the way I messed up (probably most likely option) or if I had already made up my mind that they weren't good. I took a bite and threw the rest away.

But the good news is that they are done. The bad news is that finals are not.

I went to a coffee shop down the street to post and to start studying (ah!) and my friend who works there started asking me about the cakes. Then she said that this sounded really weird but that she had a dream about me last night. In her dream we were all hanging out but for some reason I had gained about 40 pounds. They were a bit concerned and asked if I had just been eating junk food or if something was wrong. I said that it was the cakes! She said in her dream I had to start seeing a therapist because the weight gain from all the cakes was making me psycho. I thought it was hilarious. I'm just hoping that it wasn't some strange prophesy haha.

Anyway, on to studying! Wish me luck!

68/99: Coconut Cheesecake

2011-12-01T01:25:00.003-06:00

Yeah, I know. Coconut is not a Christmas-y food item. But the recipe has been calling me because I love cheesecake and I love coconut. Let's just pretend that the coconut is supposed to be snow. It can even be in celebration of our first snowfall of the season that we got this week.

Though the coconut cheesecake was not difficult, it was time consuming--and not just in baking it. It took me forever at the grocery store because it called for cream of coconut--not coconut cream and not coconut milk. Rose was very specific. Being the novice that I am, I had no idea where to find cream of coconut. First I went to the baking aisle to look by all of the evaporated milk and spices. No luck. Then the canned fruit. Next stop- soups (I thought if they have cream of chicken then maybe they have cream of coconut... you can see how lost I am). Obviously that didn't work so I tried the oriental section since there's so much coconut in thai cooking. They had coconut milk but no cream of coconut.

I asked the first store worker I found if he knew where the cream of coconut was. He seemed like he was in his mid twenties and had probably never talked to a girl before. He shyly looked at his feet while he spoke back to me. He took me to the soup aisle again and slowly read the names of every soup on the shelf. As you can see, this was taking way too much time.

I finally went to the liquor store where I found out that that's a summer item. They asked what I was needing it for anyway since it's winter time. Shut up. I like coconut.

I went to another liquor store and was finally successful. But, the cake had already taken me an hour longer than planned.

When I got home I opened my cake pan cabinet (yep... I've stocked a whole cabinet now) to get out my 8 inch spring form pan to start on the cheesecake. To my horror, it wasn't there. Anywhere. I pulled every single pan, bowl, and pot out of all of the cabinets in the kitchen and still couldn't find the silly thing. So here I am, I've spent an hour looking for cream of coconut and almost another hour searching for the stupid pan. This cake better be worth it because I have way too many finals coming up to be spending this much time making a mediocre cake.

I finally settled for the 10 inch spring form pan which was way too big, but whatever. I didn't have enough cream cheese to double the cheesecake part so I just went with the original recipe. I was ready to get started.

When I was finally ready to put it in the oven it was about 11 o'clock. I set the timer for about 50 minutes and then started to read the rest of the recipe. After it cooks, you have to turn the oven off and let it cook for an hour. Then you have to take it out of the oven and let it cool for another hour. After that hour is up, you put it in the fridge overnight. That put me finished at 1:50. I did not sign up for this....

I've been kind of bitter against the cake ever since. Maybe it's just because I didn't get to sleep as much as I wanted and sleep is absolutely necessary for me in order to keep my sanity.

The final result was good but not 2 AM bedtime good. I did remember to double the crust recipe (my cheesecake rule) which made the cake much better. The crust was made primarily from vanilla wafers, coconut, and butter which makes a delicious combination. The cake itself was very creamy (almost too creamy... I wonder if it actually cooked all the way?) but still tasty. The man at the wine store was right though.... it is a summer cake.

I took it to a function where it went over really well. People seemed to really like it and all but one piece (the piece for my roommate) got eaten. I'd say the end was a success even if it was a headache getting there.

67/99: Apple Upside Down Cake

2011-11-25T17:06:00.002-06:00

The apple upside down cake was really fun because one of my friends, Augusta, came over to help! It was so great! I normally don't like upside down cakes because I think they're kind of ugly but seeing as this is the first recipe in Rose's Heavenly Cakes, it certainly needed to be tried.

I let my mom pick a Thanksgiving cake and this was her choice. She loves apple so this one was an easy pick.

Before I get busy talking about the cake though, I want to take a second to clarify something. I have been surprised at how many people have stopped me to ask if I think I can actually make my deadline. They've been very concerned that I'm behind. I didn't understand where the concern came from but then someone mentioned that I was going to have to make a cake every day till the end of the year if I was going to make it. Then it clicked. Somehow people got the impression that I was going to try to make them all by the end of 2011. So just to clarify, my deadline is actually in April since I am not superwomen, I am a full time student, I'd like to maintain my weight, and since my goal is one year from when I started. Check out the ticker on the top right side of my blog to see the countdown.

The apples that Rose recommended were not carried in my grocery store so I went with pink ladies. Those are supposed to be pretty good in pies right? They ended up working just fine.

So first you slice the apples and toss them in lemon juice and brown sugar to let them have some extra flavor.

Then you whip up the batter.

Then you make a brown sugary/caramel sauce to put on the bottom of the pan before you arrange the apples.

And that's about it! Once it comes out of the oven, you add chopped walnuts and then serve with some bourbon whipped cream. I'm not a huge fan of bourbon, but the bourbon in the whipped cream actually added a wonderful flavor. I was definitely a fan.

The cake turned out really well and wasn't as ugly as my last upside down cake. It reminded me of apple streudel that you get in Vienna. It wasn't as sweet as I like my cakes so I think I prefer apple crisp or apple pie but if you prefer desserts that aren't as sweet, this one is definitely a good choice.

66/99: Sybil's Pecan Torte with Coffee Cream

2011-11-24T13:25:00.001-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving!

I've been cooking up a storm getting ready for everyone to come over tonight for Thanksgiving dinner. My part of the deal was to make dessert and sweet potato casserole. Normally, sweet potato casserole doesn't take that long but when you have to peel and mash potatoes for 20+ people, it is quite the endeavor.

But in the true spirit of Thanksgiving, here are two things that I am thankful for:

1. coffee. I tried to go without yesterday and I thought I was dying. I almost called my doctor (my brother in law) but thankfully after one little sip of coffee, my world turned rosy again.
2. holidays. Lots of food and an excuse to blow the diet. Plus family and friends (i'm trying to stay away from the cliche answers but YES I am thankful for all of you)

This cake, of course, combined the two beautifully.

The pecan torte was a last minute decision since I was planning on making the Holiday Pinecone Cake. But, lo and behold, I started to make it last night and realized that the fondant had to be made 24 hours in advance and you have to cover the cake 6 hours before you eat it. I didn't have that much time but I had lots of pecans so it was an easy switch.

The pecan torte has some espresso in it too which I adore. So here's the espresso and sugar:

You mix that in with egg yolks, and pecans:

Then you add the meringue:

And it's ready to go:

Then for the top there's an espresso cream. Is basically whipped cream, espresso powder, and gelatin to give it a little extra hold. yum.

This one turned out to be everyone's favorite! It was really light and airy but still had a distinct flavor. One lady even asked for the recipe. We still have some left so I will definitely be getting into that soon.

Happy Thanksgiving Day!

65/99: Cradle Cake

2011-11-20T19:59:00.001-06:00

Rose describes her cradle cake as "magical." It was the winner of the Pillsbury bake off and I can definitely see why. It's a really different cake but in a good way.

The cake is made with an egg yolk batter that is surrounded by a dacquoise. A dacquoise, as Rose explains, is "a meringue with a touch of bitter chocolate and nuts that cradles the cake batter as it bakes." Yum.

I got really worried after I put all of the batter in the pan because I felt that the recipe yielded way too little batter. The daquoise overwhelmed it. Check it out:

But, despite my worries, it actually turned out well. Because I didn't use a silicone pan, I had a little trouble getting it out of the back but thankfully it came out in one piece.

I think the cradle cake might actually be one of the better cakes in the book. I'm even taking it home tomorrow to let my family have a go at it.

Rose's Heavenly Cakes- page 60

Rosemary Butter

2011-11-20T14:36:00.001-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

I know, I know. We still have a week till Thanksgiving Day. But, this weekend officially begins THANKSGIVING BREAK! It was definitely time. I spent the weekend doing absolutely nothing in order to regain my sanity and today, my roommates and I have been cleaning out our house before heading home for the holidays.

I had an unopened carton of heavy whipping cream in the fridgerator and I couldn't bear to throw it out unused. I was looking at food porn online (seriously, the name is completely appropriate- check it out http://www.foodporn.net/) and suddenly became inspired to make butter. But normal butter is no fun. I went outside and chopped some rosemary, threw some garlic in there, and added some salt and red pepper.

Making butter is incredibly easy. My only memory of making butter goes back to about first grade when we got to churn butter in class. My muscles were small then and it was exhausting. My butter didn't turn out as well as my friends. I'm a pretty competitive person so butter making has never had it's same appeal since then.

Enter Kitchen Aid.

Now butter is incredibly easy and pretty fool-proof. First you just whip the heavy cream until it granulates.

Then you squeeze out all of the left over liquid (it's buttermilk).

Then its time to add the herbs. Here's the rosemary:

And then the red pepper, garlic, and salt:

And that's it!! It was really delicious. I was actually probably a little too proud of it. I put it on some cut up slices of bread and put it in the oven and yummmmmy. It was fantastic.

Now I might just make my own butter!

64/99: Chocolate Tweed Angel Food Cake

2011-11-15T00:18:00.004-06:00

The Chocolate Tweed Angel Food Cake was for a get together with RUF at Rowan Oak. I was a little late getting there but apparently that was a good thing because as soon as I arrived a man came running outside from the house to talk to us about the cake.

For those of you who aren't English buffs, Rowan Oak is the home of William Faulkner. It has running trails all around it and beautiful grounds where people go on walks or play Frisbee. It's a great family-friendly location. Here's what the house looks like:

It's gorgeous, right? Anyway, the man came running out of the front door and, looking at the cake, asked us if we were having a birthday party. We said no and then told him that we were just enjoying the beautiful day and brought a cake along with us. We thought he wanted a piece or something.

But oh no. We got a lecture about how Rowan Oak is a historical monument and not a state park. Apparently people are only allowed to come to pay homage to Faulkner. Having a cake turns the whole gathering into a birthday party and that is absolutely not allowed. A birthday party requires state permission which, in my opinion, is completely absurd. I really don't think Faulkner would have minded us having a cake but we moved to the back of the property anyway to cut into it. This little one especially seemed to enjoy it:

But anyway, making the cake wasn't difficult but for some reason it was time consuming. It is a genoisé so of course the main ingredient in this one is egg whites.

First, you sift your dry ingredients out:

Then you grate the chocolate. This was no small task. My roommate was still asleep so I couldn't use the food processor to do it quickly. Using the old fashioned cheese grater, it probably took me about 20 minutes to get all 56 grams of chocolate. My arm was killing me.

Then it's time to make the meringue:

You know those kids games where you have to look at a jar and guess how many gumballs are in it? Ok check out these eggs shells and take a guess how many eggs went into this cake.

