The Shower Cake That Could Have Been

So here’s a story for you cake-lovers - I was hired to make a baby shower cake for someone at work as part of a surprise shower.  I had training that week, so I couldn’t go and had to send my delivery boy (aka hubby) in my place.  This shower had been planned for months, and everything was planned to a tee.

When hubby showed up to drop off the cake, what did he discover?  The mother-to-be was out sick for the week!

Tip #1: Cake doesn’t last forever.  I’ll keep a slice in the fridge for about a week (but I have no idea what the FDA thinks is an appropriate number of days).  But a whole, uneaten cake?  Might as well toss it after 2-3, because the colors will start running together.

So, good sports they are, my team decided to make the best of the situation - and ate it.  Apparently it was delicious.  The next week when she was back at work, they showed her a picture and had a Costco substitute (which no one ate because we also had a pre-holiday potluck).  Ah well.

Here’s the vanilla cake with tangy chocolate filling and buttercream icing, as the mother-to-be saw it in pictures (design based on the crib sheets):

Pretty Pretty Princess

I should note that whenever there are ugly cake pictures on here, it’s because hubby wasn’t home to take them.  Any tips on good cake photography?

A coworker asked me to bake a cake for her daughter’s 1st birthday.  Not being a mother myself, I never thought that babies need special cake ingredients - think I grew up on regular sugar and flour and I turned out…fine.  Anyway, she had a recipe for a baby-friendly carrot cake, but all the special ingredients made me nervous that it wouldn’t turn out properly.  In the spirit of fall (this was November), we ended up choosing an apple cake with cream cheese inside and out.

As inspiration, she gave me a napkin with the princess theme.  I love sparkles!

Napkin below:

For the crown, I used royal icing on parchment, then laid it on the side of a pot for curvature.

Tip #1: If you plan to stand something 3D up, make sure you draw the bottom flat!  I decided to curve it at the last minute, so when I went to put it on the cake, the bottom part wouldn’t sit.  Hence the corner attempt.

Tip #2: An object is only as strong as its weakest point.  I put too much pressure on the crown and it cracked!  Oh lord.  I did a quick royal icing repair job, but I wasn’t very happy:

The letters weren’t those storebought candy ones.  Oh no - I didn’t even think of that option until after I did these.  I used more royal icing and use pink sparkles to make it shine:

Tip #3: Make at least 3 times the amount of royal icing decorations you will need.  Even if you’ve done it a thousand times, you don’t want to risk last minute breakage.

The finished product - thanks for asking me to do this, Christine!

Go Phillies GO!

Since today is a lazy Saturday, I decided I need to desperately start catching up on my posts.

Halloween this year coincided with a great Philly victory - the Phillies won the World Series!  In tribute, I carved a pumpkin (it’s not blurry, I was afraid to carve them any straighter for fear of pumpkin implosion):

Makes me happy. 

I carved this with some small dremel bits.

Tip: CARVE OUTSIDE!  And wear clothes you don’t care about, or that can be easily washed.  See exhibit A below, with the pumpkin guts down my front within just a few minutes of carving.

Leaves Are Falling

Work has been getting more hectic recently, but there’s always time for dessert!

To celebrate the start of fall, I made a couple batches of pumpkin cheesecake brownies but they were all eaten before I got any pics. Here’s the recipe and some droolworthy images: http://carascravings.blogspot.com/2007/08/browniebabes-round-3-take-2.html

My first fall cake was what else? About a baby. Got to use my new metal comb-thing! Unfortunately I also bent the needle on my airbrush, 2nd time I’ve ever used it and now it will cost me another $7.50. Sigh. Still learning to use the thing, as cool as the effect was it didn’t exactly look real (except maybe the rose).

Quick Tip: Make sure your icing is thin enough for basketweave!!  It’ll hurt after, oh, the first two sides, and guess what?  You have another two sides to decorate.

What’s inside - lemon poppyseed with raspberry buttercream filling, topped with lemon buttercream.

Babies, Babies Everywhere

One of my sisters is preggers with her first child!  So my hubby and I jet-setted (ok, 757-setted) with a bag filled with favors out to San Fran to throw her and my brother-in-law a coed shower bash (sadly, didn’t have my other fabulously creative sister out there with me).  What do you get when you put 42 adults and 18 kids together? 

Something like that.  I spent 2.5 days in my sister’s kitchen making enough for about 100 people, then had to transport it all 45 minutes away to her friend’s house.  Then hubby manned the grill.  Thanks for doing the dishes, Mom!  The most popular food?  Homemade macaroni and cheese that was meant for the kids.  Good thing I made 2 trays!!!

And, of course, a cake.  Half chocolate and half vanilla, hope you don’t notice the slight crack down the middle of the icing.  Darn cheapo Wilton cake boards!!  Wish I could have had more decorating opportunities, hard to do with my supplies 5,000 miles away.

I’ve Got a Love-ly Bunch of Coconuts, Dodaleedo

I had a sudden craving for coconut cream pie one night.  I am so frustrated by diner coconut cream pie - it is usually dense, flavorless, and too sweet.  After baking one, I found that the key is unsweetened coconut - it was located in our international section.  Give it a nice toasty tan.  Don’t bother with the Baker’s brand stuff.

Here is the Baking Illustrated version:

Here it is after the massacre that is my stomach:

The Amish friendship bread post

As much as I loved this concept in the beginning, I quickly realized that waiting 10 days to bake something just isn’t for me, especially if the end is two loaves of bread and not something more extravagant.  Sorry, Mom R!

