Celebrating Birthdays and Strawberries
Memorial Day weekend was extremely hectic this year. My uncle turned 60 and threw a big clam/lobster-bake bash at my parents’ house, then we celebrated my mom’s birthday the next evening!
To top off the biggest meal I have ever experienced in my life, I made my uncle’s birthday cake.
Tip #1: Be wary of trying new recipes in a public setting
I made this frosting based on rave reviews from my sister. It was a failure, as it’s not meant for decorating (other reviews warned me, but I tried anyway). It was super soft and impossible to pipe. I also found the flavor and texture lacking but that was my fault, substituting half of the butter with shortening.
Tip #2: Value the power of cookie borders
My cake design included a pirouline cookie border, so neatness was salvaged and it ended up looking quite trendy against the messy icing.
Tip #3: It IS possible to put fresh fruit in a cake
I was very nervous putting fruit inside a cake – it can run, turn brown, or sometimes even mold. I waited until just a couple hours before to assemble. Squeezing lemon juice on the bananas and then nestling them in the cream was extremely effective.
Tip #4: Syrup ahead of time, or figure out a better wrapping method
The cake was a bit dry – my parents’ oven is broken so I had to bake the layers and bring them over 2 days ahead of time. I should have poured the simple syrup on before wrapping the layers in plastic and foil instead of waiting until the day I assembled the cake. I still haven’t quite figured out a good way to do this.
16″ yellow cake filled with strawberries and bananas nestled on vanilla pastry cream
Filed under Birthday, Cake | Comments (2)Let’s Start Again.
I’m going to share two secrets with you. Although I suppose nothing is a secret once it’s published on the Internet.
1) I haven’t baked nor decorated a layer cake since January 2009.
2) In the almost 8 years we have been together, I have baked my husband only 1 cake. Yes, even during the years we were dating and still in “I’m out to impress you” mode.
Bizarre, right? Well, I decided I was going to end both streaks in one shot by baking hubby his birthday cake. BTW, he has had something with a candle in it every year, it’s just either his mom made it, or it wasn’t a cake. So none of you have to boohoo him about it.
Here it is. The parenthetic “Jon” is from years of his family trying to get me to call him by his full given name, with me resisting along with all of his school friends. This was the compromise.
My experience: I’ve tried a couple of recipes in Rose Levy Berenbaum’s The Cake Bible, and the woman is a genius chemist and baker. Problem is, even with her very specific instructions, success still requires finesse and practice. The result? A yellow cake that was delicious, but a bit dry on my first run. No problem – cover it with chocolate ganache, fill it with Nutella mousse, and you forget about the crumbies. Except for the oh-so-permanent state of photographs:
Still, I can’t be upset that it still ended up gloriously 12 inches high and that mousse (my own recipe) was fantastic. If you butter me up enough (not too much, I’m relatively lactose-intolerant) maybe I’ll share the mousse recipe with you.
Filed under Birthday, Cake | Comment (0)Happy 1st Birthday, Eggs Benedict!
For the last couple of years, I have failed miserably at making a proper Hollandaise to top the perfect Eggs Benedict. Granted, out of principle for the heart attack-inducing capabilities of this popular brunch delight, I have avoided making this attempt more than once a year. This year, my husband’s birthday brought occasion to make trial 3, hope upon hope that I didn’t embarrass myself in front of the lovely women in his family with a disgusting separation of butter and lemon juice.
Success!!! Even though this kind of dish is a guaranteed intestinal disruption to my afternoon, I was able to bring much happiness to my beloved’s special day.
Tip: PAY ATTENTION. My past failures were all due to my undiagnosed ADD. The key is to whisk the melted butter in slllowwwwwwly and in a stready stream, whisking as if your life depended on it. If the butter is too cool it won’t do that cool emulsifying thing it supposed to do and will instead separate and just taste like you melted a stick of butter.
Proper Hollandaise – be still my heart. Literally.
Filed under Birthday, Savory | Comment (0)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!
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.
Filed under Birthday, Cobbler, Fruit | Comment (1)