Answer: the recipe called for sixteen egg whites. I bought the extra large eggs though and only went through thirteen. Still, that's a ton of eggs.

After combining all of the ingredients (meringue, dry ingredients, chocolate), it was ready to go in the oven for about 30 minutes.

But I couldn't throw the 13 remaining egg yolks away. That's just wasteful. My solution: make some pasta!! So while the cake was in the oven (and before I started on the icing) I combined the egg yolks with some flour, olive oil, and water to make a nice pasta dough.

Despite the lack of symmetry in the noodles since I had to roll and cut them by hand, the result was pretty tasty--and just in time for lunch!

By the time I was done eating, the cake was ready to come out of the oven. It had to cool for a couple of hours so Rose said to put it on a wine bottle so that the bottom could cool as well:

Then for the icing:

Basically, you whip some heavy cream and then add chocolate shavings (this time I used the food processor!) and almonds.

In the end, the cake turned out well. The icing tasted like cookies and cream ice cream which everyone seemed to enjoy. But as delicious as the icing was, I felt that the cake could have had more vanilla in it or something else because it didn't have a distinct flavor. On the up side, I heard compliments all around so the cake seemed to be a success!

Rose's Heavenly cakes- page 159

63/99: Pumpkin Cake with Burnt Orange Buttercream

2011-11-08T21:28:00.000-06:00

Now that the multicolored leaves are fluttering all around when I walk from class to class, it seems appropriate to bake a cake shaped like a pumpkin. I wanted to save it for a special occasion so that it would have a worthy crowd but when a friend asked if she could use me for a magazine project for her class, I knew that the pumpkin cake would be perfect for her; it's cute and its seasonal.

Though the cake wasn't particularly difficult to make, it was time consuming. But, since I've had a few comments about my lack of photos in the process of baking, I took some extra time for you faithful readers out there to provide you with step by step photos once again.

So here we go. To make the cake, you sift all of the dry ingredients on to a piece of parchment paper so that you can easily add it to the batter later. The spices include cinnamon and nutmeg.

Then you mix your liquid ingredients. I had to buy a new ingredient for this cake and I was completely shocked that my local grocery store carried it:

Then you beat in pumpkin puree and vanilla:

Once you add the flour mixture, you put them into the two individual, rounded pans. For some reason I already had a spherical pan... I think I made a basketball cake or something of the sort as a junior high student. I had to dig in the bottom of the boxes in the attic to find this old friend.

One of the cakes was a little lopsided but that was ok because in the end you cut the tops of them off so that they fit nicely on top of each other.

Then it was time to make the burnt orange silk meringue buttercream.

When I first read that, I thought I was going to have to burn an orange to get some sort of smoked flavor. But then I realized it was just a blonde moment. Burnt orange refers to the color. But, not to completely discredit myself, you do put orange concentrate and orange zest in the icing.

There's a three step process to get the final product.

Step 1: make the Creme Anglaise. Cream Anglaise is basically caramel with some egg yolks. The yolks make it thick and delicious. Thankfully I didn't burn the caramel (I think i'm finally getting better at it- knock on wood) and it all turned out well the first time.

Step 2: Italian Meringue. I don't have a picture but just imagine a normal meringue. It's nothing special.

Step 3: Complete the butter cream:

First you whip the butter in the stand mixer.

Then you add the creme anglaise and then the meringue. Next you add the orange flavor and the orange color. Viola- Burnt Orange Silk Meringue Buttercream. It's a mouthful to say it but it tastes divine.

I finally iced the cake and got busy on the decorations. I tinted some of the icing brown by adding a bit of cocoa powder to the batter. Then I went to work on the leaves. Rose colored her leaves different colors but I stuck with the basic green. I just used some old gum paste I had tucked away somewhere, colored it green, and then shaped them. They dried for awhile and then I assembled the whole cake!

I was really proud of the final product!

I took it to a party tonight and dropped it off so I didn't actually get to taste a slice. I did, however, taste the pieces that I cut off and put a bit of icing on them so I know that it tasted pretty good. It was really moist and a delicious recipe for a pumpkin cake!

Rose's Heavenly Cakes page 125

62/99: Baby Chocolate Oblivions

2011-11-07T13:57:00.001-06:00

As mentioned in the Coconut Cake post, these little guys were a last minute decision that took forever to cool. I was rushed on time and so I had to make these within an hour. Thankfully, that seemed easy because there are only 4 ingredients in the cake. The ingredients were pretty loud though. You can just feel the pounds (no pun intended) as you read what's in it:

1 POUND of dark chocolate

2 STICKS of butter

3 tablespoons of sugar

6 eggs

So as you can see, they are basically mini flourless chocolate cakes. Personally, I love flourless chocolate cake so I was pretty excited. But since they're so strong, I think it's difficult for some people to handle them sometimes.

But as easy as it seems, they were also a huge headache.

You have to bake them in a silicone muffin pan. Not a problem right? But you have to put the silicone muffin pan in a roasting pan and you have to fill the roasting pan with water so that the sides of each cavity are completely immersed in water.

My problem: I don't have a roasting pan to fit the muffin tin. I wasn't about to go buy one so I decided to use a baking sheet with half inch siding and just fill it all the way to the top with water.

OK so that sounds brilliant so far. I'd like to call it thrifty. But think about trying to get a pan out of the oven that is completely filled to the brim with boiling water. Rose recommended using a poultry baster to get the water out but that didn't work. Somehow when I sucked the water into it, it all squirted back out immediately. So then my oven got drenched and some of my little chocolate oblivions got soaked with water.

The next plan was to risk it. I got out all the kitchen towels that I could find, hoping that if it spilled the towels would prevent my hands from being burned. I know someone out there is probably reading this thinking of how much of an idiot I am. Dear reader, you may be right.

I ended up being so scared that I leaned the pan too far forward (away from my hands) and it spilled all over the floor. But better the floor than myself... my floor probably needed a good cleaning anyway.

But with boiling water puddles spreading all around me I tried to get to the counter top without drenching my shoes. I finally made it and hopelessly tried to use the poultry baster to get the water off of the few soaked chocolate oblivions. Finally, I just abandoned the whole thing altogether. That's when I decided that Coconut Cake would be the best option.

Some of the cakes turned out ok. I took them to the party anyway knowing that they probably wouldn't be the best dessert there. But that's ok-- you can't win them all, right?

At the party people said they liked them but they weren't the best cake that I've made. I know, I know- in southern lingo that means it tastes horrible. But in this case that wasn't true. I actually had a long discussion about them and that was the conclusion of it.

I saved one for Liz though and she said it was divine. I guess you just can't mess up chocolate for some people.

Baby Chocolate Oblivions

Rose's Heavenly Cakes- page 371

Live in the kitchen: Barcelona Brownie Bars

2011-11-03T18:02:00.001-05:00

The Queen of Cakes from Betsy Lynch on Vimeo.

Here's Betsy's video, as promised. I think I pronounced Rose's name wrong so just ignore that part. Check out the Barcelona Brownie Bars post for more details!

Fresh Coconut Cake

2011-11-03T15:19:00.001-05:00

A friend of mine asked me to bring a cake to an event last night and I happily agreed. I made the Baby Chocolate Oblivions from Rose's Heavenly Cakes but then I realized that they probably wouldn't have enough time to cool for the party. It was supposed to take 4 hours for them to cool.

So fresh from the book signing with Jodi Rhoden, I decided to quickly try out one of her cakes for the party. I had exactly an hour before I had to leave for a meeting. I could bake the coconut for 15 minutes while I prepped the cake. Then I could stick the cake in the oven for 20 minutes. That's 35 minutes total. I could make the icing and grate the coconut while it's cooking. Let it cool for 10 and then ice it in 15. It's brilliant, right? Exactly one hour.

I opened the fridge and the pantry to begin but discovered that I had all the ingredients except the essentials: eggs, milk, and butter. I thought I could make it to wal-mart and back and then swing back home later on to ice the cake right before the party.

Lesson of the day: always allot extra time. Making a cake on the run, especially a coconut cake, is not always the best idea. Here's why:

1. Have you ever had to crack and shave a coconut? Those things don't mess around. See below for more details on that.

2. Things always go wrong. First I didn't have the right pans. The recipe calls for 3 nine inch pans but I only had two. I had three eight inch pans but one of them was silicone. I went for it anyway with the 8 inch.

3. Then I made a baking mistake. I didn't put parchment paper in the bottom of the silicone pan because I thought silicone would pull off easily. I learned my lesson when that layer practically fell apart when I tried to unmold it.

4. I ran out of cream of tartar when making the icing. As a result, it didn't get to the right consistency.

5. The motor on the hand held mixer died within 5 seconds of turning it on so I had to whisk for 7 minutes straight to try to get the icing to reach the right consistency--even though it was ultimately impossible because it lacked a teaspoon of cream of tartar. Whisking for 7 minutes is quite a task for my measly little muscles.

As a result, I didn't have time to finish it for the party after all. I left it in the oven and asked my roommate to take it out.

I finally finished it last night before I went to bed. Then I was a bad girl: I used half fresh coconut and half store-bought coconut because I got sick of shaving it and couldn't tell a huge difference in the taste. So I guess I cheated a bit.

I cut into the cake this afternoon and it was well worth the work. The cake itself has a wonderful, buttery flavor and the three layers of coconut icing in between add the perfect amount of flavor.

After speaking with Jodi yesterday, I learned that it was fine to post some of the recipes. So if you're in the mood to make a delicious coconut cake, please take a look at this recipe!

Here's what you have to do for the coconut:

1. get your coconut out and preheat the oven to 400 F.

Search the coconut for the "three eyes."

Use an ice pick to poke a hole in one of the three eyes at the end of the coconut (two of the eyes will be too hard; one will be just soft enough to puncture through). Wiggle the pick around to widen the hole.

Drain the coconut water through the hole into a bowl. The water should be fresh and taste pleasant (if it is at all greasy or fowl tasting, your coconut is rancid--start over with a fresh coconut).

You'll get more coconut water than you think.

Place the coconut on a cookie sheet in the oven. Bake at 400 for no more than 15 minutes to loosen the hull.

Remove the coconut and allow it to cool.

Thankfully the coconut cracked a bit in the oven.

Then you beat the hull with a mallet until the hard outer hull cracks.

Peel off the hull with your hands, revealing the softer, inner rind. Peel the innter rind with a vegetable peeler.

What remains is the fresh, white coconut meat. Rinse off any debris from the hull, and grate the meat with a cheese grater.

Fresh Coconut Cake

Prep Time: 15 Minutes plus 20 minutes for the coconut

Baking time: 20-25 minutes, plus 15 minutes for the coconut

Decorating time: 15 minutes

Ingredients:

For the cake:
2 sticks butter, softened
2 cups sugar
4 eggs, at room temperature
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk, at room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

For the 7 minute icing:
2 egg whites
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1/3 cup cold water
dash of salt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Fresh, grated meat of 1 coconut

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Prepare the pans:
Spray the bottom and sides of three 9-ich round cake pans liberally with cooking spray. Place the pans on a sheet of parchment paper and trace three circles of the same size as the bottoms of the pans. Cut the circles out and place in the bottoms of the greased pans.