So if you’ve never heard of friendship bread (I hadn’t), it is akin to a chain letter.  You get this gook in a bag that is basically a fermented combination of milk, sugar, and flour.  You mush it around once a day for 4 days, then on the 5th day you add more of the milk, sugar, and flour.  Then you mush it around for 4 more days.  On the 10th day (or 12th, as I did because I didn’t have time), you add more to it, then divvy the batter into 4 so you end up with 4 more “starters” (which is basically yeasty stuff that has been passed down for who knows how long, probably longer than Americans have been Americans, if it was truly passed down).  Then you add more stuff to what’s left in the bowl, and make two loaves of bread. 

The recipes my mother-in-law gave me all called for instant pudding - now I wonder where this came into play.  I hardly believe that the Amish would condone such unnatural ingredients in their bread.  I have used pudding mix before in recipes, it does help it get moist.

We made pistachio (pretty good but way rich) and white chocolate macadamia nut (didn’t really taste like anything, we did use cookies and creme pudding instead of cheesecake pudding, but I still think I wouldn’t enjoy it).  They came out moist, but kind of chewy - not the moist airy goodness from the ones my mother-in-law brought for our party.

I have 4 more bags in the freezer in case I ever feel compelled to “gift” this to a friend (somehow I don’t think anyone I know would be positively receptive to this idea), or if I have the energy to make it again.  I’d make other flavors next time.  Let me know if you want one!!!

Conclusion: very interesting concept, but I’d rather just make a phone call to demonstrate my friendship.  Or Facebook you.

We are family, I got all my munchies with me

When my family gets together, we eat.  It’s like we’re Italian, but we’re really Chinese. 

Most of my family’s never seen our house, so a couple of weekends ago we had a big party with them and some close family friends - 30 people!  It was so much fun. 

We started off with cucumber slices with prosciutto and homemade chive creme fraiche.  Also: goat cheese and ricotta spread (like we made for Mother’s Day), a crudite dip (a la Martha Stewart), and homemade spanakopita.  I make it sound like it was all seamless, but in reality I got home from blueberry picking 10 minutes before everyone showed up and I was on my feet a LOT.

Hubby got all sweaty at the grill while most of my family hid inside from the heat.  He made his famous chicken breast with mozzarella and tomato, and flap meat (like tri-tip) we marinated in coffee and other stuff overnight.  Served with my mother-in-law’s potato salad, tomato and basil salad (basil from our association-approved “garden” - i.e. pots on the deck), corn from the local farm, and watermelon.  Also made some dill butter compote and horseradish cream sauce for the corn and beef.

I don’t have any pictures of the party, sadly, except for some of the desserts:

In the front are two Amish friendship bread loaves my mother-in-law made, chocolate and cinnamon - OMG.  So moist.  I will write a whole other post about my experience with Amish friendship bread - anyone got the urge to bake some gook in a bag?

I made a trifle with some vanilla cake, pastry cream, and whipped cream, topped with blueberries that I picked with my cousin and his 8-year-old son (from LA) right before everyone showed up to the party.  His son did a great job decorating it, yes?  I also made a chocolate angel food cake (The Cake Bible) that I topped with some melted chocolate ganache, and a nectarine upside-down cake (Baking Illustrated). 

Must remember: do not be gluttonous and put in two layers of nectarines, however pretty it may look going in.  You will just get a big gooey mess coming out of the pan.  Delicious, yes.  Pretty, yes.  Syrup all over the counter, YES.

I heart blueberries.

We live 5 minutes away from a fruit orchard where you can pick a lot on your own - blueberries, raspberries, blackberries in summer, apples (different varieties every week) in the fall - heavenly.

For my aunt’s 60th birthday, hubby and I made her a filet mignon dinner - forgot to take pics before it was devoured.  To finish it off, I made blueberry cobbler (recipe adapted from Baking Illustrated and I make extra topping because it’s so darn delicious) with farm-fresh blueberries.  I usually use frozen blueberries, but the fresh ones were out of this world.  Served in bowls with a scoop of ice cream.  Oh my goodness I am craving some right now.

Tip for Life: CHECK YOUR OVEN TEMPERATURE.  Turns out my parents’ oven was 60 degrees too low even after my dad fixed the thermostat.  Best to have some permanent instant-read fixture in the oven so you can make sure all is dandy and not have your dessert at 10:30PM.  First time I ever bake a cobbler at 485 degrees - but aren’t the biscuits BEEYOOTIFUL??

I know that I decorate cakes, but honestly I would probably choose any other dessert to eat.  Cakes are super-special occasion food, cobbler is down home cooking - just no substitute.

Birthdays all around!

So two of my best friends share the same birthday and I made some lemony sugar cookies to celebrate.  Unfortunately they live in different states so I couldn’t give it to them in person.

They are both quite fashionable, so I gave each of them a wardrobe of “dresses”.  The last time I iced cookies was one Christmas early in college, I’ve learned a bit about icing properties since then.  Even so, it takes a LONG time to mix up the colors. 

Lesson #1: There is something called “flooding” which is a way to fill out the cookie with color.  You need to outline the cookie first, which creates a dam.  However, this requires a thicker icing than the one you use to flood.  I’ve gotten pretty good at recognizing the appropriate consistency, so I just kept adding confectioner’s sugar or water based where needed. 

Tip: Make a batch of thicker icing and a batch of thin icing, all white.  Then just scoop out the amount you need in a separate bowl, color it, and then bag it with whatever you like to use for decorating.  I stayed a little more organized working out of two batches of icing than creating new icing every time I changed colors.

Tip: Don’t be lazy like I was and outline with one color, then flood with another.  You can see all of my messy lines.  It is much better to outline and flood with one color, then outline on top of that color.

Lesson #2: To pack for shipping, leave as little moving room as possible.  I even vacuum-packed the gift-wrapped box since I wasn’t sure when it would arrive.  I’m actually not sure if this technique works because I haven’t heard from the receiver yet - hope it did!  It also helps to let the person know it’s on the way, in case they’re on vacation.