Make the batter:
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating the mixture well with each addition. Scrape down the bottom and sides of the bowl, and beat again until the mixture is smooth, light, and creamy.

In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

Add the flour mixture to the creamed mixture in three batches, alternating with the milk, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. Add the vanilla. Beat the batter until smooth after each addition.

Bake the cake:
Gently scrape the batter into the pans, distributing all of the batter evenly among the three pans. Place in the preheated oven, and bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean and the sides of the cake have pulled away from the sides of the pan. Allow the cakes to cool in the pans, then remove from the pans and det aside until you are ready to ice them.

Make the 7 minute icing:
Fill the bottom of a double boiler with water and bring it to a boil. Turn the heat down to medium to maintain a steady simmer. In the top of a double boiler, combine all the ingredients except the vanilla and the fresh coconut, and beat with an electric handheld mixer (you can also whip the mixture by hand with a whisk) for 7 minutes or until the icing holds a stiff peak. Remove from heat, add the vanila, and then beat the icing to incorporate the vanilla.

Cake Ladies: Book signing with Jodi Rhoden

2011-11-02T23:13:00.007-05:00

Today was yet another wonderful day at Square Books. But, unlike the Paula day, this time I actually got to breathe in the store.

I went to a book signing for the cookbook Cake Ladies by Jodi Rhoden. For those of you who aren't familiar with her, she's pretty wonderful. Luckily for me, it was a small turn out so I actually got to speak with her for awhile.

Reasons why Jodi is cooler than Paula:
1. She didn't start sentences or conversations with comments about butter.
2. She had wine and cheese at her book signing.
3. She blogs about gardening and spirituality and baking and anything else that is on her mind. I kind of have the feeling that Paula doesn't actually have time to tour, write cookbooks, write articles for her magazine, and film a cooking show all on her own.
4. Her content is fascinating and unique.

Jodi described her book as a feminist ethnography study on cake ladies. For those of you who don't know, I am a sociology major and my favorite part of my major is doing ethnography. I spent time in Rome doing a study on Roman identity (food is a big part of it) and loved every minute of it. And, if you can't tell, my other passion is cake. Jodi combined these two subjects beautifully in Cake Ladies. What is a cake lady you ask? This is how she describes it:

"Almost every town in the South, large or small, has its cake lady. These are women who bake the cakes for their community's special occasions: weddings, birthdays, church barbeques, and even funerals."

If you think about it, you can probably name a woman in your community who is known as the cake lady. You might even be the cake lady yourself.

I bought the book last week and had a lot of fun reading about the stories of cake ladies from all over the south. Every woman had a story to tell about how she got to be the cake lady and how that position had given her a certain strength.

So now I'm inspired.

I've been thinking about food a lot lately and I believe that it's an integral part of community. On my quotes page, I posted a quote by Bunny Crumpacker on the importance of food in relationships. He said, "when we stop loving, eating together is no joy, and when we no longer love to eat together, we no longer love so well either."

I completely agree with him. Relationships revolve around food in so many ways. The first intimate relationship we have is with our mother and that connection is primarily because of her role as a care taker and a food giver. When we grow up we go on dates to restaurants and we spent time with our families and friends around the dinner table. Even in the Bible it speaks of the disciples and how "they broke bread together." Food is meant to be communal.

I think that sitting down at a meal or even sharing a slice of cake with someone is a part of celebrating life. It's how we build relationships and it helps us love more fully.

That's why I appreciate Jodi's book so much. She discovered women who bring communities together through cakes and then she recorded their stories (and their recipes!!) to share with her readers.

Like I said, I'm really inspired. I just don't know what to do with my inspiration. I kind of want to write--but about what? Je ne sais pas.

I'm trying out the Fresh Coconut Cake (I actually bought a coconut that I have to figure out how to crack) from one of her cake ladies, Mary Moon. It's cooling now so be looking out for a cake review soon!

Lingerie Shower: Booty Cake

2011-11-01T15:23:00.000-05:00

As mentioned in my previous post, last Thursday Betsy came over because she had a little cake emergency. The dilemma: lingerie shower that weekend and a cake box with no ideas on what to do. We got to work on that real fast.

I love making cakes, as you know, but I really love making cakes that are really different. I quickly did some google research and got inspired by one cake that didn't look super hard to do. We nixed the fondant and decided to make the butt a little bit more sexy.

It was really pretty simple. I used a rectangular pan to make the base and then a loaf pan to make the butt rise up. Then I cut the rectangle in the shape of a heart. The loaf was then split in half and carved into the individual, ahem, cheeks. After putting the panties on it, I covered them with red edible glitter to make them stand out a little bit more.

The result was pretty hysterical. A lot of jokes came out of this one. I think I had "baby got back" stuck in my head for a solid hour after finishing up the cake.

Betsy said that the girls at the party loved the cake! I thought it was pretty funny myself.

61/99: Barcelona Brownie Bars

2011-10-31T20:59:00.004-05:00

These little guys were quite the experience. Here's why:

One of my friends, Betsy, is a journalism major and has a video project due for one of her classes. I made her a cake this weekend (just wait till you see it) for a bridal shower and so she had the brilliant idea of creating a cooking show / expo for her assignment.

At 5:30, Betsy walked in and shouted hello. A few seconds later I turned around and saw the professional Hollywood sized camera looking me in straight the eye. I was expecting a hand held camcorder with a janky tripod but this thing was probably taller than I am. Microphone included.

Kitchen cleaned, ingredients prepped, and oven preheated, I put on a smile and introduced myself and my hobby to the camera. We walked through the process, step by step, until the brownie bars came out of the oven and were ready for tasting. The tasting part was probably the most awkward thing on the camera. I think it took four tries. I really don't know how Paula and Ina do it so gracefully every time. The first time I took too big of a bite and couldn't swallow it fast enough to speak. The second time some of the crumbs didn't quite make it in my mouth, and the third time we felt so cheesy that we couldn't stop laughing.

Betsy is putting the video together later this week so as soon as I get it back I'll post it (assuming I didn't make a fool out of myself).

The brownie bars ended up being a success. The secret ingredient is cream cheese which makes them extra moist. They are also filled and topped with ganche which really makes them gooey and delicious. Elizabeth put one in her mouth and exclaimed, "this is divine!!" That means a lot too because Elizabeth will tell you what she really thinks. I really liked them as well. I haven't had brownies in a long time and they were a perfect treat for the end of a long day.

Here's my cooking show pose:

The Harry Potter Cake

2011-10-29T12:26:00.000-05:00

Disclaimer: If you can't identify all of the items represented on the cake then we may not be able to be friends anymore.

This weekend is kind of a dead weekend in Oxford because it's an away game and a lot of people left to go support our dying football team. Elizabeth and I decided to have our own fun in Oxford. And what can be more fun than having a Harry Potter night?

Before I go any farther though, I must give full credit to the beautiful cake above to Liz. I was a terrible friend and started slacking after the fondant was made because I couldn't keep my eyes off of Harry. We started with the first movie while we were baking and I guess I got a little distracted. As a result, she worked her own magic in the kitchen. So Liz is either a muggle and a secret cake decorator who can whip out amazing cakes on command, or she is actually a Harry Potter character and has just been hiding that wand from the rest of us. I guess none of us will ever know.

By the end of Harry Potter 1 and an NCIS episode, Liz had completed the masterpiece. It includes the snitch, Harry's broomstick (the firebolt), the gryffindor scarf, the sorting hat, Harry's wand, and the cake itself which represents the Marauder's Map. We got the idea from google images which took us to a picture blog. We changed it up a bit though by adding a few of our own ideas.

The result was so cute that I just had to post about it and brag about Liz. The Harry Potter cake was definitely a success. Now we're just scared to cut into it.

60/99: Marble Cake

2011-10-28T00:22:00.000-05:00

I bought the Heritage bundt pan from William Sonoma a few weeks ago and have been dying to use it. I just haven't had a bundt cake opportunity lately. I used to really dislike bundt cakes because I thought they were boring and too grown up. A bundt cake is the Christmas gift from the neighbor that no one really wants. I always think of My Big Fat Greek Wedding's quote, "there's a hole in this cake!" Honestly who can't relate? Why do we have cakes with holes in them?

But the heritage pan is just cool. It's worth having a hole in the cake. And totally worth making a bundt cake. I should have taken downward shot because it looks like a flying saucer. And just so you know, flying saucer = cool. (Note- this is not an advertisement / sponsored by Nordicware- I just really like their pan).

The marble cake was pretty basic. It's a butter cake with a whopping 2+ sticks of butter. Once you make the vanilla batter, you separate about 1/3 of it and add a bunch of chocolate. Then comes the tricky part: Rose said to put a third of the batter in the bottom of the pan and then put dollops of the chocolate on top. Then you repeat. Eventually you end up with 2 layers of chocolate dollops and 3 layers of vanilla. Then you have to get a tablespoon and make some sort of wavelike motion by sticking it through the cake.

Have you ever painted and mixed a little bit of black with a little bit of white? As much as you would just love to swirl the two together, most of the time it just turns out to be grey mess. That's exactly what I was expecting with this cake: light brown mess. The good thing is that no matter how it looked, I knew it would taste good.

Thankfully it turned out to look more like a rainbow than a puddle:

The ganache on top was just chocolate and heavy cream. It was the perfect compliment to the cake underneath.

I took it to a party and I think it got overshadowed by about 20 other desserts that other people brought. Only a few slices were eaten. But, the people who ate them told me they were really good. That's always good news. Once I brought it home, my friends finished off the majority of the rest of it. We all liked it-especially the ganache (straight chocolate never fails). Sadly, after having the pumpkin cheesecake the day before, the cake was definitely overshadowed for the week. It's a great marble cake recipe but it wasn't a cake to write home about.

59/99: Pure Pumpkin Cheesecake

2011-10-26T08:33:00.002-05:00

My roommates and I have been in a pumpkin phase for the past couple weeks. It's that time of year where when you eat a dessert (or anything really) you want it to taste like fall. We've had pumpkin cake, pumpkin cupcakes, pumpkin seeds, pumpkin lattes, and there are even quite a few carved pumpkins sitting outside my door. I love it.

So since we're on the pumpkin kick, pumpkin cheesecake was the lucky choice for a dinner party.

And by dinner party, I mean the ultimate dinner party. One of my friends, Hunter, can do some magic in the kitchen. He works in one of the best restaurants in town as a chef and has also cooked some in New Orleans. All that to say, his food is incredible. It's been one of my goals for the year to somehow get him to cook for me because his food is that impressive. We finally made plans for last night and so it happened. We called up our friends, got every one to chip in some $, and feasted on pork tenderloin with some exquisite roasted tomato topping and rosemary mashed potatoes (request of Bobby). For dessert- pure pumpkin cheesecake!

Of course when making cheesecake you have to start the day before so that there's enough time for it to chill in the fridge. I made my grocery list and was proud because I only had to get 2 ingredients! High five for a stocked kitchen. I came back home, got the rest of the ingredients out, and proceeded to make the cheesecake.

The crust was part 1 and it ended up being particularly delicious. It's made with gingersnap cookies, toasted pecans, brown sugar, and butter. Half way through making it I realized that I forgot my cheesecake rule: always double the crust. I didn't have enough pecans to double it so I just continued without the extra layer.

But as I spread the crust over the pan, I realized that it wasn't quite covering it all the way. What was I doing wrong?

It was the wrong pan size. I needed a 9" spring form and this was a 10". I tore apart my kitchen twice looking for the 9" but it was determined not to be found. So then I was left with the options of continuing to make the cheesecake without crust on the sides, make the crust on the sides with almonds instead of pecans, or go back to the grocery store to get more pecans. If you know me at all then you have no doubt in what I decided. Back to wal-mart it was. My 2 ingredient, easy shopping list was laughing in my face now.

Yesterday, I finished up the cake by making the caramel drizzle that goes on top. I swear every time I make the stuff the same thing happens. Here's the process:

Batch 1: use the nonstick skillet rather than a saucepan so that the caramel doesn't stick and so clean up is easier.

Result: It doesn't cook even enough, the caramel burns, and I throw it away.

Batch 2: use the small saucepan and take it off the heat when it hits the right temperature.

Result: the temperature continues to rise after it's off the heat and it burns. At this point I usually burn a finger, get mad, and open a bottle of wine.

Batch 3: small saucepan again (after working hard to get the hardened, burned caramel out of it) but this time with the stove set barely above simmer. I took it off the heat 10 degrees before just to be safe.

Result: success

Seriously. This happens every single time. Don't believe me? Check out the Karmel Cake or the Mud Turtle Cupcakes. I have got to learn my lessons better.

But the end product was worth it. The majority of my friends have tried almost every cake I've made in the past few months and they said it was seriously the best one yet. The caramel on top was a delicious addition and the pumpkin in the middle wasn't too strong or too weak. It was the perfect combination of flavors and now I'm kind of glad that I made 10 inches of it rather than 9! I might even make it again for my family for Thanksgiving or Christmas!

58/99: Chocolate Molten Soufflee and Lava Cakes

2011-10-20T15:38:00.000-05:00

When I was going into 11th grade, my parents and I went to New York so that I could get on a plane to go to a conference in Vienna. The night before I left, my dad and I went to Morton's Steak House to have a goodbye steak dinner. Since the meal was celebratory in nature, we vouched for dessert to compliment our meal. The choice: Chocolate molten lava cake. We actually had to order the dessert before we ordered the meal so that it could cook while we were eating to be ready in time. It was that special.

The Morton's molten lava cake completely lived up to it's expectations. I enjoyed every bite of it and ever since then, I have considered chocolate molten lava cake to be only for special occasions.

You can see my excitement around making this cake.

I knew it was on the schedule for this past Monday so I've been talking it up to all my friends for at least a week. I think I gave everyone a chocolate craving. I planned to make it on Sunday afternoon but, at the last minute, I drove to Jackson to celebrate my dad's birthday. It actually worked out well because when I got to Jackson, I was able to go to fresh market to get the chocolate! Since the cake was going to be a special one, it seemed appropriate to splurge on chocolate.

But Rose said that I had to use between 60 and 62% chocolate. If it's under 60% then it won't be thick enough and if it's over 62% it will be too thick.   I stood in front of the rows and rows of chocolate and turned every single one of them over at least twice looking for the right percentages. There were tons in the 70s and in the 40s. There was chocolate with pepper and pistachio. But of course there was no 60-62% dark chocolate. I ended up going to the grocery store and getting the old, boring Ghirardelli chocolate that you can get at wal-mart. Bummer.

On Monday morning, I was ready to get baking. My mom said there was heavy whipping cream in the freezer so I had thawed it the night before and stuck it in the fridge. The result: nasty. It wasn't the right consistency and was definitely a weird color. I googled and found that it is ok to freeze heavy cream; you just can't expect to make something like a ganache with it. typical. Back to the grocery store. I'll call this trip three since I already went to Fresh Market and then to Kroger.

I made the ganache and stuck it into the egg carton to harden for several hours. Around 1 o'clock (I made it at 8 so it's been at least 5 hours) I checked it and it was still not hard enough. You could pour it like Hershey's syrup.

Since I had to head back to Oxford for class, I trashed the ganache and decided to start over.   That meant that I had to go back to the grocery store to get more chocolate in Oxford. That's trip number 4. I finally made the ganache again on Tuesday night and then finished them yesterday. They sat overnight in the fridge as recommended and then they were ready for eating today!

The final result: Good but not worth the work or the wait or the anticipation. I expected Morton's but instead I got Applebees.   I had 5 of my friends try them and we all agreed that they were really good but not exceptional. Maybe I've just built up the cakes in my mind since the first experience so that nothing can compare.

Paula Deen Day

2011-10-19T14:37:00.002-05:00

A few weeks ago, I went to this adorable, locally owned book store called Square Books to study. I bought a book and, as I was checking out, I signed up for the bookstore newsletter. Lo and behold, as soon as I turned it over, I discovered that PAULA DEEN was coming to Oxford in 3 weeks! I started to freak out a little bit. I tweeted about it, made it my facebook status, added it to my calendar, and then proceeded to tell all of my friends about the wonderful news that I had heard.

It was my midterm happy. These past few weeks have been really stressful with papers and midterms so I kept telling myself that If I could just get through them then I would get to meet Paula Deen.

Well, Ladies and Gents, today was the day. Paula Deen was scheduled to be at Square Books at 11. You had to buy a copy of her new cookbook, the Southern Cooking Bible, from the bookstore and then you could get it signed. I got up early this morning (skipped my bible study at 9:30) so that I could get to the bookstore a little after 10. I was absolutely elated. I even straightened my hair all the way.

I got there around 10:30 (I left my camera at home so I had to go back and get it) and the line was already wrapped around the outside of the bookstore. It was moving pretty quickly though so I wasn't too worried. I estimated that I'd be out of there within an hour- heck maybe even 30 minutes if it kept moving this fast.

About 10 minutes into the line I learned that this wasn't actually the line to see Paula. This was the line to get a number to see Paula. Paula was actually at the other part of the bookstore which was down the street. No wonder it was moving so fast.

I finally was able to move through the doorway and was about 5th in line. I could see the register and even hear the cash drawer opening and closing. I don't know who still uses cash but then I realized that everyone in line around me could probably get the senior citizen discount at Piccadilly.

The drawer closed and I was ready to be number 4. Then the cashier looked up at all of us crazed women in line and announced that all of the numbers had been sold out. Only those who had pre-ordered a book could pick up their number. We were welcome to buy a copy of the book but only those who actually had a number could see Paula.

You don't even want to know what kind of words were going through my head. I started talking with the other women standing in line beside me. What should we do? Sneak in? Buy a book anyway and just leave? Yell? Complain? Revolt? Cry?

Like it or not, the last idea seemed to be the only option. I'm so passive aggressive.

I decided to never watch Paula again on TV. I would never buy her cookbooks. Her food is so bad for you anyway. Plus, she's just a little freaky. Orange skin with white hair? Plus she's 64 years old and doesn't have a wrinkle on her face. No thank you.

But despite my protests, I could definitely feel the tears building up behind my eyes. I was determined to not be that girl. I will not cry because I can't see Paula Deen. This is absurd.

I started walking down the street to Bottletree Bakery where I could divulge myself in cake and coffee. Sugar... that's what I need. Cake always cheers me up. And Bottletree is one of my favorite places in Oxford. I thought that if I could just make it there then I wouldn't cry. I did my yoga breathing along the way. In 1-2-3-4. Pause. Out 1-2-3-4. Pause.

Freezing because of the freak cold weather front, I walked up to the door of Bottletree. I reached for the handle and then noticed a paper sign on the door with a message written in sharpie: "Bottletree will close at 11:00 AM today." I looked at my watch. 11:03. You've got to be kidding me.

I had about 3 minutes to get to my car before the tears started rolling.

Then, my angel came. I got a text from my dear friend Wyeth that said, "I just saw you!! I'm in bottletree, do you need something?" Um yes I need something. I need some cake and some coffee and some Paula Deen.

I called her and she opened the door to Bottletree for me and the people working served me even though they were closed. I angrily shared my saga with her and my other friend that was there, Augusta. Then they solved all my problems. They both had a number so I could just tag along with them and meet Paula!

We walked around the square for a little while and then sat and got more coffee. Of course the extra caffeine in my system made me even more excited about seeing Paula because I was basically bouncing off the walls. But finally, around 1:30, they called our number: 293 (There were 500 so we were actually doing pretty good). I discovered in line that with every number, you can get 2 books signed. So my resolve to never support her again changed and I dished out 30 bucks to get her book. I handed the book off to Wyeth and tossed my camera to her boyfriend.

It worked! I got my cookbook signed, I got a picture with Paula (sort of) and I got to spend the afternoon with friends. I might have skipped a class or two but it doesn't matter. 20 years from now I might be cooking out of Paula Deen's book but I'll never be thinking about Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde. Totally worth it.

57/99: Spice Cake with Peanut Buttercream

2011-10-18T15:44:00.001-05:00

Well, guys, it's been awhile. I don't know if you've been hungry for another post but I sure have. This past week has been absolutely insane. One word: midterm. But it's OK. They are all done and A or not, I don't have to worry about them again.

So this weekend my plan was to celebrate with a bit of baking and wine. Of course Ole Miss played (some might argue that they didn't actually play) Alabama this weekend and so there was no time for that.

The goal was Chocolate Molten Souffle and Lava Cakes. It sounds divine and if you see Rose's photo of it in the book, it looks just as heavenly as it sounds. But, if you looked at the title of this post or noticed the picture, what happened was not the chocolate bliss. There's a reason, but I'll save that for another post. The ganache for it is in the refrigerator right now so that post should be up by tomorrow (because you have to eat them when they're hot!!).

But enough about the chocolate, the cake for today is the spice cake with peanut butter cream. I went home for my dad's birthday party and made the actual cake at my house before I left. I got really nervous at one point because my scale messed up while I was weighing ingredients and I suddenly had double the amount of flour that I was supposed to be putting in the cake. But I thought through what I had done and I was sure that it was the scale and not me. So I went on with it.

Rose said that once you get it out of the oven, it should then begin to start separating from the sides of the pan. I glanced in the oven 5 minutes before it was supposed to be done and I noticed the perfectly golden brown color. On second glance, I noticed that the sides had already completely separated from the pan. Uh oh...

I took it out of the oven, let it cool, un-molded it, and then gazed at it proudly. I've never made such a perfectly symmetrical cake before. Every corner was crisp. The top was perfectly even. The crumb was beautiful.

I made the butter cream this afternoon which was incredibly easy. All you have to do is toss everything into the food processor and you're done. Of course I couldn't help but lick the bowl. I don't know if it's because I'm a huge fan of peanut butter or if it's actually really good but I loved it.

The result was a delicious cake with a surprising flavor. I never would have thought to put peanut butter icing on a spice cake but the flavors complimented each other really well. It was really easy to eat and got great reviews from my five friends who tried it. I think it's an easy pleaser.

56/99: Karmel Cake

2011-10-10T19:47:00.001-05:00

Rose describes her Karmel Cake as "soft textured and deeply flavorful." Seeing that it's caramel flavored, it sounds divine.

But I was not looking forward to this cake for two reasons:

1. making caramel is a huge pain.

2. I read some of the heavenly bakers reviews and it didn't seem like it was going to be a winner.

So I started making it yesterday afternoon by making the caramel for the batter. The cake actually has an entire cup of caramel in it which was both intimidating and exciting to me. So I carefully combined the cup of light brown sugar, 2 tablespoons of butter and 3/4 of a cup of milk and let it come to a boil. Then came the difficult part: watching the thermometer to make sure it doesn't get too hot. My goal was exactly 238 degrees which means I had to take it out at about 232.

While I was standing there watching the temperature, I noticed that the color was getting a little too dark for my liking. I tipped the pan over a bit so that all of the caramel ran to one side and then put the thermometer in the thick pool of caramel. Suddenly the temperature went up to 245 which means that by the time I got it out of the pan, it would be at least 250. Sugar hardens in stages (soft ball, firm ball, hard ball, soft crack, hard crack) and my goal was soft ball. Caramel has to flow and be soft to the touch. But, the bad news is that 245/250 definitely takes me to the firm ball stage.

I had a friend over while I was cooking and she started laughing at me because I kept mumbling about all of these ball stages.

So in short, I started over. That's the story of my life when it comes to caramel/candy making.

The second time around, it went much better. I used a smaller pan so that the thermometer could read the caramel and it turned out to be the perfect consistency. After baking the cake, I decided that the caramel was so good that I had to make more to put on top. I doubled the recipe this time and now I have tons of caramel tempting me in my kitchen. I'll have to see what I can make with the leftovers tomorrow.

Here's the bad news though.

I finished the cake last night around midnight. I was really tired so I decided to leave it out on the counter so that it could cool. This morning it looked and smelled great so I left it on the counter while I ran to Walmart to get more brown sugar for extra caramel icing. Once I returned, I walked in the door, put my groceries , then looked at the cake.

Someone or something took a big bite out of the side. That's definitely not ok.

I immediately blamed my roommate's dog. She was inside so she had to be the culprit.

But, I think I spoke too soon. My cat was definitely the guilty one. He is so sneaky and is always trying to jump on the counter to eat things. Plus if the dog did it then it would all be gone. I'm still waiting on the cat to get sick from all the sugar that he ate. I don't know if I'll be letting him inside much in the next couple of days...

It turned out ok though. I just cut a gigantic slice out where the cat had a little treat and threw it away. Maybe people think that's gross but I was not about to re-make the cake because the cat took one bite out of the side.

It turned out to be an amazing cake though. The caramel on top was an especially wonderful addition. I can't eat enough of it. There's only one slice left and we only started eating it this afternoon. Everyone absolutely loved it and even scraped their plates clean.

Rose's Heavenly Cakes

Karmel Cake- page 31

55/99: Angel Food Cake Base Recipe (Petit Fours)

2011-10-09T14:41:00.001-05:00

The angel food cake base left room for creativity. I don't have an angel food cake pan so the classic angel food cake was out of the question for me. Then I discovered that the recipe is truly a base and makes only 1 cup of batter. Since I didn't read ahead, I could only make 3 cups (I only had 3 eggs) of batter.

So with three cups of angel food cake and a sheet pan, I decided that petit fours were the only way to go.

Rose also gave the option of using some grated chocolate in the cake but for some reason when I think of petit fours, I think of little sugar cakes with no other distractions in them. I know that lots of people put fruit and other flavors in petit fours but I've never had one of those. So for now, I'm sticking with the old school type.

I felt like I was making a meringue the whole time I was making the batter. It basically is a meringue- egg whites, sugar, and cream of tartar. Basically you just add some lemon juice and flour and it makes the cake. When I put it in the pan, It was incredibly airy. I almost felt like I wasn't doing it right because it was so meringue-y.

When it came out of the oven it was still a little strange to me. It looked and felt like a giant marshmallow.

After letting it cool for awhile, I prepped it for the petit-four icing by cutting it into little squares.

And because I love Martha so much, I decided to use her petit four icing recipe. It's here if you want to check it out. It wasn't too difficult. All you do is melt everything together over the stove and then carefully pour the icing over the little cakes. Martha says to double coat them but for some reason my icing was really thick so I decided to stick to one coat.

I was pretty skeptical of how these would turn out. I felt that there was lots of room for error and so I was very pleasantly surprised when they tasted good.

Last week at Chic-Fil-A, the manager of the store called out my name and asked me to tell one of his friends about my blog. His friend ended up being a policeman in town who was sitting at a table surrounded by cops. I explained to the whole table what I was doing and then one asked if I was trying to sell them or something. Haha- no. But after explaining further they finally got the gist. When I went to sit down, one of them came and asked if I had any pictures of the cakes. I showed him and he was really impressed. Of course when anyone compliments me on my cakes I am immediately flattered so I promised them that I would bring them some cake one morning. So on Saturday morning, I met them at chic-fil-a for breakfast with a big box of petit fours for the police staff room. They seemed to really like them! Free cake, right?

So on the whole, I think it was a success. They aren't exactly petit fours because they are made with angel food cake but they tasted pretty close. And I got the wonderful experience of meeting new friends too!

Rose's Heavenly Cakes
page 145

54/99: Chocolate Ingots (Financiers au Chocolat)

2011-10-02T15:12:00.000-05:00

A few days ago, I planned out my recipes for the week and then made my grocery list. The chocolate ingots called for a very unique ingredient that I had never used before: Cacao Nibs (the base ingredient in chocolate). Cacao nibs are roasted cacoa beans that are split in half. It's not really a typical wal-mart item which makes it a bit difficult. The cacao nibs were completely optional but I'm in a go big or go home phase so I wasn't going to bake the ingots without them. Since my grocery store manager thought I was crazy trying to buy cacao nibs locally, I turned to Amazon to help me out.

Last night the beans were delivered to my door so I happily opened my book to make the ingots.

I expected cacao beans to be really delicious. It's chocolate in it's purest form. What could be better? Well, my excitement was soon shattered when I put a piece in my mouth and had to drink a whole coke to get the horrible taste out of my mouth. It was incredibly bitter- yuck.

Skeptical, I caramelized the nibs as Rose instructed and not surprisingly, they turned out just fine. Of course Rose knew what she was talking about. I guess when you put caramel around anything it turns out alright.

The rest of the ingots were very similar to the other ones. You make an almond flour by toasting some almonds and mixing them into the flour in the food processor. Then you add the cocoa powder, sugar, and so on.

The most tedious part was the beurre noisette because you have to drizzle it into the batter for 5 minutes so that it would emulsify completely.

The results: I thought they were pretty. I liked the texture of the caramelized cacao nibs on top but the taste wasn't my favorite. I think I'm really coming around to financiers because I love the unique almond flour taste in them. As a result, I had high expectations since my last encounter with financiers was so great (the gold ingots). This time, the flavor wasn't as unique and they lacked the melt-in-your-mouth quality. Rose said that they are "intriguingly bittersweet" and I have to agree with her. I guess I just don't appreciate the intrigue as much as she did.

53/99: Lemon Poppy Seed-Sour Cream Cake

2011-09-30T14:41:00.001-05:00

While I was sitting on the floor of my bathroom this morning blow drying my hair, I had a visitor. I wasn't paying much attention to anything but the blow dryer in my hand since I still hadn't had my daily cup of coffee. My housemate, Elizabeth, walked in behind me unnoticed and sat on the edge of my bathtub. When she finally spoke I almost fell over from the shock of someone else being in the bathroom with me. This week is rush week so she's not supposed to be in a good mood but something was apparently very good by her expression.

It was the cake.

She wanted to cut into it right away since lemon poppy seed cake is her favorite. She told me to take a picture of it fast so we could. I really couldn't turn away such excitement about a cake (despite the fact that I made it for a party tonight) so we went to the kitchen and cut straight into it. 2 pieces of lemon poppy seed cake for breakfast makes me a happy girl. I really have no idea how I've sustained a normal weight in the past couple months.

The cake itself was really straightforward to make. It took me more lemons than Rose suggested to get the full 94 grams but that's pretty normal. I think I need to get a juicer so I can get more out of my lemons. The other interesting part is that it took 1/3 of a cup of poppy seeds. That's almost the entire jar that I owned. I've just never used that many poppy seeds for anything. I looked up the use of them in cooking because I didn't know what the purpose was other than a little crunch (or even if there was one) and I found that there isn't. They are just pretty and crunchy.

I chose this cake because not a lot is going on right now so I didn't want to make one that I was really looking forward to. It turns out that this was a spectacular cake and I'll definitely be keeping the recipe around. I've already had four slices today.

Rose's Heavenly Cakes page 41

52/99: Rose Red Velvet Cake

2011-09-27T21:21:00.001-05:00

This weekend was the celebrated Georgia v. Ole Miss football game. It is the first SEC game that Ole Miss has played so the grove was packed full of fans. In honor of this festive occasion, I decided that our cake must be red so that we showed a little team spirit. We may not win any games this year but we'll still have a good time.

Here's what happens at the eleven o'clock games: First, everyone heads to the grove in the morning and has a delicious breakfast (and maybe a few mimosas) including bagels, sausage balls, pigs in a blanket, fruit, and lots of other tasty treats. When the time comes, everyone either heads to the game or sits in the grove to watch the game on one of the many TV screens suspended from a tent. When you return to the tent, you eat lunch with your family and friends and then cut into the desserts. When I returned, however, I discovered that the cake had already been cut into. So here is a picture of the half eaten cake:

Rose made her red velvet cake into a valentine but I decided to double the recipe and make it a red velvet layer cake. Of course I made the dreamy creamy white chocolate frosting to go with it because who would refuse cake with dreamy creamy white chocolate frosting? On the outside, I covered it with fondant (obviously in a hurry as you can see that my fondant did not turn out perfectly) and put some dots on it to give it a little school spirit.

The cake itself was a typical butter cake, only it called for two bottles of red food coloring. I have always thought that too much food coloring made a cake taste bad. And I know, red velvet cake is just chocolate cake with red food coloring, but still! I angrily went to the grocery store (they're not cheap!) to buy two packages of food coloring but they didn't have the normal liquid food coloring; they only had the gel.

Gel food coloring is much stronger than the liquid-- that I know. In my experience, it takes about a thousand drops of liquid to equal what the gel does when your baking. I decided to only put one bottle of gel in the cake since I didn't want to overpower it. Once I finished mixing the batter it looked a little pink. I hesitantly added the other bottle, concerned that the cake was going to taste of sour food coloring.

But, alas, the cake was a success. It was incredibly moist and the food coloring did not affect the taste at all.

The pictures turned out horribly with the red tent above us but I attempted to take a piece of the actual cake to show you. Check out how red it is:

I would definitely keep this red velvet recipe around. It didn't all get eaten as there was so much of it and so many options, but for the red velvet cake lover, this is definitely the cake.

Rose's Heavenly Cakes
Rose Red Velvet Cake- page 83

51/99: Individual Pinaple Upside Down Cakes

2011-09-25T21:03:00.001-05:00

These little cakes weren't quite as pretty as I expected. I wanted the pineapples to be full circles like Rose's pretty picture (Jenn from the Knitty Baker has one too) but my ramekins were a little too small. I had to cut pineapple pieces as you can see from the above photo.

I'm really glad that I'm in the Heavenly Bakers group because this recipe might be one that I would have put off for a long time. I have never been a huge fan of upside down cakes so this one did not peak my interest as much as some of the other cakes.

The most tedious part of the baby cakes was making the caramel to go in the bottom of each ramekin. I think I messed up on this part because I have not been able to master candy/caramel making lately. I blame it on the candy thermometer but it's probably just me.

For example, I tried to make cotton candy from scratch the other week and let's just say it wasn't a great success. I think the sugar over heated once I took it off the stove so it was not as fluffy as desired. Since I was still scarred from the over-heated cotton candy experience, I took this caramel off the stove way too soon. It was turning amber too quickly and so I thought it was time. As a result, it was way too fluid and didn't have the right viscosity. The same problem happened with the caramel drizzle for the top.

The cake itself was delicious. It called for full fat yogurt and I had no idea how difficult it is to find full fat yogurt. Every type of yogurt in the grocery store is non fat or fat free or low fat. I stood in Walmart in front of the incredibly large yogurt selection for about 10 minutes trying to find one. Oh the dieting culture.... Sometimes it's good to have a little bit of fat.

There were really mixed reviews of the cake. On of my friends really didn't like it but some of my other friends said that they really did. We're just not accustomed to upside down cakes so I think it feels strange to have all that baked fruit on top.

50/99: Ginger Cheesecake with Gingerbread Crust

2011-09-18T22:32:00.000-05:00

This cake is kind of a big deal because it marks a very special day. This cake means that I am officially over half way through the book. I really can't believe it. It feels like yesterday (actually it was 163 days ago) that I went to the bookstore and happily stood in the checkout line with Rose's Heavenly Cakes snuggled in my arms. This past week, I even had to go to the grocery store and buy another 20 pound bag of sugar. I guess that's just another piece of evidence that proves that I've spent the last few months immersing myself in sugar.

It's actually been a great 163 days. I think one of my favorite things about this whole experience has been how cakes bring people together. You never have cake for a sad occasion. This bake through ensures that I will have at least 2 celebratory moments with friends each week. It's a pretty great way to live--plus the fact that I get to try two new cakes every week. The surprising part of it is that I have actually lost 5 pounds since I started this because I'm being much more intentional about eating healthy so that the sugar doesn't overwhelm me.

But enough nostalgia for now. On to the ginger cheesecake.

The ginger cheese cake might be where I gain those whole 5 pounds back--tonight. I absolutely love cheesecake and this one is no exception. I ended up making the gingerbread men and women cookies to go along the side of the cake since Rose's cake looked so adorable. I had to order some cookie cutters from Amazon but I think it was worth it. I'll just have a gingerbread party during Christmas time this year.

The result: A deliciously tempting, creamy ginger cheesecake. It tastes like Christmas and kind of looks like earth day. Seriously. This is what i think of when I look at the gingerbread people on the cake:

The cake was actually quite easy to accomplish. One of my best friends, Alyssa, was in town and graciously offered to help me out too so that was fun. Meanwhile, my roommate and some other friends were constantly trying to sneak a cookie. I finally doubled the recipe and made some extras with the big cookie cutters. We all liked the cookies which really surprised me. I couldn't find light molasses as Rose requested so I used the regular kind. I thought it would be a little too strong for me but surprisingly, despite the horrible smell while I was mixing the dough, it turned out great.

The most difficult part of the cake was waiting 24 hours to cut it. When I finally got it out of the oven (after an hour of baking) my stomach was growling; It smelled great. But into the refrigerator it went so as soon as today rolled around I was ready. It popped out of the pan beautifully and I placed the gingerbread men all around it. Rose said that if you pushed hard enough then they would just stay on the sides. I didn't have her luck. As soon as I cut into it, they all fell face forward. I kept putting them back up but alas, sometimes you just have to realize that you're fighting a losing game.

The strangest part of the process was grading the ginger into a bowl and then squeezing the juice out of it. I had no idea that you could juice ginger. It wasn't terribly difficult but it was definitely new for me.

Overall it was great. My only mishap was that I forgot my cardinal cheesecake rule: Always double the crust. It is the best part. Ah, well. There's always next time.

As for the tasting results, Alyssa said she was trying to keep from licking her plate and I had seconds... or thirds. I really like ginger and I adore cheesecake. I saved half of it to give to some friends who are coming over tomorrow so I'll have more taste testers then!

48/99: Yellow Butter Cupcakes and 49/99: Chocolate Egg White Buttercream

2011-09-17T11:51:00.000-05:00

Birthdays are the best. I think they are almost as good as Christmas time. There's something so special about celebrating a life every year. And it's always fun to blow out some candles.

This weekend was a weekend of birthdays. We celebrated Stephens birthday and we decided to celebrate George's birthday even though it was a week ago.

These cupcakes were really easy. They have a ton of butter in them which always means they will be yummy. They also call for sour cream but I used yogurt instead. She says full fat yogurt is acceptable but I don't think they sell that at my grocery store. I looked for awhile. I guess it makes sense though; who would want to buy something that says "full-fat" on it.

For the icing, I made chocolate egg-white buttercream. I am a HUGE fan of this icing. It consists of lots and lots of butter, dark chocolate, eggs, sugar, and cream of tartar. It comes out pretty flat so I basically put double the amount of icing on each cupcake. I had to make some more icing for the rest. So word to the wise- double this recipe if you're using it for cupcakes!

In the end I put some chocolate shavings on top and they were ready to serve!

Everyone seemed to like them. One of my friends said she wasn't really excited about the actual cupcake part so she didn't plan on eating it. She ended up eating the whole thing. I think that's a good sign.

Other comments:

"I loved them"

"The cake part kind of tastes like angel food cake"

Rose's Heavenly Cakes
-Chocolate egg white buttercream- page 302
- yellow butter cakes- page 295

47/99: Many-Splendored Quick Bread

2011-09-15T01:03:00.003-05:00

Sometimes I make a cake when I don't have anything in particular to take it to. In that case, I open the book to the least exciting thing I can find and pour my heart into it. This cake is a testament to my pretty low key week. No tests. No papers. No assignments.

The many-splendored quick bread looks good and easy but scared me away when I saw zucchini in the ingredients. And carrots. I'm not a huge vegetable person though I'm trying to get better at it. When I eat cake though, it is supposed to be a treat. I felt like this cake was doing what you have to do for your dogs when you give them medicine: wrap the pill up in a piece of meat. In my case, I'm disguising my veggies in lots of sugar.

The great thing about the cake is that the "quick" in the title is not deceiving. I made chicken enchiladas and as soon as I put them in the oven, I started working on the bread. 15 minutes later (I know because I had to hurry before my friends came over) it was ready.

My favorite part about making this cake was the chopping. I never use the chopper blade on my food processor and this was the perfect opportunity to whip it out. I used to work at a cooking store in Chattanooga called Mia Cucina where I occasionally taught cooking classes for kid's birthday parties. We made pizza in the class and each child got to put a block of cheese into the food processor and watch it shred completely within a few seconds. It was great seeing their eyes light up at the efficiency of the food processor. Using it this time brought back some sweet memories.

Conclusions-

I'm not a huge fan. It's good bread, don't get me wrong. But for all the crazy ingredients in it, I was a little disappointed in the flavor. It seems to be missing a zing to it. To me it blends in with every other bread-cake.

One of my housemates, Liz, completely agreed. It's just not a special dessert.

One of my other housemates, Elise, seemed to like it a lot. I decided to throw the rest of it away after we all had a bit because there's no point in allowing semi-good cake to contribute to our waistlines. But Elise saved the day for the quick bread. So currently, about half of a loaf is sitting in our kitchen waiting on her or some other kind friend to come eat it.

Rose's Heavenly Cakes

Many Splendored Quick Bread- page 131

46/99: Gold Ingots (Financier Classiques)

2011-09-08T19:31:00.004-05:00

About two weeks ago, I made the brioche so that I could make the caramelized apple pudding cakes. I made the crème anglaise for the cakes and then let the little brioche cubes soak in it as required. They had to sit for awhile so I put them in the refrigerator and forgot about them.

A day or two went by but I decided that I’d use them anyway. Then a week went by. And then two weeks. Sadly, my little brioche cubes and their marinade found a new home- in the trash can. The lonely pineapple is still sitting on the counter top with half wilted leaves.

Since that recipe has been nagging me for a few weeks, I felt like I should just complete it today. Plus, that would keep the pineapple from dying. The plan was to buy brioche from our local bakery and cheat. I already made brioche so it counts if I buy a loaf for the next recipe, right?

After class I hurried to the bakery that closes at 2:30. It was 1:58. Whew. I got to the counter, ordered my coffee (it’s the best in town), and then asked for a brioche.

The man at the counter looked at me regretfully and said that a gentleman had just come in and asked for 10 brioches. Sadly, he took the last ones.

I called the other, not so exciting bakery and they didn’t have a brioche either. They said I could special order one and it would be ready by the weekend. I could make my own brioche by then so no thank you.

Time was ticking because my next class was at four. The goal was to get the majority of the cake done before class and that way my evening would be free for other things. I flipped open Rose’s Heavenly cakes to see what I could make with the ingredients in my pantry. I’m going out of town this weekend so I didn’t want to make anything exceptional because then it wouldn’t get eaten.

The final decision: Gold Ingots (Financiers Classiques). They contain only ingredients that any good baker has in the pantry at all times, no exceptions: eggs, sugar, flour, vanilla extract, butter, and baking powder. The only ingredient that I could reasonably not have were almonds but thankfully I’ve acquired a semi-impressive nut assortment from making all of these cakes.

The battle with the clock began. I felt like a competitor in Top Chef. I preheated the oven, got the butter and eggs out of the refrigerator, filled a bowl full of warm water, plopped the eggs in it, and then brought the butter to room temperature in the microwave.

As soon as the butter was ready, the oven was preheated and the almonds went into the oven for 7 minutes. 7 minutes later, half the butter had been turned into beurre noisette and the rest had been melted and stood waiting. All of the other ingredients were measured.

Clean up time came next and within a couple minutes the kitchen was done and the almonds and sugar could go in the food processor (they had to be cool). The rest is simple. Mix everything together and slowly drizzle the butter in. Pipe the batter into the pans and into the oven they go. 20 minutes, tops. Yeah, I’d say that’s impressive.

Here’s the progression:

Toasted almonds:

Beginning of beurre noisette:

Almond mixture:

Batter beginnings:

Add the egg whites:

Ddd the butter then pipe into the molds:

When they finally came out of the oven, I set them on the kitchen counter, put the cat outside and let them cool till I came back. It was perfect.

When I got back I put one in my mouth. Then two. Then three. Ok, maybe four. My roommate tried one too. “Oh my gosh,” she said. “It’s like Sunday morning. These are amazing.”

They really are. I was shocked (No offense, Rose). My previous encounters with ingots were less than impressive. If you remember back from my first round, the peanut butter ingots they were a complete failure for us. My mom fed them to the dogs. I don’t blame her; They weren’t up to par with everything else from the book. You can see why I had such little expectations for this round.

As it turns out, Rose’s description turns out to be completely true once again. She says that they are “the most melt-in-your-mouth financiers.” She mentioned that you can multiply the recipe easily and I can definitely see why you would want to do that.

Conclusion. I LOVE these. Everyone who tried them loved them. I guarantee you they will be gone before the night is over.

Rose’s Heavenly Cakes

Gold Ingots (Financiers Classiques)- page 311

45/99: Gâteau Breton

2011-09-06T19:09:00.001-05:00

It looks simple. It looks plain. It looks delicious.

I think I had a croissant crust in my mind when I looked at this cake. Rose says that it is "crisp like a pastry around the edge, but has a soft, dense, and moist interior." There really is no better way to describe this cake.

The process of making the cake was just as simple as the cake looks. It took less than thirty minutes to throw it together and the clean up was not bad (or won't be bad... i haven't gotten around to it yet).

The star ingredients this time were the blanched, sliced almonds, the very special European style Vermont butter, and dark rum. I used Bacardi Oakheart spiced rum instead because that's the only type of dark rum that you can get at the liquor store in a 50ml bottle.

First it's the very special Vermont butter and sugar:

Then you add the yummy ingredients (rum, almonds, vanilla, etc)

Then the egg yolks, one at a time.

And lastly, you add the dry ingredients and you have a delicious batter. I decided to use mini pans since I didn't have a large one. I could have used a cake pan but there's something about the ruffles on the edge that just seem exciting on this cake.

I ended up drizzling honey on the top of the final products which added a very nice touch. They were good without the honey but the honey was the special touch.

My room mates and I all liked them. You can't really eat a ton of them in one setting because the inside is pretty dense but they are definitely good afternoon snacks.

44/99: Lemon Meringue Cake

2011-09-05T15:18:00.007-05:00

I have a new venue for my cakes. For every home football game this season, I am assigned to bring one of my cakes to the grove for the Highlands tent. So, since this one has been on my schedule for awhile, The Lemon Meringue Cake was the final decision. Don't worry though, I'll make the next ones a little bit more Ole Miss festive.

This cake, though tasty, stressed me out while I made it. You see, there's this blog (all of you RHBers will know what I'm talking about) that has the most incredible Lemon Meringue Cake on it. The blog is called Hector's Take on Rose's Heavenly Cakes. The guy is incredible. Anyway, he made the ULTIMATE lemon meringue cake. Seriously, go look at it real fast: Hector's Lemon Meringue.

I know. You're jaw just dropped. Mine does every time I look at it.

That was the goal. Needless to say, it was a failure. I tried to pipe the meringue but you know, it's harder to make a meringue rose than you'd think. I need to develop my piping skills. I finally spread out my meringue mess and made the normal-not-so-impressive topping. Sad day.

That was mistake number two. Mistake number one was entirely my fault since I wasn't paying attention to what I was doing. I was trying to work on dinner and complete the cake at the same time. Meanwhile, I had some friends over while I was cooking and I got distracted.

I accidentally added the lemon meringue to the lemon curd and thus ruined the cake. I had to start over on those which actually took more time than you would think.

Once I finally got done, it turned out nicely. I liked it a lot but probably not as much as the Lemon Canadian Crown. The cake itself was very moist (just as Rose promised it would be) and had a distinct lemon flavor. The meringue was probably the best part.

Here's the sliced cake where you can see the lemon curd in between the lemon cake with the almost two inch meringue topping.

I didn't get tons of feedback at the tent but people seemed to like it. I returned in the afternoon and realized that someone had actually scraped the meringue off of half of the cake and eaten it. I guess that means the meringue was excellent but the cake wasn't quite up to par. So aside from the terrible cake etiquette (I can say this because I know who did it) it was practical feedback.

Then one of the ladies e-mailed me and said this:

"The lemon merangue cake was fantabulous on Saturday. Hap is still talking about it! My only issue was that it was GONE when I came back from the game! :) And that was a bigger bummer than losing the game! :):)"

After the game, I took about a fourth of the cake and my friends and I finished it off with forks in hand. We loved it.

So it was a great recipe. Success for the Lemon Meringue!

43/99: Chocolate Butter Cupcakes

2011-09-02T00:18:00.003-05:00

These little guys were a hit. I should have doubled the recipe.

I made Rose's Chocolate butter cupcakes and then made a batch of peppermint icing from Mama's Peppermint Torte. Really, it was the perfect combination.

The cupcakes were incredibly moist and as Rose puts it, "deeply chocolaty."

They were fairly basic too. Cocoa powder and boiling water, eggs, vanilla, flour, butter, etc. Pretty basic. The recipe itself was probably about a half a page long. Brilliant.

Needless to say, this is my new chocolate cupcake recipe.

It went over really well. I took them to a party and they were gone pretty quickly. I kept having people come up to me asking if I was the girl who made the cupcakes. I had one girl come up to me and ask me that question and then asked if she could be my new best friend.

Definitely a winner.

Rose's Heavenly Cakes
Chocolate Butter Cupcakes- page 296

42/99: Coffee Chiffonlets with Dulce de Leche Whipped Cream

2011-08-29T19:55:00.002-05:00

Well several things on this recipe went a little wrong:

1. I didn't have enough time

2. I didn't have the right equipment (angel food cake pans) therefore I used square muffin tins and just poked a hole in it later on.

3. because of the lack of time, I didn't let the "whipped cream" topping get cold enough and therefore it didn't exactly whip all the way.

4. I forgot to cover the dulce de leche while it was in the oven so it cooked in half the time. The consistency was probably off but the taste was fabulous.

5. and finally, because of the rush, I didn't have time to carefully take a pretty picture. So you get a camera-with-flash picture that was taken in haste.

But, the good news is that they tasted great! Namely, the dulce de leche whipped cream tasted great. I could have licked the bowl clean (and lets be honest, I did to some extent).

The batter itself was pretty simple but it had several different parts. It goes dry mixture, liquid mixture, egg mixture, then total mixture. I used the Medagalia D'Oro instant espresso so I had an extra step of adding it to the water and then adding it to the mixture.

Once the cakes come out of the oven (mine rose a little too much), you cover them with a Kahlua Syrup. The Kahlua syrup also has some of the espresso powder in it for an extra zing.

Then for the Dulce de Leche. That's the part that takes awhile. You pour sweetened condensed milk in a container and then put it in the oven for ONE AND A HALF HOURS! And not only that but you cook it at 450 degrees Fahrenheit. I missed the whole cover with aluminum foil part so the top of mine cooked pretty quickly. It still seemed fine so I covered after about 30 minutes and took it out after an hour. Then it had to cool before adding the heavy cream to it to make the icing.

As you can see, it didn't cool enough. It's more like dulce de leche drizzle but that's ok. It may not be very cute but they taste good!

The computer is being a bit slow tonight so I can't upload any more pictures of the process. If she's doing better tomorrow then I'll add them then.

The chiffonlets went over pretty well i think. For the mess-ups that occurred, they were still good enough to serve at a party that I went to. I doubled the recipe and in the end, all but 3 got eaten. I'd say that's pretty good.

Rose's Heavenly Cakes- page 334

41/99: Chocolate Raspberry Trifle

2011-08-28T01:17:00.002-05:00

Today is my 22nd birthday and as pathetic as it sounds, i decided to make my own birthday cake.

The thing is, if you are baking 99 cakes in a year and have a few that you just can't WAIT to try, it makes total sense that you would make your own birthday cake. This is one of those cakes that I've been oohing and aahing over for about 4 months so it's basically my birthday present to myself. Meet the chocolate raspberry trifle.

The last trifle i made was the Saint Honore Trifle and it took me forever. I expected this one to take forever as well just because it is a trifle. But the Saint Honore Trifle was the fifth cake i made in the cake challenge so I think it was a bit more difficult because I had not had as much practice. This one took less than half the time (Thank goodness!).

I didn't take pictures of the process because I've done most of it before. The cake itself is the Moist Raspberry Genoise recipe so that was basically a repeat. Then you make the crème anglaise which took much less time than it used to. The only problem that I ran into here is that my thermometer was accidentally set on CELSIUS instead of Fahrenheit so when it wasn't getting hot enough i was freaking out. It finally got to about 93 degrees after 10 minutes and that's when i figured out that it was the wrong measurement. whatever. It was only supposed to be 81 degrees Celsius (180 Fahrenheit) so maybe it got a little too thick. Who cares though... it still tasted good.

Then you make the raspberries and preserves. It's pretty easy. You basically throw some raspberries in with some preserves and chambord and you're good to go. Then you throw the rest of the preserves in with some heavy cream and chambord and make the whipped topping.

It's actually a very simple trifle. I was really pleased with it.

People seemed to like it for the most part. It didn't go over quite as well as the Saint Honore Trifle (where people were actually licking the bowl) but it was still good. It was really pretty (which I loved) and a festive cake for a birthday. If I'm cooking 99+ cakes in a year, I want a freaking awesome one for my birthday. it gets an A for beauty and B for taste.

40/99: Classic Brioche

2011-08-24T18:24:00.002-05:00

I thought this was a strange recipe to have in a book of cakes. Then I realized that it's actually just a step of another cake but since it takes awhile, it gets it's very own recipe!

I was actually kind of scared of this recipe because it has the evil ingredient: yeast. I am terrified of yeast. Once, when I was really young, my friend Katie and I decided to make a king cake at 8 o clock at night. This wasn't just any king cake, it was a king cake from scratch aka yeast. Obviously we had never used yeast before because we decided to start it at 8pm.

About 12 hours later the cake was finally done. The microwave timer beeped and we anxiously opened the oven to take out our beloved cake. But alas, it didn't rise at all. It looked like it did about 10 and a half hours before. To be honest, it hadn't risen the entire time we were waiting on it to rise but we didn't know any better. We put lots of icing and sprinkles on it to see if our eyes would trick our minds into making us think it tasted good. It didn't work. The whole cake went into the trash and we went to bed.

I have used yeast once since then and it's been with a bread machine. I was very apprehensive about this bread.

I thought it was really strange because the dough starter doesn't have to sit for awhile. You make it and then you keep on going. It even has yeast in it. I was convinced that this is where I would ruin it.

But I kept going. Made the dough (added more yeast......) and then let it sit. Here's the test. Will the dough rise?

2 hours later, I came back and was absolutely delighted to learn that IT ROSE (think of the Christian's excitement on Easter Sunday and that's almost how excited I was). I'm really sad that you can't really tell in the picture just how much it rose, but I promise it did.

Then it had to rise a few more times. I thought I was going to completely kill it because I put it in my car and drove back to Oxford with it in my seat. I think it had a little extra rising time but that just means fluffier bread right?

In the end it came out great. It even made my house smell fabulous. It kind of made me want to try to make some other type of breads. I guess I better get through this year of cakes first...

Rose's Heavenly Cakes
classic brioche- page 346

39/99: Black Chocolate Party Cake

2011-08-23T12:33:00.001-05:00

I've had my eye on this cake for awhile because it looks so good and chocolaty. I was asked to bring a cake to a party on Monday night so this seemed like the perfect opportunity. Who doesn't like chocolate?

The cake was surprisingly easy to make too. The only different part of it was that you had to de-skin walnuts. Rose mentioned it briefly. She said, "Turn the walnuts out onto a clean dishtowel and roll and rub them around to loosen the skins. Discard the skins and cool completely." Simple enough right?

So I put them in the towel and rolled and rubbed. Then I rolled and rubbed some more.. and more.. and more. I have no idea what kind of spell she was chanting when she was doing her rolling and rubbing because when I tried it, the skins didn't budge. I decided that the walnuts could keep their skin because I didn't have the patience to tediously peel each skin off one by one.

Then you have the option to process the walnuts just a little bit or very fine. I decided to go wth the fine option so that people who didn't love nuts wouldn't be able to tell that they were in the cake. Rose said the nuts jut enhance the flavor of chocolate without adding a nutty taste.

And the rest was textbook. Mix the liquid ingredients, mix the dry ingredients, and then fold them all together.

While the cake is baking, it's time to start on the cocoa syrup. The star ingredient of the cocoa syrup is the Kahlúa.

Then immediately when the cake comes out, this is what you do:

And voila! The cake is done!

It went over well at the party I think. It was one of many desserts (brownies, cookies, reeeses bites, etc) so by the end, about 3/4 of it got eaten. Once I got home though my roommates and I devoured the rest. It was one of those stand around it with a fork and dig in kind of cakes.

The cake was probably a little too dense for me though. It kind of reminded me of a brownie. I thought it would have tasted better hot so that it would have more of a molten lava feel but I know that's not what it's supposed to be.

Rose's Heavenly Cakes
black chocolate party cake- page 119

38/99: Almond Shamah Chiffon

2011-08-21T22:42:00.002-05:00

The Almond Shamah Chiffon was the final cake of the Lacey's 30th birthday cake extravaganza.

"Shamah" in the title actually stands for one of Rose's friends, David Shamah. A bunch of people at the party were curious and therefore looked up the word "shamah" in a translator. They came up with something and then proceeded to discuss why the cake would be called this. Sadly, I don't remember the word that they found but, if you were one of those people, I must inform you that you were wrong. Sorry about that friends.

Star ingredients: EIGHT eggs, almonds (made into almond flour), and Amaretto di Saronno.

This is another one of those cakes that I was making along with 2 others. Therefore the pictures are still all out of order. I'm still convinced that I could pick random ones and make up some wonderful tale about how I made the cake but I think my friends in the HCB would figure it out. So here's the recap:

The cake is an almond sponge cake that is infused with an amaretto syrup. To make the almond flavor, you make the almond flour by combining toasted almonds and wondra flour in a food processor. It's really easy and delicious.

Then for the Amaretto syrup. I'm still convinced that these recipes for syrup in the sponge cakes yield way more than you actually need. Maybe I am just scared to drench my cake with a syrup that has more water than alcohol in it though....

Then for the icing: "Raspberry Jam Whipped Cream." That part was delicious. I licked the bowl. The icing is super easy in that it consists completely of heavy cream and seedless raspberry jam. That's all. It's amazing.

So the result: really great. I really, really enjoyed this one. I think in the minds of others it got overshadowed though. The lemon and the peppermint and the dark chocolate and the tiramisu just didn't leave a spot for the poor little almond cake. I think it got second place though. I think if i made it again, people would like it on it's own.

Here's the final show:

Rose's Heavenly Cakes
almond shamah chiffon- page 199

The one that's not a cake

2011-08-19T17:32:00.004-05:00

I've officially crossed the line of insanity. I know.

I started learning to use the sewing machine last week when I decided to quilt some old fabric scraps. Last night, I got ambitious and made a tee-shirt quilt out of all of my old tee shirts. Then I had scraps left over from the tee-shirts so I decided to make an apron.

How do I have so much spare time you ask? Honestly, I'm asking myself the same question. Class starts on Monday so I decided to use this weekend to do absolutely nothing. But I have this issue where doing absolutely nothing stresses me out because I have to be doing something. So sewing kills two birds with one stone. I can sit in front of a TV and let my mind go completely blank while my body is actually being productive. Brilliant.

So this is the product of my laziness. I know it's cheesy to put the name of my blog on my apron but what else would I put on it? I hate monograms and any other phrase I could think of was too long or even cheesier than my blog title.

This project was extra fun too because I discovered new stitches. So as you can see, there are many different stitches all over the apron.

So thanks for humoring me with my non-cake post. Back to the kitchen soon!

37/99: Tiramisù

2011-08-19T11:19:00.003-05:00

The tiramisù was also for Lacey's birthday party. Lacey has always loved tiramisù so I thought it might be a fun addition. I couldn't exactly take it out of the pan at the party to take a picture of a slice so you just get the whole thing:

I had baked for a few days and had completed the other four cakes for the party already. I woke up on the morning of the party and decided that tiramisù was a must. It's a crowd pleaser and Lacey loves it. I had already bought the ingredients in case I felt like getting around to it so I just hopped out of bed and went straight in the kitchen.

My best friend Alyssa was in town to visit for a few days (sadly she lives in Missouri now) so I happily put her to work too.

She was put in charge of the eggs. Putting someone else in charge of eggs is a pretty big deal for me because I am very OCD about eggs but I knew she'd do a great job. Her job was to whisk the yolks, sugar, and sweet marsala in a bowl on top of a pot of simmering water while holding a candy thermometer. She also had to make sure the bowl stayed balanced on the water because you have to put the wooden spoon between the two pots in order to let the steam out (think back to the explosion from Zach's la Bomba). I sound like an evil friend right? Maybe I was just letting her get or hands dirty or maybe I just didn't want to do it myself.... mwah ha ha.

Anyway, whatever the reason, Alyssa is awesome and did it beautifully.

So while she was busy whisking away, I was working on the expresso part. I used the Medaglia D'Oro instant espresso powder because I didn't have any fresh, hot brewed espresso sitting around my house.

You dissolve the espresso powder in a cup of boiling water and add the sugar (instead of just dissolving the sugar in the fresh, hot espresso).

And then you pour half of it in a shallow pan:

Next step: Whip the mascarpone cheese and combine it with the egg mixture. Here's where I realized that I only bought half the amount of mascarpone cheese that I needed. Insert quick trip to the grocery store here.

Whip the cream and sugar:

Then fold it into the Mascarpone mixture.

To compose the tiramisù, dip the ladyfingers into the espresso mixture on both sides, making sure to leave the inside dry (dip for about 1 second on each side). I used the pre-packaged ladyfingers instead of making a batch since I was short on time. Then align them in a pan. (Yes, if you're looking at the picture, I know I have obnoxiously pink hands)

Then spread the cream on top of the ladyfingers:

Repeat the last two steps until you have stacked the layers as many times as you wish. Finally, sprinkle with cocoa powder and refrigerate!

I was a little worried about the tiramisù because I had a ton of coffee syrup left over. I mean a TON. I thought it was going to taste like a dish of ladyfingers and cream (wouldn't be horrible but it also wouldn't be tiramisù). The party came around and I nervously waited on cake time.

Finally, the time came. I cut the cakes and basically stalked the first few people who got tiramisù to see what they thought. What I saw: bite number 1, smile, bite number 2, another smile, and voila a clean plate. ahh....

I finally tried a piece and it wasn't bad at all. The coffee flavor was definitely present and it tasted like tiramisù! It should have stayed in the refridgerator for a few more hours to become more stiff but it was really good.

I had a few people come up to me and tell me that he or she was a "tiramisù person." That means (as they explained) that tiramisù is their favorite dessert and so they know what they are talking about when they try tiramisù. I was told it was one of the best ones they'd ever had and that it was better than all of the ones at the fancy restaurants around town.

Ok, so I was definitely complimented (or rather Rose was because she made up the recipe) but I really don't think it's the best one I've ever had. Granted it was good but the best one ever? Maybe they had too much to drink? Alas, we will never know.

So the conclusion is this: It was a great recipe. It was the only cake that was completely eaten by the end. People liked it.

Rose's Heavenly Cakes

tiramisù- page 267

Mama's Peppermint Torte

2011-08-16T10:26:00.007-05:00

Happy birthday to my big sister Lacey!

The Peppermint Torte is the official Travis birthday cake. Of course, for her birthday this year, all she wanted was a peppermint torte. Out of all of the cakes that I've made this year (and I believe that totals well over 40), I still can't beat it. I still have it every year for my birthday and my sister still has it for hers. Maybe it's the memories. Maybe it's the love that goes into making it. Or maybe it's just that good.

This year, as I have been dubbed 'the cake lady' by my family, I was in charge of making the torte. I made it with Duncan Hines devils food chocolate cake (That's how we've always done it, so back to the cake-box cake it was).

Ok so maybe it's not the actual cake that makes this cake so special. It's the ICING!!

Here's the icing (and if you keep reading along, I might just give away the recipe to you).

First you unwrap your peppermints and then put them in a food processor. For one batch of icing you need 1/4 cup of peppermints. We always double it though because, honestly, that's the best part.

Then you add a package of cream cheese (doubled in my case) and a bit of vanilla. I think I did a teaspoon or something in that arena.

Whip it together:

Fold in about a cup of cool whip:

And then fold in the peppermints:

And the result is absolutely exquisite. Normally you add a few drops of red food coloring but Lacey didn't want another pink cake since we already had one.

I ended up having to make another batch of it because I made four layers of cake which needed more icing and Lacey said she wanted the sides iced too. Normally in a torte, you don't ice the sides but she's the birthday girl so whatever worked!

The cake isn't super beautiful. You don't expect anything special but oh my goodness it's amazing. People loved it (as always) and I got tons of comments on it.

So, if you're a chocolate mint lover, go try my momma's peppermint torte.

36/99: Woody's Lemon Luxury Layer Cake

2011-08-15T17:41:00.000-05:00

The Lemon Luxury Layer Cake was quite a hit.

Blogging about the process is a little difficult though. I took photos all the way through but the problem is that I was making three cakes at once. On my camera I now have random photos of lots of different bowls that, to be quite frank, all look the same. They are just bowls with white stuff in it.

And to be honest, I can't even remember the process that well because I was turning left in right for all of these different cakes. I could just recap the recipe but really you're better off if you just buy the book. And really you should anyway because some of these cakes are unbelievable.

What I do remember though is that it was a heck of a cake to make because you have to make the cakes, a lemon curd (to go in between the split layers), a white chocolate custard base, and the white chocolate lemon butter cream.

Out of all of the cakes that were at the party, I heard about this one a lot. It was a great alternative to the chocolate, raspberry theme that seemed to occur. And, apparently, some people are really obsessed with lemon cake. I received a lot of compliments on the cake.

I really liked it as well. It was a bit more work but I think it was worth it. I will definitely keep this recipe around for a good summer cake.

Rose's Heavenly Cakes
batter- page 43
lemon curd- page 45
white chocolate custard base- page 46
white chocoalte lemon buttercream- page 47